I vote for the fact that she likes how her clothes look. I was a punk rocker (I played in punk bands and hung out with other kids who played in punk bands) and I wasn’t rebelling against shit (my parents didn’t care how I dressed or what kind music I listened to). It was an aesthetic for me.
She knows that she won’t look like the cheerleaders even if she wears their clothes and uses their makeup so she WILL NOT be made fun of for trying. Extreme case of “I meant to do that” so she doesn’t try and fail.
Just my WAG.
As someone who was exactly like that in school, allowing for differences in time and fashion, I agree with all of the above.
I felt much more comfortable with my teachers than my classmates, and I didn’t care to live “down” to the way they reveled in ignorance. Teachers - most of them, anyway - at least seemed interested in fighting ignorance. Not only did I not have the money to dress like the popular kids, I didn’t particularly like the way acid-wash jeans with zippered ankles looked on my generously hipped self. I liked my “weird” clothes and I liked Robert Smith’s makeup, so I copied it. I liked the way my friends would laugh when I would make mocking Wednesday Addams-like comments about the cheerleaders or sarcastically talk about death and darkness. “My black is blacker than your black,” was one of my favorite lines, in a completely ironic mocking way. Eventually, of course, I found myself in the counselor’s office when a few people didn’t get my sarcasm about the death thing.
Ironically enough, it wasn’t until years later that I actually WAS suicidal, and by then I looked like a suburban housewife and no one noticed my very real preoccupation with death and dying.
Now I’m a mostly hippie-chick, still sarcastic, and a more-or-less productive member of society. And I still loathe about 95% of my peers for reveling in their ignorance.
Ah, I remember those days. It sucked. I hung out with that group too. It consisted of a guy that had cancer when he was young (who is now my roommate), a girl with a hard homelife (not abusive or anything, just hard), a few really overweight kids, a really poor kid, and others. The common link- we were all teased heavily in middle school (I was really short and puny) for those features. We called ourselves the outcasts. Most were depressed about our social situation but found comfort from the others.
Essentially, it doesn’t take much teasing before you tell the teasers to [choice expletives] and do the exact opposite of them. You wouldn’t want to be anything like the people you loathe, right?
Your student is fine psychologically. My guess is her peers don’t like her. Try telling her that nobody in high school likes anybody and that everyone feels rejected, even the “popular” kids don’t feel popular enough. If she doesn’t buy that, then just shrug and ignore her rebellion.
Another vote for “normal teenage girl.”
I was this girl, though I was a hippie chick instead of a goth, and I did rather better in classes than she is.
I had a mother who was like what hers sounds like- wanting to control every detail of my life. I rebelled against this by dressing and wearing my hair in ways she hated, and having op-art posters in my room that she said gave her a headache. It annoyed her, but she knew she was being unreasonable for being on my case for stuff like that when I was doing fairly well in school and not doing drugs or getting pregnant.
I had friends, but didn’t necessarily have friends in every one of my classes. I didn’t interact too much with people in class other than my friends.
Eventually I became more conventional, though not entirely. I work in a job where no one cares how I dress, and I like it that way. I do a job that is very atypical for women, and I’m kind of proud to be different in that way. I’m moving soon, and very interested in finding somewhere to live where people who don’t quite conform are tolerated. I’m looking for a house that’s in a neighborhood where I don’t have to drive everywhere, because I very much dislike the American suburban “car culture” and refuse to live that way. I don’t watch the same TV shows and all as most people- one of my colleagues told me recently that I am one of the three people in the US who doesn’t watch American Idol. I play computer games for fun, and play games that aren’t well-known to most people. I don’t know or care if my clothes or hairstyle are fashionable. But I think I’m more or less a functioning and productive member of society.