I'm a loner now

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I just realized that it is really hard, maybe even impossible to enroll in a High School in the middle of the year and have a group of friends.

I am a social guy I will talk to anyone about anything and still I am finding that breaking into a new clique is extremely difficult. I have lived with my Dad for a few weeks and my grades have gone up eventhough I am in harder classes so that is a huge plus but maybe that is because I don’t have anything else to do besides homework.

Ok, so before living with my Mom I had a lot of friends and associates but now I’m that loner guy and not because I want to be. I saw a group of kids last week that seemed exactly like my friends at home so I’m thinking that we have a lot in common because we all dress pretty much the same, like the same music, we breakdance…anyway one day I was sitting with these guys at lunch or atleast I thought I was sitting with them but after they were done eating they just left me sitting at the table and I’m thinking “what the heck!”

I’m trying to think if I was friendly to new kids when I was going to my old school, the one time I was friendly in the end I got chewed out for it.
Anyway…I would like to apologize to all the people that I excluded when I was somewhat popular and all the loners who I laughed at while thinking “I will never be like that.”

My deal with God is that if I move back with my Mom or make new friends here, I will never do anything stupid with them and I will keep my grades up.

I am really happy though because of my new found intelligence but I don’t see any reason I couldn’t be a social guy who does well in school.

2

Ok, I’m not implying I was friendly only once. :wink:

3

I guess you don’t your classic Greek lit or you would know that making deals with God is never a good thing.

It was always my expierence that when a new guy started in the middle of a school year that the guys didn’t like him because all the girls were like “Ohhh, look at the new guy, he’s is soooo cute.” We got over it.

It will take time but a nice guy like you, I’m sure you will make new friends.

4

You have a good personality START, I think you will be alright. Just takes some time is all. Congrats on the good grades!

5

I understand, START, I changed schools in the middle of high school too. It sucks, and most adults don’t understand. They think it’s easy for young people to make friends.

My advice to you: hang in there. Be a regular nice guy, and maybe get involved with some clubs or activities at school. You’ll start getting invited to stuff. Heck, if a homely pudgy teenager like I was could make friends, you can too!

6

This is going to sound corny, but don’t look for new friends, they will find you. Let me think…in my four years of high school, I changed high schools in the middle of the year three times.

I second joining a club or sports, built in conversation subjects. Be yourself, don’t try to be someone you’re not.

7

Try talking with people instead of to them.

8

Well, technically I started the year at a new high school, but all of the other kids had gone through middle school together and everything. I was all prepared not to have any friends (and was actually going through a phase where I decided having more than one was too much of a hassle), but then I tried out for the fall play. People were nice to me. I tried to ignore them. People just wanted to be my friend. I’m also a very social creature. Do you have any sort of cult interests? I remember one girl who befriended me right away, simply because I replied to a question of hers with the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Now, I’m not saying you should go around quoting Douglas Adams at random, but it couldn’t hurt. :stuck_out_tongue:

So you like to breakdance? Why don’t you find out if there are any breakdancing club/organization thingys in the area? (I don’t actually know if they exist, but you could try.) What about music?One of the big deciding factors between friends is music. Well, maybe it isn’t that big, but I sometimes wonder if it’s a coincidence 90% of my friends own guitars and at least one Green Day album. The summer’s coming up, so there are going to be many activities organized to prevent teens from Doing Evil Things ™, so try checking out what your community offers. Or get a job. Bond with your coworkers. Most places that hire teenagers have more than one teenage employee. And I hope you succeed in your quest to find friends. You seem like a cool dude, I’d be your friend. :wink:

9

Ooh. I just peeked at your profile. You already have a job. So you like video games? I find it hard to believe there aren’t any gamers in your area you can talk with. Usually, at least with my guy friends, being in on the latest video game is enough to gain you tons of conversations. And you like church, churches have youth groups. Some of them are scary, in which nearly every day they talk about religion and the Bible, but some of them are cool.

And you might’ve noticed, I talk a lot. I think that helps.

10

Listen, High School is no picnic. I’ve got a client in there now. He says, kick someone’s ass the first day, or become someone’s bitch.
Oh. High School, not minumum-security.

I second the notion that you should let the friends find you. Don’t hide from them, but also don’t inject yourself abruptly into existing cliques. That will just make you an outcast

signed,
an ex-high school loner
(i’m just not in high school any more)

11

It’s more a matter of words I used than how I actually interact because I’m big on letting the other guy talk more rather than hogging up a conversation, if that is what you even meant.

I need to update that because that’s what I did when I was in my old neighborhood now I just study but still the rest of what you said was useful.

Then as far as clubs sometimes the clubs are the just like cliques, know what I mean? Not that this would stop me from joining any club, it’s just one more challenge.

If all else fails I’m inviting all the dopers to my house.

12

High school itself sucks, and there’s no point in trying to change that. I was extraordinarily lucky to get anything good out of it. Mind you, when I was going to my high school the political infrastructure was crumbling to dust, a fact which escaped 99% of the students attending at the time. Which is not to say they didn’t hate the administration. They just hated it for the typical high school student reasons instead of the real reasons.

I don’t know exactly what the place is like now, there have been several significant changes since I left whose effect I cannot judge from a distance. However, I do know that the quality of education is still in the shitter from the awe-inspiring number of teachers that left the school as a result of some of the shit that went down. All right over the students’ heads.

The only thing you need to get out of high school is the ability to work hard. I’m talking 6-or-7-hours-a-night-and-you-have-no-weekends hard. Nothing else matters. Not friends, not the food, not how many laps you have to run in gym class, and especially not the content of your classes. It’s immaterial, unless you’re in an AP course that you’ll build on in college. You come out with that ability to work hard, and some decent grades (which working hard will get you by default), and you’ll be ready to go to college or get a job.

13

I’m not sure if your being serious but I like High School atleast my old one. Socialization is very important, right?

I mean grades are good but if I had all A’s and no friends for a long time, I 'd trade them for a high C and B average and a social life.

14

I was a loner throughout most of high school (although ironically, I fell into a wonderful circle of friends around May of my senior year, and most of us are still very close today, nine years after graduating). I hated the cliques, the jocks, the preppies, the bullies, the gangstas, the popular kids, the girls who wouldn’t acknowledge my existence and the ones who did by teasing. I played in band and was still ostracized by the band dorks (they marched, I didn’t) and took all the AP classes and never fit in with the smart crowd (most of them were pretty well-off and drank and did drugs and partied).

So I just laid low, studied hard, got great grades, and earned a scholarship to college, which I thought of like the Witness Protection Program. Move away from the family and everything else I knew, get a fresh start and a chance to reinvent myself where everyone else was doing the same thing. It worked, and all those endless, lonely, angry high school nights I spent at home playing music and reading comics faded away. But I’m not bitter. Naaaaah.

15

Wrong. Even the closest of friends in high school will, after it ends, most likely never see each other again. Your study habits, on the other hand, will be with you for the rest of your life, and will influence how well you do in college and/or in your career.

16

From your posting history, might I suggest as gently and lovingly as possible that trying to find new friends who are just like your old friends is a horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad idea?

I like you, START. But your old friends are way bad news. This is your chance to make wiser choices in friends with a clean slate.

In other words, why the hell would you want to be friends with rude losers who ignore decent human beings like yourself anyway?

You’ve come into a new school in the midst of existing dramas and soap operas. Don’t bother to get involved with it now. Summer vacation’s what - four weeks away? Then you can meet people at the park district, basketball courts or whatever the social spots are where you are. Keep hitting the books and realize that next year you’ll be starting new classes with everyone else starting new classes, and it will be much easier to get to know people socially.

(And yeah, of the 2600 people in my high school, within one year of graduation, I fell out of touch with all but three of them, and now speak with only one. High school friends seem very important at the time, but they don’t last.)

17

Or for the ones who do (in my case, a good handful), you might not meet them right away. Just be patient… truly good friends don’t come along every day, but when you find them, they’re worth the wait.

18

START - Between 7th grade and the beginning of 11th grade, I went to six different schools in six different towns. That completely stunk, and I know how you feel. I managed to get through it. It was hard on me, as it must be on you. My home life was not very stable, to put it mildly.

The good news for you is that once you get to college, it’s all ok. Everyone there has come from somewhere else. Everyone hated high school. Everyone is looking for new friends.

Once I got to college, I made several friends that 30 years later, are still my close friends.

Hang in there, get the best grades you can so you’ll have the broadest choices about where to go to college.

Because it was so darn rough on me to move and change schools so often when I was a teenager, I made a vow, much like Scarlett O’Hara when she vows she will never be poor again. I vowed all three of my children would go through the same school system from kindergarden to high school graduation. I swore they would have that stable base I didn’t have. So far, so good - the youngest is a sophmore in high school.

Next time a new student shows up at your school, walk over and say 'Hi, my name’s START. Welcome. It’s hard changing schools. How can I help you?'

19

Transferred in Grade 10 to a new school, and do I ever hear you.

I can only second what everyone else has said in this thread, though. Hang in there, and good luck. :wink:

20

I see your point about the clubs. Cliques are one of the major reasons I went through the I Don’t Want Friends phase. If you’re really worried about cliques, don’t join the club until the average sign-up time comes around. (Example, sign up for school clubs in the first semester, while everyone doesn’t know each other.) Don’t let a fear of exclusion keep you from joining any clubs though, if you don’t like it you don’t have to continue attending meetings. Nearly no one in those summer programs know each other, so if you sign up, you’d be on equal footing.

When you get friends, don’t let your grades go down the drain. I don’t know about you, but my mom would completely freak if my grades dropped from A’s to C’s (even B’s sometimes, crazy woman), and it won’t make your dad like your friends. Word of advice is do your hardest homework first, because you can always do the easy stuff on the bus ride to school or during another period. Or, if one teacher in particular checks the homework every day, do that homework. Kind of funny, I got my progress report for science back today, and it was all A, A-, A+, A+, D, where my grades are listed. The D was from the one time he’d decided to collect homework and grade it. I did oh, 13 out of 40 questions, but I think he just skipped through the packet. If you’re living in New York, do not, I repeat, do not take Earth Science, go straight to Bio. It’s a waste of time if you’re not looking for a career in geology, and I’m relatively sure a well informed 5th grader could pass the class by reading the textbook.

Anyway, grades do matter, but contrary to some who posted on this thread, I think at least one friend is necessary, if only to complain and occupy Friday nights. Considering I’ve spent the last two Fridays surfing the internet, I think it’s mostly the complaining part. We are teenagers after all, best complain while we can get away with it. I have no doubt I’ll lose touch with 100% of my high school friends, but vive la moment. Have fun now, and you may not know your friends forever, but you’ll remember them. Glad I could help.