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Acceptance
==========

When I was in high school I remember they (the teaching staff) made the
whole grade play a game in the large sports hall. The object of the game
was basic: to form groups of a set number, and this number changed with
each round. The one challenge was that everyone was affixed a paper
label to their back, and upon which certain conditions of acceptance
were written, i.e. "accept me only if your group has an odd number," or
"accept me only if your group has only one girl," etc. Much like the
game of Celebrity, everyone else but you could see these conditions and
no one was to reveal to anyone what their conditions were. Unlike
Celebrity, the aim of the individual in this game was not to guess one's
own conditions, but only to find acceptance in a group. Once each group
found their set number of members for the round, they sat down, having
completed the round; at the end of each round, those who had not found
acceptance in groups were left standing. And so the process was that you
would rush around and do a little turn to reveal your conditions of
acceptance, then await a verdict of acceptance or rejection.

While there was no objective reason to feel humiliation at being one of
those left standing at the end of a round, the game's real-life analogy
was hardly subtle, and so, round after round, neither was the sense of
public degradation. Worse still: *high school* public degradation.
Needless to say, round after round, I was left standing, having been
rejected from every group I approached. I could see that others'
conditions made the variables of each round change, such as "accept me
only if I'm taller than all your members," (conditions that would be
rather cruel for an unusually short person, for example) and so the
analytical side of my thinking figured, if shouldered with difficult
conditions, the best course of action was to seek acceptance quickly and
frequently at the start of each round, when variables were much lower --
the more members a group had, the more variables to contend with.
Rejection from every group I approached continued, but with each
rejection I figured I must be closer to figuring out the winning
pattern: Perhaps I could only find acceptance in a group of all boys?
Perhaps only if I was first to join? Or last? Maybe I needed to find a
group who already had a specific other person, whose named was written
across my shoulders but unknown to me? None of these proved accurate.

When the game ended we were allowed to take the label off our backs and
see what the mystery was that was preventing our acceptance throughout.
Mine: "accept me under no circumstances."