The whole thing started in November of first grade. I was a new guy, and I transferred to the school three months in the year. Almost the instant I walked in the door, this rather large walked over to me and started talking. He told me his name was Noah.

“Alright,” I thought. “I’ve got a friend on the first day of school.” But it turned out to be not alright. Way not alright. Not too far into the year, I realized that Noah was not exactly the kind of guy you should be running with.
He did this bizarre thing where he would lie about really stupid things, to get attention or something. I remember one time, Noah and I were listening to some other kids comparing about what Legos they had. They were talking about some series of sets or something, and saying witch ones they had. Then, one of these guys asked Noah which of these sets he had. He answered quickly saying, “Uh, well, I don’t have any, but tonight my mom’s gonna take me to get all of them.” We all just sort of looked at him strangely, then moved on.
That’s just one example of his insecurity problem. Another time, we were tossing around a baseball at recess, and I told him that my birthday is on September 11, which it is. Then he said that he was there when the World Trade Center fell down. The guy was a liar is the main point, and the thing that I can’t stand most in a person is a liar.
Unfortunately, I was the one person in the class nice enough to let him stick to me. Three years went by before I made friends with this guy who I had known for years, but had never talked to, named Parker.
Now this guy really hated Noah, and Parker was not the kind of guy to hold in what he thinks. I don’t remember exactly what Noah did exactly to light the fuse, but he did something that really got under my skin. The two of us decided to take action. After some careful planning, it was decided that we’d tell him how we felt. That we didn’t want to be friends with him.
Looking back on this whole thing, I realize that Parker and I came down real hard on the guy. We cornered him up against a wall, and told him we needed to talk. Then I said that I just didn’t want to be friends with him any more. Again, my memory has failed me. I don’t remember what happened right then. I do remember, though, that he started bawling and ran off somewhere.
After that, the whole thing went downhill. What I hoped to be just a small confrontation turned into some sort of class wide engagement. Noah started telling everyone mean and untrue things about me, which greatly hurt my reputation. In the end, the whole thing got blown out of proportion. And, unfortunately, it was only April. So, for the next two and a half months Noah and I just ignored each other. There was a very strong sense of hostility around the two of us, though.
Now that I think about this whole experience, I remember that the three of us, Noah, Parker, and I, really actually had some very good times. We had this weird joke with Noah, who always wore these sweat pants to school, that he had some sort of black whole in his pants that had infinite space in them.
He had a bunch of nicknames that we gave him, for various reasons, none of which I can explain. The original was Mr. Cutey. Old Noah was Mr. Cutey. Even now I think of him as that. I don’t know why he was called that. Definitely not because he was cute, as the name might imply.
The year after fourth grade, Noah left the school that I was attending, the school that I was at before I came to Catlin Gabel. I’ve pretty much lost all contact with him.
It was a bad experience. It was a bad experience for everyone who was involved with it. But I don’t regret it. If I hadn’t stopped the thing with Noah then, it probably would have continued. I do feel bad for the guy. Someone like that is always going to have trouble making a real friend. Maybe he has at his current school, I don’t know. I know I was not his friend. I hope never to have to interact with him again.