Jakob Duehr: An Apologia

Before I get started, a few notes. First of all, this will be a lengthy piece, possibly the lengthiest piece I have written for this blog. You may have to read it in a couple sittings. Because of that, I have it broken into three parts. Also, do not let the title fool you. I am not apologizing for who I am. In general, I like what I see staring back at me in the mirror. I am simply providing a detailed explanation of some of the people and events that have brought me to this point in my life. Finally, this piece will have a fair share of namedropping. Those who have brought forth positive results in my life deserve to be acknowledged. Those who have gone out of their way to be a hindrance do not deserve mention. Situations will be detailed, but names will not. I am not here to slander. I am here to better express to you why I am who I am.

INTRODUCTION

I have claimed many times that we are the products of the long line of choices we have made for ourselves over the course of our lives. I do not waver from this claim. I am sharpened by my successes and refined by my failures. That said, there are factors other than choices that cause us to be the people we ultimately become. While I am certainly my own man and a bit of a free spirit (and that is putting it nicely), I would be wrong if I said I became this way solely on my own. Behind everything there is a reason, and I fully intend to explain the reasons why I am who I am.

I could probably write pages about my family, but I won’t. Everyone is influenced strongly by their familial background, and I am no exception. I come from a relatively small, tightly knit family. I get along with them, and there are aspects of their personalities I also see in myself. Because everyone is so strongly influenced by those they share a last name with, I will instead choose to detail the other people, situations, and events that have caused me to become the person I have become.

My family has played a great role in helping to shape me, and I would like to believe they have done an exceptional job in the shaping process. However, they are not the only people to play that shaping role. In my adolescent years, there were three men not related to me who I considered mentors to me: Rob Clifton (my sixth and eighth grade teacher) and my two youth pastors, Doug Harris and Scott Bradley. Each will be discussed in greater detail later in the piece.

PART 1: Interpersonal relationships

At times I have been called standoffish. While I do not consider that notion entirely fair, I concede that I do not possess the greatest sense of urgency in making friends. I was spoiled growing up in the sense that I grew up with a group of friends who meshed perfectly with one another. I have had the same core group of friends for the majority of my life. Each of us brought something different to the table. Rob possesses a savvy when it comes to machines, and Rex possesses a keen insight concerning people. Merrill and Dan both have wide skill sets but very different ways of going about things. While not necessarily demanding the spotlight, Merrill is very much at ease in it. Dan, on the other hand, thrives outside the spotlight. I probably fit in somewhere between all of them. We have spent countless hours together at school, home, church, camp, and elsewhere. Though the times we see one another have greatly diminished over the years (especially as some of us began to move away), our friendships have not suffered as a result. Because of them, I have never found a group of people that compares. Though I am generally friendly, I have not felt the need to expand my core group of friends.

I have also been called something of a lone wolf. I honestly do not mind that assessment. I am very comfortable by myself. I understand myself. There is a reason for it. I have spent a significant portion of my life feeling like an outsider. There were places where people both explicitly and implicitly demonstrated that I did not belong in their little cliques.

Unfortunately, the most glaring instances of such behavior occurred at church. While I truly can look back on my years spent at Stone Church positively (even though there were some people I truly wish I had never met, much less spent any amount of time with), I cannot say the same for my experiences at Christian Hills and Palos Bible Church.

I attended Christian Hills from 1995 to 2000, and the greater part of those five years was spent uncomfortably. No sooner had I started attending the church than I realized that people were extremely unfriendly. I admit that I wasn’t the coolest kid in the world growing up, but their behavior was inexcusable. It wasn’t until I met other “outcasts” that I truly felt that I had a place, and it was far from a comfortable place. I never truly fit in, and I could not have been happier when we left the church to return to Stone in 2000.

If you thought my account of Christian Hills was too negative, you will certainly want to skip this section. I spent my adolescent years as part of two youth groups: the youth group at Stone (2000; 2003-2005) and the youth group at Palos Bible Church (2000; 2001-2003). It was a small church and an even smaller youth group. In three years I never shook off the feeling of an outsider. There were problems the entire time that I could never overcome. First, I felt overmatched from the start, as I was the youngest guy in the youth group, a status that never changed in the course of my entire tenure. Second, being the awkward adolescent that I was (and certainly not one to demand the spotlight), I never thrust myself into focus or attempted to make myself the center of attention. Because the youth group was infested with the spotlight cravers, I never moved past the periphery. Finally, my motives for being part of the youth group were not right. I was there because I had a romantic interest in two girls in the youth group (which, again, I will detail later). I never had a chance with them, which only compounded my issues.

The fact that some of those people took pride in their involvement in the youth group was a joke. They would show up more than thirty minutes late to service, double park their cars, and create a commotion to signal their arrivals and departures. Poor Pastor Scott had to be flexible to accommodate a growing majority of selfish individuals who played by their own rules and demonstrated a total disregard for anything not involving themselves.

I am not trying to say or even imply that everyone in that youth group was the scum of the earth. I really am not. There were some good people in the youth group. Unfortunately, the majority of good people were the youth workers and not the students themselves. I always thought things would get better, so I grinned and bore it for years.

One night, I finally reached my breaking point at a Lock-In in March 2003. I brought my cousin Andy and one of my best friends from high school because I wanted to show them how cool my youth group was. Do you really want to know how cool they were? They were cool enough to slam a door in our faces. They were cool enough to tell my invited guests that they didn’t belong. If people would treat complete strangers like garbage simply because they were extensions of me, then how in the world did they feel about me? I was pretty sure I had my answer. I left the youth group that day.

I made the stupid mistake of returning to that youth group on New Year’s Day 2007 to play football at the church. In case I had forgotten I didn’t belong, they made sure to remind me. Mind you, I am decently athletic. I played basketball competitively, am tall, and can catch a football fairly well. I was the last one picked. I was picked after girls (and I’m not saying that to be sexist). I was picked after people with casts on their arms. Thank you OH SO MUCH for making me feel welcome, guys.

I am not writing this because I am bitter, pathetic, and stuck in the past. I am refined by that failure. Am I a little bitter? Sure. Who likes it when people go out of their way to make them feel unwanted? I certainly do not. Am I still angry about it? No. I feel badly that I willingly chose to endure such things, but it is what it is. It is why I am who I am today. I learned not to care about what others thought and to become comfortable in my own skin. Did it turn me into a loner at times? Yes, but there are far worse things than that.

Though I undoubtedly failed to rise above the ranks of outsider at both of those churches, my time spent at Tinley Park High School was ultimately a success story. Don’t get me wrong. My freshman year (and parts of junior and senior years) was miserable. There were days when I was absolutely terrified to go to school, but I got up every morning and played with the hands that were dealt me. Though the problems that befell me during the end of my high school career were of my own doing, that which I endured my freshman year was not. People mistook quietness for standoffishness and a sense of superiority, and some were determined to put me in my place. Little did they know I was already there. Over time I developed the confidence in myself to not only deal with them but present myself in a positive light, and I can honestly say I enjoyed my high school experience. While I was not as friendly as I could have and probably should have been, I learned how to stand up for myself and live life assertively.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the friends I have made that I have not yet had the privilege of meeting face to face. One of the blessings (or curses, depending on how you look at it) of living in the 21st Century is the variety of outlets for interpersonal relationships. I have already talked about my core group of friends. I have also been blessed with developing a core group of online friends.
Approximately 99% of my online friends have either come from GameFAQs or Stickam, and there are two people I have to thank for 90% of the online friends I have: Jess and Bre. I met Jess on a message board in early 2004. Because of how well she treated me, I stuck around the message board, and in doing so I met some of my favorite people in the world (Ken, Kelly, Janny, Manda, Zach, to name a few). Thanks to some of them, I found another message board and met another batch of great people. I stumbled into Bre’s Stickam live in January 2010. We hit it off, and because of that I decided to come back. Eventually, I met E~! and hit it off even further, and because of those connections, I met countless other people. While I’d be lying if I said I liked everyone, it is nice to have a community of people where I can be myself and use others as a sounding board for my life. Jess and Bre, thank you. You were better to me than anyone in those churches ever were.

Is online communication ideal? Certainly not. Do I overuse it? Probably. Those things said, I would not trade those people for anything. I feel fortunate to have met a handful of them in real life and hope to meet more over time. Due to my affection for my close friends and the bitter taste in my mouth from previous attempts, I am more apt to seek out new friends online than in person. I feel less judgment occurs there.

PART 2: Romantic Relationships

Hopefully by now you realize why I am the way I am when it comes to interpersonal relationships of the platonic variety. Now you will have the “privilege” of discovering the answer to that question on a romantic level.

As I said earlier, I have been sharpened by my successes and refined by my failures. In the romantic realm, there has a been a lot more refining than sharpening.

If you are a girl whom I have been interested in, first of all, sorry. Secondly, you may have noticed (especially between 2001 and 2009) that I did not like making phone calls. While I now have a built in excuse for my lack of making phone calls since moving back to Tinley in 2009, my excuse before was far more embarrassing.

When I was 13, I had my first real crush. She was an amazing young woman and a saint for putting up with me. I was socially inept. When I heard that there was some mystery “other guy”, I thought that the best way of “getting her back” was repeatedly calling her house and hanging up. It was stupid, creepy, and unacceptable. After about the 50th time I did that, her mom called my house. I was caught and embarrassed. It’s something to laugh about now (and Becky and Rachel still never let me forget it), but at the time it was merely a demonstration of my ineptitude. I am eternally indebted to the Jacksons for never truly holding it against me.

I wish I could say that was the dumbest of dumb things that I did concerning romantic interests, but it was merely the first offense in a long line of erratic behavior. I never possessed the confidence necessary to pursue the people that I wanted to pursue, and that distinct lack of confidence led to disastrous results. In 2002, I tried to get the attention of a girl named Jessica by gently bumping into her as I walked past, but my “bump” turned into more of a shove and sent her flying. The fact that we still talk to this day is a miracle.

I had a brief reprieve from this behavior in early 2003 when I had a long-distance relationship with a girl named Mollie. In a pre-Skype world, distance was unbearable, and a split was inevitable. It was a very amicable split, and we both moved on very quickly.

Do you remember when I said that the problems my junior and senior years of high school were my own fault? They were the direct result of my own lack of confidence and romantic ineptitude. Long story short, I have a habit of digging holes for myself and not quitting while I was behind. I have still yet to learn that some things just cannot be salvaged. There are people who still hate me for things that happened eight years ago. My lack of confidence manifested itself as creepiness.

By this point, some of you may wonder what some of these narratives have to do with why I am the way I am. First of all, experiences shape the man. But for those of you who still remain skeptical, I will be more obvious in my explanations in this section.

One of the first questions girls ask me after meeting me (and strangely becoming enamored of me) is “Why in the world are you single?” That question really does not merit a simple answer, but I will do my best to do so in two parts.

I have been a pursuer more than a dater to the point that I don’t know how good of a dater I really am. I have resigned myself to very lengthy pursuits that were ultimately fruitless. I spent five years pursuing one young woman. For the majority of the pursuit, she was in an on-again/off-again relationship, and it wasn’t my place to aggressively seek to break that up. As much as she cared about me, she cared about him more. She was a great girl and I still think the world of her. I just didn’t know when to give up. 2002 became 2007 and I hadn’t gotten anywhere. Were it not for a major event in her life, I probably would’ve pursued her past 2007.

While five years is a ridiculously long pursuit and by far the longest pursuit I had, I mired myself in other long pursuits as well. I have never been good at realizing the point when the figurative towel should be thrown. I don’t like starting something new before finishing something else, and that is one of the reasons why I spent more time single than I needed to.

I do not intend to badmouth any of the young women that I have dated, pursued, or anything in between over the years. Some of them were simply a bad fit. With some, I was able to find that out more quickly than others. Without naming names, let’s take a look at my last four lengthy pursuits/relationships.

Pursuit #1: I actually tried to do things the right way in this case. I became friends first and then eventually tried to push things in the relationship direction. I had two things going against me. First, I was far too aggressive with my pursuit. Secondly, she was not attracted to me whatsoever. The second challenge was one of the greatest things to ever happen to me. For a long time I wanted to get myself in shape, but I lacked a catalyst to get me going in the right direction. Thanks to her, I finally had that catalyst. I got my body and health back, but more importantly, I had confidence for the first time in my life. Things did not work out with her, but we were able to reestablish and build a friendship that was stronger than it was before I ever pursued her. Thank you, Stay-C.

Pursuit #2: I finally looked good and felt good, and I was starting to turn some heads. I decided to take interest in the first attractive head that turned in my direction. I learned a valuable lesson here. Some things should not happen under any circumstances. Just because you are attracted to someone does not mean that you should have any interest in them. She was a great person, but not someone I should have thought about dating. Ever.

Pursuit #3: After Pursuit #2, I instituted a self-imposed moratorium on any romantic things for about a month. The day the moratorium was lifted, I met a girl online. She was intelligent, quirky, and attractive, and we hit it off. Buoyed by the success persistence gave me in losing weight, I thought that persistence would result in success in pursuing her as well. Though I had confidence, I also overdid things, which slowed the pursuit significantly. Over time, she and I both realized we were like mixing oil and water. Fights became much more frequent than productive conversation, but that did not stop me from going to Florida to see her. You can read all about that trip in another post. For purposes of this, all you need to know is that she stood me up and later told me that she would stand me up again if I ever returned to Florida. We get along surprisingly well these days.

Pursuit #4: I can say with certainty that I have never cared about anyone more than I cared about her to that point in time. She and I clicked so well. I could say something and expect her response – and be right 90% of the time! We were great, but there was one major problem. I fully believed we were the right fit, but the timing was off..

So what do these things have to do with me and how I am? Pursuit #1 led to me the end of a 21 year quest for confidence. Pursuits 2-4 have caused me to be more careful with my heart, to not fall so easily, and to think twice about who I pursue. Even though someone is a great person, it does not mean that the person is great for me. I have been hesitant to pursue anything deep and meaningful because I want to learn from my mistakes and do not want to repeat any of those mistakes under any circumstances whatsoever.

PART 3: Mentors, Work, and Other Influences

I am a product of my choices, successes and failures, life experiences, and the guidance of those I have decided to listen to. As stated in the introduction, there are three men who influenced me more than anyone else not related to me.

I went to a small private school for my elementary and middle schooling. Some of my social ineptitude can be directly traced to the Stone Church Christian Academy. I detailed my experiences there in another post, so I will not waste any more time and space doing so. My favorite teacher (and the teacher who really got me interested in the profession) was a man by the name of Rob Clifton. He was the first male teacher I ever had and was closer to our age than any teacher we have ever had at that point. He knew how to connect with us, and he had a sensitivity and patience in dealing with us that made me feel at ease. When I deal with middle school students, I often try to channel Mr. Clifton and give those kids the same experience that I was blessed with as a middle school student.

As awful as my experiences were at Palos Bible Church, I kept on going because of Pastor Scott Bradley. He is without a doubt the kindest pastor I have ever met. He would take the time out of his schedule to make it to everyone’s extracurricular events because he truly cared. He took me out to lunch a few times when he could tell I was having difficulties with the youth group. He even took me out to lunch on his own birthday! I never forgot that, and I never held any of my enmity with the youth group against him. He was and still is one of my favorite people in the world.

Doug Harris was (and still is) an acquired taste. When I met him as a junior high student, I couldn’t stand him. I didn’t understand his caustic humor. I thought all pastors should fit the Scott Bradley mold. When I got a little older, I really started to appreciate him. I realized that he truly cared about all of us and did a stand-up job balancing all the personalities in our youth group (mine included). Thanks to him, I realized you can have fun with people and still be a nice guy. My students can blame Doug for my sarcasm.

There are other people who have played the mentor role in my life, and I am thankful for them as well. If you are looking for people to thank (or blame), look no further than the following people:

Peter Morgan, for being a great youth leader and a better friend
John Pfeffer, for helping to water the educational seed planted by Rob Clifton and making me want to be a social studies teacher
Gary Sliker, for being patient with me even when I’d spend hours and hours harping on the same thing. I try to follow your model when mentoring Anthony. I guess it’s my way of paying back.
Shannon Turman, for providing encouragement and guidance at a time I truly needed it and for preparing me for a great time of transition in my life
Kenneth Diaz, for being my best online friend for years and not hesitating to tell me when I’m moving in the wrong direction
I learned early on that I needed to be more than just “Jakob” in the classroom. I’m fine with being Jakob, but I am more of an unassuming, out of the spotlight kind of person. As a result, I morphed into “Mr. D.” (shout out to Jim Nowak for being the first to call me that). Unlike Jakob, Mr. D. doesn’t mind telling stories, talking your ear off, and commanding attention. As a huge fan of WWE and other television shows, I draw on some of my interests to help enhance my personality. Mr. D. is probably one part Dr. House, two parts CM Punk, and one part Tony DiNozzo. As a teacher, especially a temporary one, there has to be something about you to draw the students in. Therefore, I amp up the more boisterous parts of my personality to capture the attention of my students. That is the secret of Mr. D.

CLOSING

If you read this all the way through, I hope you truly have an enhanced understanding of me. I am the sum total of many things. While I am not fully the person I intend to be, I am content with the person I am at this point in time. I thank everyone who has had a hand in it, for without you, I would be somebody else.

The Graduate is dead. Long live The Graduate!

If you know me, have talked to me online or in person, or have read my blog at all over the past year, you know of my love for a band called The Graduate. Often confused for the Dustin Hoffman movie, these five guys (not the burger joint) earned every bit of the praise I have heaped upon them and more. I wrote them an open letter back in December and mentioned them in a handful of other posts. Simply put, they’re amazing.

On Friday I got the sad news that my favorite band made the decision to join some of my other favorite bands (such as Just Surrender and A Change of Pace) and enter the realm of “indefinite hiatus”. While I was certainly displeased when I heard that the other bands decided to take an indefinite hiatus, it absolutely floored me when I read Corey’s announcement. I know they didn’t always have the easiest go of it, but it wasn’t something I saw coming.

Since this is my blog and I can take this post in any direction I please, I am not going to make this another open letter. What I have left to say to the guys I'll say privately. I do, however, have some thoughts, both broad and specific.

If there is one thing I have learned in the past two and a half years, it is that life does not resemble a meritocracy in any way. It is always the right thing to do your best, work your hardest, and give it your all, but that unfortunately does not mean that the same amount of success will follow. The most talented do not always get what they deserve. It is unfair, but it is a sad reality. In an era of autotune, internet celebrities, and Bieber Fever, genuine ability can slip through the cracks, and in this case, it did.

In our lives, we surround ourselves with that which we find pleasurable. From our friends to our interests, our lives are meticulously self-crafted to create the most comfortable experience within the realm of reason. We are constantly looking for people and things to put a smile on our faces. It is not selfish; it is merely human. When one of those things are taken away from us (no matter how small or trivial they may seem), we lose a little bit of ourselves. Whether it’s a friend moving, a show getting cancelled, or a band breaking up, it’s never fun to lose something we enjoy. That said, we move forward without forgetting. As long as there’s a memory, something is never gone.

The Graduate put many of my thoughts to music. While I am fairly apt at expressing myself (as evidenced by the 100+ posts I have on this blog), they were able to express things in an entirely different medium. While I do not know if this is indeed it for them, I will miss them for now. But as long as I have ears, I won’t stop listening to them. Long live The Graduate!