Once again, I come sheepishly to the blogsphere to admit that I was unable to write anything substantial this week. But a bit of inspiration did strike a few days ago at least enough for me to have something to offer. So, minuscule readership and inanimate publishing space, I offer you a short story from my life as a middle-schooler . . .
The summer before my seventh grade year, I went to West Virginia with my brother’s Boy Scout troop. And please don’t stop here to make fun of Boy Scouts. They get a bad reputation for a lot of really good things, and I respect the way they have shaped my brother into an independent, resourceful, and mature young man.
My parents had decided that this “high adventure” trip would be a great way to sneak in a family vacation, so me, my brother, and our mom and dad piled into a rental car and drove to West Virginia. We camped there for about a week total, in a tent with a leak during a very rainy month. My mom backed the rental car into a ditch, and the Boy Scouts provided the meals (Ramen noodles were in excess). But it was a very enjoyable time.
On one of the first days, we went duckying. Duckies are, essentially, blowup kayaks made of rafting material. It was so much fun to paddle down the humongous New River in a tiny little one-person ducky. I enjoyed my time immensely, and paid no attention to the plethora of somewhat obnoxious middle-school boys surrounding me.
Our guide that day was a large, grizzly man who called himself Squirrel. He was middle-aged and had obviously been a river guide for a very long time. He was rude and loud, but in a friendly and hilarious way. It was immediately obvious to me that he really cared about the people he brought here, but he showed it in a mocking and playful way. I really enjoyed listening to his stories and just laughing at his sarcastic wit. I spent a lot of time listening to him as he told us all that he knew about the river. We all felt very safe based on his knowledge of the rapids.
At the end of the day, we all loaded our duckies onto the trailer and piled into our bus for the drive back up to the camp. Before we left, Squirrel paced up and down the aisle to give the boys one final lecture of sorts. When he seemed to be wrapping up his speech about being a man (or just not being stupid, I can’t really remember which), he stopped, standing right next to my seat. “Finally,” he boomed, and then muttered “where is she?” When he saw me next to him, he turned so that he could look me straight in the face. He stood completely still in front of me, pointed his dirty, calloused finger at me, and said in his intense southern drawl, “BOHS LAH.” It took a second, but I quickly interpreted it to mean, “boys lie.”
And I will never, ever forget that moment.
At the time, I thought I understood what he meant. Especially because my dad seemed to be so entertained by this whole encounter. I thought he meant to caution me, to protect me from getting hurt. And he did. But every day I am learning that there is so much more to that phrase.
Squirrel was right in more ways than he knew. Boys do lie. Boys lie for a lot of reasons. Sometimes those reasons are good, and sometimes they are not so good. Sometimes they know they are lying, and sometimes they don’t. And I think that’s the part that I’ve most had to remember. Because it’s easy for a “good girl” to convince herself that because she spends her time around “good boys” then those boys will honor her and avoid lying to her. And maybe that can be true, maybe they really are good boys and they will try to avoid lying. But what Squirrel taught me, which I must never forget, is that boys lie. He didn’t say “boys lie when they are trying to deceive you,” although that can definitely be implied. He said “boys lie.” They lie to themselves and they lie to each other and they lie to girls. They might not be trying, but they might lie.
So I have learned to be cautious. And maybe sometimes I am a little too cautious, but personally, I think that’s better than the alternative. Lies are powerful, and they are dangerous. Especially when the liars don’t know they are lying. I have adopted, over time, a philosophy of suspicion. Yes, that means I don’t trust very easily. Yes, that might sometimes be a bad thing. But when I look at the pain that girls face when they experience heartbreak from the boy who lied to himself and her when he said he loved her, I hurt for her. And I am reminded that we, as humans, do not know ourselves perfectly. And that’s okay. We are, inherently, imperfect. But it’s still something to be aware of.
I wish I could say that boys are the only liars. I wish I could say that girls don’t lie. That boys grow up to be men, and real men don’t lie. That real women don’t lie either. But if I said any of those things, then I, too, would be lying to myself. Because the epidemic of untruth-telling is not age- or gender-specific. And the greatest danger that I have learned to find there is not the danger of the intentional lies, but of the unintentional lies. So I caution myself, and I caution others. We are complicated beings. Don’t make the mistake of believing your lie or someone else’s so deeply that you are blinded to reality.
Squirrel, you were more right than you knew.
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