Chapter 56: Amateur Counseling

Sunday, November 28, 1982

With no Study Group in the way, we were clear for a rare Sunday date day. Not that we hadn’t just been on a date, but there’s no rule that says we couldn’t have two in a row.

We checked the movies. Nothing that was out now was that spectacular. Oh, we’d missed some major films this year from being so busy, but they weren’t out now. We checked the theaters — plays, musicals, I mean — but nothing was out that we wanted to see.

So ... Jasmine and I headed to the mall and shopped. Actual, real shopping, not just goofing around. It’d been a while since we’d done that together, and she still wasn’t really used to my keeping up with her. Of course, the lingerie sections were a favorite, but I was fine with a succession of dresses and tops and skirts and which pair of jeans didn’t make her butt look big (none of them did, in fact), and so on and so forth.

The mall being the mall, we kept running into people we knew. Lexi and Sam, together. Linda. Darla. Mike and Sarah, together. Emily and the Wonder Twins. Janet, out shopping for a Christmas present for Lizzie. Tony, then Troy. Megan and Calvin, easy to spot over the crowd.

It’s worth noting that 1982 was still nothing like the 2010s. I would never have ventured into a mall anywhere near Black Friday weekend by then. In 1982, it was busy, maybe even slightly crowded, but there were no crazy deals, no ‘we have four of these, in the back of the store — try to get one before anyone else does’ sales, nothing like that. It was ... pleasant.

We ate a late lunch, or perhaps an early dinner, at the food court. Another way to avoid Thanksgiving leftovers, which would be our actual dinner.

I realized, while eating, that I’d been putting off one conversation for much too long. I’d thought about waiting until Christmas break, but that wasn’t doing either of us any favors. It was time.

“Jas?”

“Yeah?” she said, looking at me. Then she made a face. “Uh oh. This is the guy equivalent of ‘we need to talk,’ isn’t it?”

“Well ... yes. But it’s not a bad thing.”

“Good. Because I am not up for a bad thing right now!” she said, grinning a bit.

“It could be, but it’s not.”

“You aren’t helping your case, boyfriend.”

“Okay, so, look. I’m going to describe something to you. It might fit you, it might not.”

“Um ... well ... I guess that works?”

“Picture getting back a test, and seeing an ‘A’ on it, and thinking ‘Wow! I got really lucky on this one!’”

She nodded, making a bit of a face. “Okay, but...”

“Wait,” I said. She nodded again.

“Now ... picture going into a test, or anything big, and thinking ‘This is it. I’m going to blow it here, and everyone is going to realize I’ve just been lucky and I’m really not that good.”

She made another face. “How did you...”

“Now, imagine getting back a lesser grade and thinking, ‘Well, it’s over, they’ll know now’ and then no one seems to see anything weird, and then you get a better grade and think ‘Whew! Dodged a bullet!’”

“How ... I...”

“How do I know this?”

She nodded, looking not quite ready to speak.

“Because it’s a thing. A real thing. One that I deal with. And Angie. We both started realizing it might be you, too.”

“What the ... I ... you’re serious? You have thoughts like that? Angie does?”

I nodded.

“But you’re both so damn smart! How...?”

“It’s called ‘Impostor Syndrome’, and it’s fairly common among people who are ‘damn smart.’ It preys on us...”

She blushed at ‘us’ and shook her head a little.

“No, I mean it. ‘Us.’ You, me, Angie, and likely others that we know. It’s a real thing, one that I’ve talked with my analyst about.”

“Really?” she said, sounding skeptical. “You? Feeling like you’re just faking it?”

I nodded. “Oh, I’m managing it fairly well, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. Jas, society sets us up for this.”

“Huh? How?”

“How many times have you been told that everything requires hours of studying? And every paper needs a second and third draft and major corrections?”

She blushed again, a bit. “Um ... all the time?”

“And ... well. We do study hours in Study Group, focused on our toughest classes. I’d say about ... five or six a week, probably, when you factor in goofing off and such. Eight on a heavy week. How much time do you spend outside of Study Group actually studying?”

“Um ... rehearsals and such don’t count, so ... not ... many?”

“Do you sometimes do your homework during another class?”

“Uh ... yeah.”

“How many times do you rewrite your papers?” I knew the answer to that. As her volunteer proofreader, it was ‘once’ for major papers, ‘zero’ for the usual. If we were using word processors, it’d be higher, but right now? Handwriting. Ugh! So much ugh!

“You know I only rewrite major papers. My hand would fall off if I had to recopy all the minor ones.”

“And that’s my point, right there. Society tells us — and, by ‘society’, I mean teachers, parents, helpful study guides, and so on and so forth — that we need to put in all those hours, but we don’t. Now, maybe if we did, we’d do a tiny bit better, but an ‘A’ is an ‘A’, and we’re straight-A students.”

“Oh! Wow! I see that now! I do feel a little guilty about it. You know, like...”

We said it together. “It all comes too easy!”

She nodded, emphatically. “Yes! It’s like that. And, well ... too easy means ‘lucky’, right? I guess?”

“That’s the theory, and it’s borne out in who complains about ‘Impostor Syndrome’ the most. People that don’t see a strong connection between effort expended and grade, and yet have high grades. Things like Spanish — where I worked my ass off — help. And Trig helps you, maybe.”

She made a face at that. “I am not prepared to say that Trig helps me in any way!”

“Ah, but, see? You put in the work and your grades improved.”

“Fine,” she said, with a bit of grumbling to it. “I guess so.”

“But we’re both sailing through English. And History. And even in our hard classes, we outdo the average, we just aren’t beating the language whizzes or the math nerds.”

She nodded again. “So ... what? Do I get a therapist? What do we do?”

“Knowing it’s a thing is the biggest thing. Knowing there’s a real, not-made-up, sensible reason why you feel like you’re ‘faking it’ and, sooner or later, you’ll trip up and be ‘exposed’ — and that it has nothing to do with actually faking it — is huge. It lets you step back and tell yourself that your worries are irrational, and know why they’re irrational. It doesn’t mean you won’t have them, but it’s a tool to manage them.”

“Yeah. I can see that. So ... I guess I have to ask. Why now? Why not weeks ago? Wait ... the PSATs, right?”

I nodded. “Bingo! I didn’t want you overcompensating before a really big test, or hating me if — somehow — your score was lower than I knew it was going to be. I know you, Jas. You were going to do great. I was sure of it. But you needed focus, and you needed to prove to yourself that you’re really an elite student, not just surrounded by elite students. After that ... well, it didn’t fit anything between then and now, but I had to bring it up before we go back to class.”

“It makes sense. I’m glad you waited. I would’ve obsessed twice as much if that score was carrying the weight of proving something like this on top of ... well, being as big a thing as it is.”