Ugly Faces and Nerds

I had a friend at college, I will call her Roma because I don't know anyone by that name (is that even a human name?). She and I got along early on our freshman year...and then I began to notice a disturbing trend. When our group of friends would go to the cafeteria to eat, I wouldn't get a call to join them. Roma would then plan outings and "forget" to invite me. I was starting to get nudged out. This happened slowly and I think it is dumb to fight when it comes to this sort of thing so I kept my mouth shut and started developing other friendships.

But every once in awhile Roma and I would find ourselves hanging out with everyone. One night we were all together and laughing hard about who knows what (it was probably juvenile because as I mentioned we were freshmen). Roma and I were both laughing and she looks at me, points and says, "Suzanne, your face is so ugly when you laugh."

Try as I might I can not get that out of my head every time I laugh.

Another time I remember her saying in front of everyone, "You sure go on a lot of dates, but the guys you date are so nerdy." I am currently laughing (and probably looking hideous) because thinking back, both those things are potentially true.

There is something else I remember vividly. I had/have a friend named Suzy (real name) who was part of that freshman troupe. We never spoke about Roma, but I think she noticed on some level what was going on. She started to call and make sure I was invited when they were going to eat or go on some excursion. My other friends didn't do that, not because they didn't like me...but because they didn't see it. But Suzy noticed and she did something about it.

I want to be like that. I want to pay attention like that.

By the way, Roma and I are cool. We got along fine as we got older and settled in to our college thing. In fact, since I think about her almost every time I laugh she might be the person I think about the most from college. The exception being my husband of course. And for the record, I may have dated a lot of nerds early on...but I ended up with the coolest one who loves me and my ugly laughing face.