Exclusive Excerpt from That Time I… Survived My Teens
by Craig Barker
My entire academical path boils down to whether or not someone called me a faggot in the classroom. If they did, I failed. If they didn’t, I succeeded.
This really hit home with me when I was placed into the top math class in high school—a position I didn’t get to keep for long. You see, sat right next to me in that class was Steven (what ever happened to bullies being dumb?). and he quickly became the class clown who everyone loved, including the teacher.
Speaking of the teacher—he was an asshole. He loved to ask questions, gaze upon the raised hands, then pick the one person who didn’t hold it up.
That person was me. It was always me.
And it wasn’t that I didn’t know the answers, but I could always see Steven’s smug grin out of the corner of my eye; I could always hear the stifled laughter from the girls behind me, mocking me for my nervous stutter and uncomfortable demeanor.
If anxiety is learned, then that is what I learned from my math class. I even went so far as to ask my teacher not to pick me out of the crowd anymore because it made me feel uncomfortable, and the next lesson we had together he made sure to pick me for every question—to the point it became a running gag, and everyone laughed as I sat in silence, wanting to be anywhere but there.
By the time school was over, I had a D in math (and I don’t mean the fun kind). My love for the subject died in that room, and it never resurfaced again.
About That Time I… Survived My Teens
The Saturday prior to starting this memoir, my ex-fiancé and I had two of his work friends over for an old-fashioned games night. And when I say “old-fashioned,” I’m talking about dice, cards, racking up your points on an abacus, etc. You know, the things people entertained themselves with before politicians blamed every violent fart that wafted their way on video games.
Stop doing that.
Anyway, seeing as I didn’t know who these people were and would’ve much rather spent the evening on the sofa with our dog, I was less than optimistic. If anything, the whole ordeal was going to be like sitting through a Christopher Nolan movie. Sure, I’d say I was having a great time to fit in, but in all honesty, I wouldn’t have a clue what was happening and I’d probably need to take a nap midway through.
Hours before they arrived, just as I’d started to have those “what if I accidentally say something so obscenely offensive or mind-numbingly stupid, I’ll be haunted by the memory of it for years to come” thoughts, my ex ran down into the basement in which I dwell, his eyes frantic, and begged—
“Please don’t talk about choking on dicks when they get here.”
Come again?
“Please, Craig. That kind of talk makes them uncomfortable. Don’t do it.”
I felt a flurry of emotions in the picosecond it took for his words to register: amused, bemused, offended. It sounded like a joke, but his face was full of fear—a fear that I would be unequivocally crude to these complete strangers, and that my behavior would burn bridges he obviously wanted to keep erect (more on erections later).
That was when it hit me like a pair of loose-hanging nuts to the taint; a realization that I, Craig Thomas Barker, had a pattern of behavior that stretched across my life since adolescence—
I’m the person you get warned about before meeting. I’m the person that gets warned before going anywhere.
Like Carrie Bradshaw, “I couldn’t help but wonder” why that was. So, in order to understand who I am today, I decided to take a look at the years that shaped me. I spread my life out on the table, lubed it with the flare of artistic exaggeration, and went at it until I found my answer.
This isn’t so much a memoir as it is a gay’s journey to discover himself; don’t expect structure, coherency, or a thoroughly thought out narrative with a climactic closing paragraph that gives any of this dribble closure. I’m no one special, I’m not famous, and I don’t have much to say that hasn’t been said before, but I have lived a life, and all twenty-six years of that life has culminated in a single sentence—
“Please don’t talk about choking on dicks when they get here.”
This memoir explains why…
And it was cheaper than therapy.
Available at: Amazon
About Craig Barker
Writing a biography has always baffled me. I mean, I’m writing my own but I’m supposed to do it in third person, right? I’m supposed to tell you I attended some top-notch school, help people cross the street, have a “relatable” passion for something and spend my weekends frolicking in a field of flowers…
I can’t do that.
My name is Craig. I like fried food. I write because I enjoy it. Please don’t make me do this anymore.
As part of this blog tour, Craig is giving away a $5 Amazon Gift Card!! To enter, just click the link below!
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