Is it just me, or does everyone turn into a douche in high school? People I’ve known half my life just changed. I should have asked before school started, but as a freshman…is there anything I need to know about high school?
P.S I go to [name taken out]. It’s new, you might have heard. 
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Well, the class elections can be brutal.
Just vote for the democrat in your local student body elections because there just aren’t any more moderate republican student presidents.
I know that we need a constitutional amendment to kill Comic Sans. Kill it with fire.
Reported for being in the wrong forum.
Yes, high school is different. First off, you’re coming from middle school, where you were a member of the senior class and now you’re at the bottom, a freshman, with 3 grades senior to you. And there’s probably a lot more of them too. So some of your buddies from middle school are drifting off into different groups. They’re finding themselves. Then there’s the girls thing. Upperclassman males will date underclassman females. Upperclassman females probably aren’t interested in freshman males. And most freshmen can’t drive yet, either.
It’s not easy. It’s a rite of passage I guess. My best advice is to find a group you feel comfortable with. And it’ll probably get better.
I’ve taken out the name of your school, because posting that info is coming pretty close to telling a little too much about yourself.
It’s all a point of growing up. People are exposed to new groups and change.
You’ll change too…and then can all glance in your direction and mumble ‘damn kids’.
It’ll get better. Freshman year usually sucks for most people, so don’t worry.
People are going through incredibly dramatic hormone changes and are entering what is, to that point, the most stressful time of their lives. Of course they seem douchey. It’s a biological certainty.
This is cliche, but being a teenager can be extremely hard. It is the point in life in which your awareness of the world opens up to near maximum but your level of wisdom and experience in dealing with the world is still close to zero. A teenager is blessed with a suddenly highly developed sense of moral judgment, insight, and advanced intellect and cursed with having none of the tools an adult has to control those things. This is the age at which you now have to start dealing with sex, which is like the +9 Sword Of Absolutely Screwing Up Your Emotional Life, as well as too many other things for me to bother counting. And it really hits you in an awfully short period of time; a kid goes from a life of basically just being a child to dealing with sex, booze, drugs, hormones, school grades that actually matter, jobs, career-defining choices and blah blah blah in a span of two or three years. I’m 42 and I’m stressed out right now knowing I have to move later this year. That’s just ONE thing.
So are people douchey? Sure they are. Be as kind and as forgiving of them as you can, okay? There’s a lesson that will do you well your whole life.
On top of that, you’re the newb. It’s an environment you are personally unfamilar with and don’t know all the ins and outs of. Given some time you’ll learn it, get used to it, and it’ll seem okay.
I’ve got good news and bad news for you.
The good news is, as you get older you’ll learn to deal with it and it gets better. Probably.
The bad news is, high school lasts the rest of your life.
So are people douchey? Sure they are. Be as kind and as forgiving of them as you can, okay? There’s a lesson that will do you well your whole life.
I would have to agree with that. Even many years later I regret not trying harder to branch out and make more friends.
Elementary school and junior high school were miserable times for me. In self-defense I bloodied a few kids’ noses in eighth grade. Things got much better in high school; I don’t know if it’s because I developed a reputation for vigorous self-defense or because the other kids were just growing up and developing a conscience, but my freshman year saw a rapid winding down of bullying, and I didn’t have any significant conflicts with anyone in my sophomore year or beyond.
Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project focuses on bullying of gay teens, reminding them that life gets better as you get older. Frankly, the same is true for any kid subjected to bullying or other assholery by their fellow students: they generally become less assholish as you get older.
Drop out. Tell your parents you are no longer interested in letting government bureaucrats who they have never met “educate” you. Get some GED prep materials, study what you need, and get your GED. If you want to learn above and beyond what’s required of you for the GED, by all means do so. You have the sum of human knowledge available to you for free at your fingertips. It’s called the internet.
Please be aware that a GED is NOT the same as a high school diploma. A good friend of mine was sold on the idea that they were the same. He got a GED, and then found out that a GED is not popular with many folks, such as HR departments, college admissions folks, and military recruiters.
IMHO it is a very bad idea to get a GED instead of a diploma. Yes, there are some (not many) good reasons to get a GED. Just be aware that a GED can be limiting.
To eliminate the stigma of a GED, my friend went to a community college and effectively replaced his GED with an associates degree in computer science.
IHTH, 48.
I’m not sure if you’re serious or not, but I totally agree. Dropping out of high school was the best decision I ever made and I wish I’d done it a few years earlier, as soon as I was able.
Of course, I’m not sure dropping out is for everyone, but it certainly was for me. College is great. High school sucks. Skip the bullshit and get on with real life.
The OP last logged in three minutes after his post, so I wouldn’t waste too much time on this. 
No, I was being completely serious. I wish my parents had let me drop out. Four of the longest, worst, and most wasted years of my life.
“Drop out and get your GED” is pretty terrible advice for a 14 or 15-year-old, guys.
Individual states can set their own minimums, but it’s 18 for most unless you can cite exceptional circumstances (and then it’s still a minimum of 16). Some states will let you test at 16 or 17 if you’ve enrolled in special prep classes.
It’s a lesson that you are going to learn many times over in Life. Like somebody already told you, coming from middle school you are now on the bottom of the heap where in your last year of middle school you were the top dog. Someday you will be a senior in High School and feel like your King of the Hill. It will only be temporary because if you go to college the same thing happens again only worse. Maybe later you will try the Military. Your first week or two in Boot Camp you will be shit on. Then you finally move toward the end of Boot Camp and you think you got it made. You graduate Boot Camp and report to a Combat Unit, Ship or whatever and again your just some schmuck out of boot camp and you will eat shit for a month or two or longer depending on you. It goes on and on in Life. You got a long way to go so just Buckle Down Dude!