The world felt safe in third grade. I was still thin, but I wasn't afraid. I had a friend, Paul Plourde, and that made all the difference.
One day, I sat at my desk in Mrs. Felt's classroom when a girl named Donna stood up and declared, "I like Bruce!" My face burned. Then, to make things worse, she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.
The class erupted in giggles. Heat crawled up my neck. I didn't know what to do, so I said the first thing that came to mind, the thing I thought boys were supposed to say:
"I hate girls."
Here is a photograph of me when I was in elementary school.
Mrs. Felt chuckled and turned to the other teacher in the room. "Aren't they a cute couple?"
The room spun. I didn't want to be a couple. I didn't even know what that meant. I just wanted the eyes off me. But later, long after the moment passed, I thought about it differently. That was the last time, for a very long time, that a girl showed any interest in me.
By the time I reached junior high, something had changed. Paul and I were in different classes. That wouldn't have been a problem if I had found new friends, but I didn't. Instead, I disappeared.
I became the quiet one.
The one who sat in the front and yet unlike on TV shows, the teacher never called on me.
I was the one who never spoke, never raised their hand, never laughed too loud.
By the time I reached high school, silence had become a part of me. I didn't think about why. It just was. I sat through class after class without uttering a word. At first, I wanted to speak, but the longer I stayed silent, the more impossible it became. If I spoke now, after months of silence, would everyone turn to stare? Would my voice crack? Would I forget how to form words?
I didn't call it anxiety. I didn't have sweaty palms or a racing heart. I just... didn't speak.
Years later, as a mental health professional, I would come across the term selective mutism—a condition where a person, despite having the ability to speak, finds themselves unable to in certain situations. That was me.
But at the time, all I knew was that I was invisible.
I had always been good at math, so my parents encouraged me to join the band to be more "well-rounded." It was a decision made for my future, not for me. So, I went. But even that small change caused problems. Band practice conflicted with my math class, and I was too quiet to ask if I had missed any tests. No one told me. No one asked. No one noticed.
When I got my first semester grades in junior high, my stomach dropped—D+. I had never failed anything before.
It was a wake-up call, but no one woke up. My teacher could have recommended me for advanced math the next year, but she didn't. I wasn't on anyone's radar. I wasn't causing trouble, I wasn't excelling—I was just... there.
Or maybe I wasn't.
By the time high school rolled around, I had long accepted that I wasn't one of the guys who got noticed. The idea of dating was so far removed from my reality that I didn't even consider it.
But I did watch movies.
One movie in particular haunted me—Carrie.
I watched it repeatedly, but I always halted just before the notorious prom scene, before the blood spilled, before the terror erupted.
Because to me, it wasn't a horror film.
It was a vision.
Carrie was my mirror. She was silent. She was invisible. She was abused, not only by her peers but by her own mother.
My own mother had been venomous in a myriad of ways. This inevitably instilled a deep, corrosive shame that gnawed at the very essence of my being.
And then Tommy saw her.
It didn't matter that he had a girlfriend. That wasn't the point. The point was that he noticed Carrie. He saw something in her that no one else did. And not only that, but he was kind. He asked her to the prom, not as a joke, but because he wanted to make things right. And for one night, Carrie was part of something. She was wanted. She was special.
I wanted that.
Not the prom, necessarily, and definitely not the supernatural revenge. But I wanted to be seen. I wanted someone to look at me the way Tommy looked at Carrie—like I mattered.
I also wanted to be held close in the warm arms of someone just like Tommy did for Carrie when she was on the dance floor. I would have felt so profoundly uncomfortable on any dance floor. Because I NEVER had anyone wrap their arms around me and hold me... then look at me and kiss me.
I wasn't bullied in school. No one stuffed me in lockers or tripped me in the hall. I wasn't tormented—I was just ignored.
But even that stung.
I didn't go to prom. I didn't go to parties. I didn't go out on dates. I watched from the sidelines as other people lived those moments, and I wondered—what did they have that I didn't?
I knew the answer, of course.
Confidence.
They knew how to talk to people. They knew how to ask a girl out without their voice catching in their throat. They knew how to dance without feeling like every eye in the room was watching.
For me, that wasn't an option. I couldn't even raise my hand in class. How could I approach someone and ask them to spend time with me?
Even the kids who were teased more than I was had girlfriends. Even they had found someone.
I waited.
Maybe someone like Tommy would come along—a girl who saw something in me that others didn't, a girl who would notice me first.
That didn't happen.
I know that social skills are important as well and I could not have learned any social skills when I was growing up. I didn't know it but my life and career direction would require social skills but I am getting way ahead of this story.
And so, high school passed, and I left it the same way I entered—unnoticed.
For some, high school is where they meet their first love.
For me, it was where I realized I was invisible.