Not Myself

I hate to say this, but there are people who think that doing better than them makes you feel proud of yourself. It’s just cheap, sorry for the term, but I think that’s how it seems to be.

I’m not a competitive person, to be honest. I hated competition. Perhaps, the one competition that I could tolerate is  when you try to outdo your own record. You compete with yourself, try to get better than the last time. It’s what I think a healthy competition, because you do that to improve yourself. But when people speak of competition, of rivalry and beating the hell out of each other, it just makes me drop everything and say, “that’s not for me.”

So when this classmate of mine started acting quite strange, I figured out it’s because she sees me as a rival. Or a damn ‘liar’, I suppose. She texted me that I scored really good in our bio-but-seems-like-chem-and-pharm test, and that I was in the top5 (the last time she scored two or three pts higher). I thought it was really good news and I appreciate her gesture. But, there was something a bit annoying about her message, referring to the remark I made after the exam. I told her that I think I didn’t do good because the exam was damn hard. And when I said that, I meant it. So when she said (thru text), “nahirapan ka pa nyan ah!”, I felt something is wrong. But then, I shrugged it off. The next day, we have an exam on another subject, and the moment she entered the room she was crazily talking on how the hell I scored high on that exam when I said I found the exam difficult. Seriously, I felt humiliated by that. I was never one to brag about anything, and when I do good on something, I feel happy. As simple as that. I was never proud of myself, no matter how good I did. Not a moment. I may have the lowest self-esteem, not a bit of confidence on my skin, and I know it’s not a good thing but it’s just how things work out for me.

And just when I thought she’s done with her seemingly congratulatory yet bitter remarks, she went on and took it further. After the exam (which is the most nonsense polsci exam I ever took), somebody asked me how long my essay was. I said all pages up to the back of the cover, but I took the middle page out so that makes 4 pages less. Everybody actually thought it was a pretty good idea since the grading was based on how many pages you have clean from the back. And then she suddenly sneaked in her comments, saying that I could have written on all those pages if I want to, and that I can actually write my face off anything. I said goodbye after that, before things get worse.

And then the last instance ( I hope so) is in the library. I went inside the library to talk with someone, and when I went out to the baggage counter she was along the corridor. She yelled over and said something like I am in the library again. Damn it. I’m not a geek.

That’s it. She thinks I lied to her face when I said I thought the exam was difficult. When I think about it now, everything that happened appears to be childish, even my reaction. Anyway, it’s just how things go. In this ever competitive world, the reality is, people may go along with you just fine, but the moment they find out you’re better than them, they find it hard to continue working with you. Because they would think you’re some kind of a monster who’s too proud to be their pal.

Test scores are just numbers. They reflect your hard work and determination, the hours you put on to get that one thing. What I didn’t know is that they can piss off people, too. Now I have an idea.

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