The One Time I was Mean (Hard to Believe)!

Anyone who knows me thinks I am niceness personified. I am considered to be the epitome of nice. For instance, this is how I imagine conversations to be like when I'm not around:
Person X: I'm hanging out with Mariam today.
Person Y: OMG SHE IS SO NICE!
Now for those stranger blog readers out there, I'm sure the above hypothetical exchange just made you want to be my BFFF.*

Nevertheless, I recall a time when I was mean to someone, and when I think about it, I cringe inwardly from the memory. It was 10th grade, and I was still the hardcore conservative Jesus freak (or should I say Prophet Muhammad) that I am now. A boy, who we will call Chad Lowe, used to harass me in school all the time. He would make my life miserable - steal things from me, call me "DL, the dyslexic monkey," and generally harass me so that I could legitimately report him to HR had I been in an office-type setting.

I didn't think his sexual harassment was cute - I thought it was super annoying. I didn't find his attentions flattering, nor did I think of myself as super hot because I was the object of his continual attention. I just thought it was annoying as shit, and I wanted to get violent on his ass (the fact that I am a physically frail individual with fragility issues actually prevented me from unleashing my id throughout my time at Carlisle).

Anyway, one day, Chad Lowe stopped me in the hallway, and he said nervously, "Can I ask you something?"
He took me into a private classroom and asked me to the upcoming homecoming dance. I was merely annoyed that he had had the audacity to ask someone who was as religious as me. Didn't he know I was Muslim? I thought outraged. I didn't go to dances with boys (much less with a group of my single girls who were all going together...not because of religion but because it was fundamentally lame).
"NO!" I yelled meanly.
"Uhh..please?" he asked tentatively, his confidence faltering to subzero levels.
"Uh...NO!" And I stalked off, fuming.

In retrospect, I really feel bad for being mean to Chad Lowe. Ideally explaining the religious reasoning behind be defiant "no" would have been better, rather than just getting viscerally agitated. Who knows? Had I said yes, maybe today, I would be married to an infidel with 2.2 kids and a white picket fence living in in zina. So, I guess, things did work out because I just ended up having a reputation of being "stand-offish" at Carlisle (or at least according to Mr. Keefer). Did I learn a lesson about being mean? No, not really, because in the end, I didn't have reputation of ill repute, nor receive disapproving glances from Allah or my parents. Score: Mariam - 1, Chad Lowe - 0.

*Best f!*&ing friends forever - courtesy of Pineapple Express.

--By Mariam, who is so happy it is Pakistan Independence day! Happy PID!!!!! Pakistan zindabad!!!