On my cul de sac, senior year of high school, 1980-81, there was a classmate named Darlene, who went to the Catholic school. Her Mom had had unfulfilling high school and college experiences, and so she had spent the entire decade leading up to Darlene's senior year making sure it was perfect for Darlene, and that she was the Neighborhood Queen senior year.
The week before the first day of school, a new family of renters moves in, with this senior girl named Diane in the household. Diane was really attractive, neck-and-neck in attractiveness with Darlene. Diane's family made it known that, even though they were Catholic, they were sending Diane to the public school.
So, we all thought: Phew--crisis averted: Diane and Darlene are going to different schools, they won't be stepping on each others' toes.
Except, Darlene's Mom didn't look at it that way. There were still events and venues, from sleepovers to neighborhood drinking parties, where the public school kids and Catholic school kids intermingled. And Darlene's Mom actively encouraged Darlene to "freeze out" Diane from any and all of those events. To not invite Diane; to misdirect Diane about the time; whatever it took to make Diane feel unwelcome.
So there was a 9-month long Cold War between Diane and Darlene on that block from September to June. We all thought they might catfight, and there was a Halloween party where they got nose to nose, but Diane's family didn't want her to do anything to jeopardize her college application (she was applying to Boston College, very difficult to get into at the time), so she usually backed down unless she was totally cornered by Darlene, who seemed like she was being over-coached by her Mom.
Also, in 1981, if you were a girl and physically fought, you were considered a little trashy. Which some girls embraced, but others didn't.
And, it seemed like Diane and won the long-game, as she did 4 years at B.C., which Darlene failed out of the state school she got admitted to.
Then, in 1987, they both got married and moved away.
But here's where it gets interesting. Around 2003 or so, the internet is around, and you can search people and names and addresses--nothing organized like today, just raw Google (or AltaVista or Webcrawler, etc), and Diane is divorced and alone in Texas. And she starts searching Darlene's name, and comes up dry. But something makes her keep searching. Long story short, she eventually discovers that Darlene is also divorced, but also probably currently living in Texas--not next door, but driving distance. She can't find a phone number, but does find a likely email address.
So she calls a few of us from the old cul de sac, and asks us if she should reach out to Darlene on the email address she found.
> Reach out and ask her what?
> Why she and I never fought.
> You want to fight her now? After all this time?
> Kinda. Is that weird?
They did end up connecting and hashing stuff out. But all of that I heard second- and third-hand, so it's unreliable.
And anyways, we all concluded thst the Halloween 1980 fight would have been the one for the record books. But it never happened.
