The year after I was voted homecoming princess, one of my male friends was voted princess. They mostly managed to keep that quiet, and just announced the girl who had the highest number of votes. I didn't know about it until he mentioned it several years ago, after there was an episode of Glee where that happened. A year or two ago, after Buzzfeed for some reason had a listicle about the town where we grew up, telling about how great it was, he posted on Facebook about how that article was total crap, and the town was a homophobic hellhole, and he listed a lot of the things that had happened to him. I messaged him to say that I was sorry for not sticking up for him better back then, and he said that it was fine, he was over it now, but he also commented that I was the second person to send him a message like that, and he wanted to know, "How come the only people who are apologizing are the other people who were bullied?"

One of the guys who was really awful sent me a friend request on Facebook a few years ago. I deleted it. And last year, I got into an argument with another one of them on a mutual friend's Facebook post, and he blocked me after like two comments. (He was saying that we should just ignore the tiki Nazis, since they just want attention. I said that I'd heard that logic before, and it was just as much bullshit now as it was then.)

Avenatti has released a statement from his client saying that Kavanaugh and Judge and others (tw for assault, though I can't imagine anyone being able to escape this news) spiked the punch at parties and then gang-raped girls, including her.

How awful, Hil.

I am feeling weirdly sheltered for my public low-income high crime high school experience. The crimes were things like robbery and drugs, not rape, at least.

In re The Manifest (I also thought that maybe the comment about Melania related to the show): it's an interesting premise. People are having to reconstruct their lives when, for them, they were only gone for a few hours. And a couple of the main characters seem to have acquired psychic abilities. It has potential ... I'll see how they manage to screw it up.

Sounds like it could go in Boxed Set?

Anyway, I thought this might be kind of an antidote to high school horror stories (assuming it's for real).

he wanted to know, "How come the only people who are apologizing are the other people who were bullied?"

Because they're the ones who understand. And maybe the only ones that even remember.

I don't remember most of the kids that I went to 7th and 8th grade with. (My family moved during the summer after 8th grade, and I went to a different school for 9th grade and on.) Other than the kids I'd known since kindergarten, most of the ones I remember were the bullies.

Hil--and anyone else who felt the brunt of "boys will be boys"--I'm sorry that you went through that.

We are really shitty as a species sometimes, and I keep hoping that the good will overcome the bad, but lately I'm thinking not. It's a depressing though to have.

I keep hoping that the good will overcome the bad, but lately I'm thinking not.

I do retain optimism. Mostly because of my immediate circle. I have a disproportionate number of men in my life, in part because of the male dominated industry I started a business in 30 years ago, in part because I have 2 sons, in part because my husband is a boys basketball coach. The overwhelming majority of these men are equally appalled by the 'boys will be boys' attitude and demonstrate what I consider to be normal and proper behavior with regard to women. I've had conversations with them and they don't consider sexual assault any more normal than I do.

So not to go #notallmen or anything, but I still believe, maybe I have to, that it is a serious minority of men. Particularly with the younger generation. I could be delusional, but I don't think so.

So sorry, Hil, that sounds absolutely awful.