An Ode to Jessica, Wherever She Is

Or why I was bad at making friends with women in my 20s

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These are delicious, but that’s not the point.

We called her Little Debbie.

I don’t remember who came up with it (Yes I do; it was Justin), but it stuck immediately. It doesn’t sound derogatory; it could even be affectionate. It came from her affinity for mass-marketed packaged desserts. But given the context, it wasn’t particularly nice.

She showed up at Vanna’s house — where we hung out constantly, occupying her parents’ couch and eating all of their cereal — one evening with Russell. She was his latest interest in a string of vaguely defined uncertain romantic/sexual relationships. Maybe they were just friends (insert snort laughter here). We all said hi; we welcomed her. We weren’t rude, but we were skeptical. She was sixteen or seventeen. We were all somewhere between the ages of 20 and 22, newly enamored with our ability to purchase alcohol legally.

Backstory that explains my biased feelings re, Russell and anyone else:

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We didn’t imagine she’d be around for long.

Much like my father did with the boys of my teenagehood, we neglected to commit her real name to long-term memory and instead casually referred to her by the name of a cheap, preservative-laden snack cake. (Don’t get me wrong; I love Little Debbies, but I don’t want to BE one.)

She did, in fact, pass in and out of our lives with relatively little fanfare. She came to parties for a while, and I have a few inconsequential memories of her — one in which she casually pointed out I was packing my Kamel Red Lights from the wrong end. Not being enamored with having my savvy challenged by someone whose age still ended in “teen,” I quickly glossed through that interaction.

Recently, one of my oldest friends Kelly and I were reminiscing.

Somewhere in the midst of all our “Remember whens…” Little Debbie resurfaced. Our 40-something selves were chagrined at our treatment of her back then — of how we subtly closed ranks and refused to really let her in — especially us girls. In retrospect, we could have been more friendly, more mentoring to her. Kelly and I were embarrassed that, as much as we racked our brains, we could not come up with Little Debbie’s real name. Then, today, I came across a picture of her at one of our Halloween parties. Back then, I organized and labeled all my photos. This one said, “Russell and Jessica.”

Her name was Jessica.

We had attempted to dehumanize her (without consciously realizing it) with an inanimate nickname — a sort of disorganized suburban kids’ version of Project Mayhem.

As I looked at the photo, I wondered (like I did not at all back then) what she thought of us and our crew of bonded friends. What was that like for her? Did she see it as a challenge? Did she feel cool hanging out with older people or intimidated? Did she like us or think we were too weird and dorky?

Hell, maybe she was completely comfortable. I wouldn’t know; I was not a good asker of questions and listener to answers back then. I was self-centered and comfortable with my friends; I didn’t need any more people in my inner circle. I cozied up to her because…

I kept my enemies close.

“Enemy” is an overstatement, but I did see her, and any other female person who tried to infiltrate our group, as a threat. I didn’t care for new girls taking attention away from the existing girls in our group. So I was extra nice to them. To ostensibly get brownie points with the guys for not seeming threatened. To get to know what they were all about…just in case. In case what, I wasn’t sure, but despite my general inability to be manipulative, I instinctively sat next to them and smiled. I felt more comfortable with the devil I knew. It was more complex than just that, though.

I also did, genuinely, feel for them.

There was a part of me that sympathized with how it must feel to enter a group of close friends as the new person. I could sense their discomfort filling the room and was naturally driven to assuage it. It’s strange to me now to look back and see I was prompted by two seemingly opposing motives — an empathetic one to make those girls feel comfortable and welcomed and a self-preservative one to make sure none of the rest of us were usurped.

She was super-cute, and it was 1996. How could I NOT feel threatened?

This is part of the problem with women and girls throughout history —

that tendency to let society pit us against each other, to compete for male attention. (as if there wasn’t enough of it to go around several times over.) Life is more gratifying since I stopped seeing other women as a threat to my self-esteem, since I stopped measuring how pretty, smart or witty I was next to them. Since I stopped worrying that I didn’t have anything interesting to offer them and that they would make fun of me behind my back. (Hello, baggage from childhood friendships!)

It’s much more satisfying (but easier said than done) to be myself, uncompared. To be real friends with other women.

I can see the story of our friend group meeting Jessica, if it were interesting enough to tell, being told from our perspective, then from hers, in a Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead kind of way. I can only imagine it, though, because at 20, I wasn’t curious enough to attempt to see her perspective at all. I only saw the situation in relation to myself.

So to Jessica, wherever you are…

I hope you are well. And if the small number of interactions we had all those years ago even rank high enough in your memory for an occasional surface thought, I’m sorry I was an ass, covert though it may have been. You deserved better than that. Just about anyone does.