Why I Can't Play Pokemon Go

In 6th grade, I had a very beautiful best friend. She was extremely thin and tall with long, blonde hair. She had adorable freckles scattered from cheek to cheek and she never wore make up. Her big, blue eyes were piercing and the kind you could spot out in a crowd. Next to me, she was practically perfect. Compared to my shorter, pudgier sixth grade self, she was a goddess.

We had sort of been thrust into friendship due to the fact that we rode the same bus and I often times wonder if this would have been different if we weren't forced to hang out every morning and afternoon. She was often times more mean than she were nice and she made sure I knew I was inferior.

Her skin was completely clear, lacking any sign of a pimple or blemish, so she never let me her the end of my facial flaws. I have a few scars on my face, one on my forehead, two by my right eye, and one on my chin. These were a product of fighting with my brothers growing up and one even came from getting shot in the head with a bow and arrow. However, I was already insecure about them, because they looked less like scars and more like dents in my skin.

My best friend, jokingly, would say I looked like a moon due to the dents in my skin. I didn't even know before then that they were that noticeable. She would say it in front of other people and they would all laugh at my likeness to that of a moon.

It sounds stupid, but this did really hurt me. Now as an eighteen year old woman, I have learned to love my imperfections, but as an eleven year old child, this crushed me. Not only did my own friend not find me okay the way I was, but other people found humor at my expense.

This name calling was the beginning of it all. My best friend, being the gorgeous girl she was, had boys drooling over her constantly. There was one boy, in particular, who I had a huge crush on that had a huge crush on her. (I feel so silly for saying crush. I sound like my sixth grade self.)

To make this easier to understand, we will give everyone in this post code names. My best friend will go by Tori. The boy I liked will go by Mitch.

Tori loved that Mitch liked her, despite how much she made fun of him for it. She was the kind of person who longed to be loved by everyone in order to feel secure about herself. Since I was her best friend too, I was thrust into many situations with Mitch and his friends. Whether it be sitting at lunch or walking in the hall, I talked to Mitch a few times. I thought I had a chance with him for a second, until Tori ruined everything.

Tori started to prank call Mitch's house phone (since he didn't have a cell) and would tell his parents it was me. After a few days of this, Mitch started to hate me. He thought I was weird and he told people I was a freak. That was unfortunately when the harassment began.

Mitch had two friends, who were no strangers to making fun of me. To my face, they would often call me "fat" and "ugly". Once I got a text from Mitch, where he called me a bitch. I was compared to Tori, called the ugly one. They made fun of how I wore my hair and sometimes called me "exhibit" implying that I was some sort of zoo animal. The one that hurt me the most was "Snorlax".

When Mitch and his friends first called me a snorlax, I was unsure as to what it was. I had never heard of such a term. That day when I got home from school, I google searched snorlax and the image that popped up made me cry.


They were calling me a term I didn't know and laughing at me. The image above is the snorlax. It is a character in Pokemon, which is known for being fat and lazy. To this day, I can't think of Pokemon without thinking of how hurt I was then. It really ruined Pokemon Go for me.