I remember two kinds of “popular” kids. The Asshole popular kids, and the Universally Loved popular kids.
The Asshole popular kids were bullies (or else looked the other way when bullying occured, and snubbed the less-popular). The Asshole kids were vain and shallow, or overconfindent in their abilities (which they may have had, but not to the extent that they believed). The Asshole popular kids often acted as if the world was their oyster, and that Life Was Good. But they didn’t realize that their idea of Life wasn’t going to last.
The Universally Loved popular kids were truly decent people, who were popular and loved because they actually had something substantive (other than good looks) going for them, and they were nice to everyone. I remember particularly one Universally Loved popular kid in junior high school. He wasn’t handsome, but he was accomplished and nice and exceedingly popular. Years later he’s an actor (I’ve seen him in bit parts in TV, etc) and I assume doing okay.
My teenaged years were hell on one level (very much hell), but on the other hand, I was oblivious. I don’t recall envying the Asshole Popular kids, because they were jerks. I didn’t trust them. Moreover, they didn’t seem to have any overriding passion (like the theatre geeks, art geeks, music geeks, etc. do). I pitied them for that. Even at my young age, I knew that my passion for creative things would serve me well over the years, and that their shallowness would eventually come back to haunt them. Their identity was centered around being popular and hot. Some of them were athletes, and I don’t doubt that it was meaningful to many of them, but few school athletes “make it big” through sports. Compare that to the Universally Loved popular boy I mentioned above, who is (in a small way) making it as an actor.
I was in my own little world as an art geek. I may not look all that great today, all these years later (still too fat), but I daresay I look younger than many of my former classmates, and I daresay that I’ve done more with my passion for art then many of them have done with—whatever—was so damned important to them in school (clothes? parties?).
Problem is, many of those UL popular kids are just assholes in disguise. Like the boy who volunteered twenty hours a week and was always polite to all the teachers, yet stalked me around school and touched my boobs whenever someone wasn’t watching. (I was a pretty rare species, the uncool kid who was actually kind of hot.) In fact I’d say that from the outside, the majority of popular kids at my school would have been considered “nice kids” by adults looking in. There aren’t many out-and-out bullies when you get to high school, most kids abuse their peers non-physically by then.
My high school years were not very good, particularly because I was suspended Senior Year due to rumors that I was going to shoot everyone. That’s right- sombody put a word in some police officers’ ears and bottom line it made my life hell for me. So as you can imagine, I don’t look back on it too fondly.
Yeah, those too. But as a non-cool kid, I think I knew which were UL and which were assholes. The assholes had no trouble snubbing me or treating me like shit, while the UL ones were nice to me, even though it really was no benefit to them in being so (me being a non-entity, and all).
A whole group of them faux-nice guys (assholes, in other words) tormented me in math class while simultaniously enchanting the teacher, who apparently thought they were such great guys.
Well I’m 24 and I have to say that I had a blast in high school. I was even fat in high school (as well as now heh) and didn’t get picked on. I had friends who were popular, and friends who were unpopular. I think it is how you present yourself, really. I didn’t care what anyone else thought because in my mind they didn’t pay my rent so to speak.
To me you’ll never make the same type of friends in high school as you do as an adult, and I keep in touch with some of them. Hell I’m looking forward to going to the 10 year reunion just to see what’s going on w/all the folks.
Yeah, as one of the weirder people in high school, I gotta admit that this was my experience. Most of the popular people were popular because they deserved it - they were friendly, fun to be around, generally liked most people and thus were liked in return. I was never one of the socially isolated kids, but I was definitely on the periphery of the high school social scene, but I was certainly friends with some people who were quite popular. Most of them achieved popularity for a reason.
Now, I don’t know if perhaps my school was less cliquey than most, but my own high school experience did little to bear out the popular notion of what high school is like. I always had my group of friends, and I had a great time in high school. In fact, having approximately zero responsibilities made things a lot easier than college is in some ways.
I will agree, though, that middle school largely sucked ass. Man, those are not years that anyone would relive.
I must put myself into the ‘miserable Jr Hi, OK high school, but wouldn’t go back for love or money’ camp, really.
I would say it’s a night and day difference. There is still a bit of cliquishness, but you can choose who you hang out with a lot more effectively at work.
Where I work, it’s a mix of sales, marketing, engineering (support) and consultants / service managers. 1500 all told. You kind of pick your friends, a lot more than in Jr Hi / High School (IMO). It is still difficult to cross lines between groups, but that’s more to the fact that you don’t really get to spend time with anyone outside your direct area of work… and a lot more of it is social groupings anyways. You choose to spend time with those who share your interests, after all.
Of course, I also have a distinct separation between work and home, and have a wholly different group of friends whom I choose to hang out with after work. Some of them work for my same company, but that is the distinct minority and we don’t really hang out during work time as our roles are all different.
My daughter is in middle school now, and not liking it much, (although she’s not going through the pure miserable unadulterated *hell * that I did!)
I told her that in middle school, there is one particular standard of cool, and everyone strives to be like everyone else. In high school, people split up into more specialized groups, and there are different ways to be cool, depending on which group you are a part of. Then people grow up and for the most part, don’t care who thinks what about them. And that’s cool.
That’s been my experience, at least. Does that seem accurate to y’all?
And yes, I wouldn’t do seventh grade over again for a million bucks.
Of course not. I was just a rather introverted kid, intelligent but lazy, creative but unmotivated. People like me didn’t have a place in High School, I mean shit, I was shunned by even the Drama geeks
And the nerds will still have trouble meeting girls. That’s a common myth that the popular kids end up pumping gas while the nerds become millionares. That might be true if you grew up in some blue collar hick town, but there are plenty of upper-middle class suburbs where the popular kids go to college too.
There’s always plenty of opportunity for good looking people with good social skills in the work force. Besides, sales usually makes more than engineers.
The reason that high school and middle school are so hellish, IMO, is that it is a completely closed system. It’s a small universe so everything becomes a zero-sum game. A limited number of kids get selected for the sports teams. There are a finite number of good looking girls/guys to go around, a finite amount of attention people can pay to each other, a limited number of kids who throw cool parties and so on. It’s not like the adult world where you can look wherever you want for whatever people or activities interest you.
