I didn't want it to just be exclusive to the extra-curricular kids. What clique were you in? I bumped around cliques a lot in high school until my senior year. I don't know what I was looking for. I always felt like everyone was younger than me. I was always in love. I was always writing.
What were you always doing? Did you feel alone? Were you popular? Were you popular and alone?
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
Answers
My friends were all people who were in pain somehow. The pain of
being overweight, having an eating disorder, never getting a date, or
just being misunderstood. I don't know how we all made it out alive.
We were kind of the freaky people I guess. We colored our hair all
different colors with the vegetable-based dye that you could get from
the Alley in Chicago. We wore Doc Martens and dressed in black. All
my money from my part-time job was spent on albums by the Cure,
Morrissey, Nine Inch Nails, and any other mopey band I could get my
hands on. I, too, sat in my room writing god-awful poetry to relieve
myself of "the weight of this world." I can remember staying up way
too late on Sunday nights to watch 120 Minutes while on the phone with
my friend Jane discussing the latest Cure video.
Ah, those days where I thought I was so very cool. I wasn't always
unhappy, though. Even with all the problems we had, we managed to
have a good time. Sneaking off downtown to see a band at the Vic or
just to hang out on Clark and Belmont. My mother hated every bit of
the Salvation Army Thrift shop clothes I would bring home. Hee Hee.
High School wasn't too bad, but I did a lot of things that I wish I
hadn't, too, Pamie. Sometimes I would like to take the teenager I was
and give her a good shake. "You're too good for him! Spend some time
with your girlfriends. You don't always have to have a boy in your
life!" I had the WORST taste in boys. Thank God that's over with.
Now I'm all mopey. I think I'll pull on a black beret and go listen
to The Smiths.
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
Up until my Junior year, I played out that whole depressed
teenager/writing bad poetry thing. I partied a lot, did things I'm
sorry I did; I was super melodramatic and made everything a hassle for
my mom. (I'm so sorry mom!) Around my Junior year I got my act
together. I realized that being smart wasn't so bad; so I dusted off
my pocket protector and was proud to be a nerd again. I was lucky
enough to meet 6 other people who I totally connected with; I was so
lucky to have so many best friends. We all became friends because we
didn't belong in any one clique, but some inbred jock at school dubbed
us the 'Smart Alterna-Kids', we thought it was funny as hell so we
started referring to our little group as such. On the weekends I hung
out at my friend John's house. We'd watch X-Files and stay up all
night talking about how much we hate Republicans and then we'd all
pile into the S.A.V. (Satanic Assault Vehichle, actually it was John's
mom's Dodge Caravan) and we'd drive around harassing people. On
Halloween one year we drove around our town, stopped at the houses of
all the popular people who were mean to us, took the pumpkins out of
their yards, put them in the street and ran over them. It was so
messy! We'd steal lawn ornaments (I don't know why), loiter at
Denny's til we were too tired to even pretend we're awake, and have
co-ed sleepovers. I've been reflecting a lot on my high school years
a lot lately and there's so many things I miss about it. I had so
much fun and I didn't even realize how much I'd miss it. I really
liked a lot of my teachers; they were more like mentors than someone
just doing their job. I really wish sometimes that I was 17 again. I
don't want to get too sappy so I'd better shut up now.
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
i was just like you, pamie. i finally found "my people" my senior
year, and before that, i'd just hung around with whatever class of
seniors, feeling so much older than the kids my age. i slept through
classes, spent senior year AP english doing my fingernails & showing
up my classmates & being the teacher's pet without trying, wrote in my
journal constantly and when i wasn't supposed to, and loved every boy
to whom i was ever close. i was a mess and i was lonely. senior year,
i sat next to an old old classmate in calculus, and things fell into
place for me. i wasn't popular - i was an enormous band geek - but i
was loved and that was what mattered.
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
I don't think I ever found my "place" in high school. I came close
-- newspaper geek, drama freak, Honors Track nerd -- but I never
quite felt like I totally belonged anywhere. I tried to be like my
friends. I tried really hard. But I always ended up doing, or
wearing, or liking something that was considered "weird." There was
always something about me that just kept me a little bit apart from
the rest of the kids in those groups. I never met any one person
that I could look at and think, "Yeah, they're -like- me. We
understand each other."
I suspect there was this one kid, Bruce, and that he and I were very
alike. But, you see, by the time I figured that out, we had both
kind of shut off from everyone, closed off pieces of ourselves from
the world, and we never really had a chance to connect. God, when I
think about that, I realize how sad it is. How lonely I was. How
lonely he was. How different we both were.
But, in the end, I wouldn't change my experience. I learned a lot
about being myself, about not going along with the crowd (any crowd
-- even if it is the newspaper geeks) and doing what you want and
like. I was lonely, sure, but I learned how to be independent and
think for myself.
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
When we went to our high school's 75th anniversary reunion last year,
anyone who I recognised knew my wife immediately, but drew a complete
blank on me.
I guess I was vanilla boy.
None of the people I used to hang out with showed up at the thing,
which was mildly disappointing. Our former principal (who recognised
me) said the next reunion for the school's 100th will be when all our
crowd will be there, when we're all olde phartes.
I suppose being in the Tech Club (lights/sound in the auditorium) and
Strategic Diplomacy Club (wargames) contributed to my status as a
nerdlinger.
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
Wow, what a great question. Even though I am 'old' now (29) I still
reflect often to my high school days and ask myself that very
question. What was I like in high school? I can tell you very easily
what I wasn't like, I wasn't a nerd, I wasn't a hood, I wasn't a
cheerleader, I wasn't a rich bitch, I wasn't a slum girl, I wasn't a
redneck, I wasn't a freak, I wasn't a perfumey dingbat glamgirl, I
wasn't a gamey earth child. So what was I? None of the above? Or
maybe a little tiny bit of all of the above? The weird thing is, I
had friends in each and every one of those groups.
I was selfish, I think. My whole world was me. I wanted everyone to
like me, which is probably why I never drifted into any particular
social grouping and stuck there. I couldn't bear the thought of
anyone not liking me so I tried to be everygirl to everyone, which of
course only resents in resentment from the pure, hardcore members of
each group.
I was a ridiculous Def Leppard fan for a while. Then I went through a
Van Halen phase. Then I was into Pink Floyd. Then I was into U-2.
Then I was into Beastie Boys. I spent 2 hours each morning fixing my
hair and face for school (2 hours?!?), dressed up every day (stuff
like blazers, taper legged slacks and pumps. Our school was like a
fashion show every damn day, and I have no idea how my parents managed
to afford all the nice clothes that I pitched a fit to have. I don't
dress as nicely for work now as I did in high school, but hey, that
was the 80's and it was a very different era). I loved to smell pot,
and would always hang out with people while they smoked it, but I
never smoked it myself until Senior Year, and it didn't take. I made
good grades, but was embarassed by them, and tried to come off as less
intelligent than I was. Which was a very stupid thing to do. Anyone
else see the irony here? I went off with groups of the redneck people
sometimes, and they were a blast, so nice, but I hated (and still
hate) country music, chewing tobacco and gun racks. I looked just
like the girls on the cheerleading and drill team, hair, make-up and
clothes-wise, but I never tried out for either and secretly hated all
that shit. I went to every football game, but never watched a minute
of it and to this day don't understand the game an ioda.
I was terrified of boys up until Junior Year, so I had crushes from
afar (complete with bad soul-baring poetry) that would come to a
screeching, abrupt halt if the object of my affection found out and
made the mistake of asking me on a date, or showed any interest at
all. I got a reputation for being fickle, but I wasn't - I was scared
out of my mind. I thought that if I went on a date, even just one,
they would expect me to have sex with them, and I was terrified of
sex, and basically just a scared rabbit-type chick in general. So I
ran away all the time, and later found out boys thought I was aloof,
snotty and fickle. Ha!
I was a walking contradiction. Afraid of everything but trying really
hard to come off like I knew it all and didn't give a damn. So, I
probably looked like a bitch a lot, just because people didn't
understand what was going on in my head, least of all me. I look back
and think, I had a lot of friends, very few real conflicts, a lot of
laughs, plenty of great memories. High school in general was a decent
experience for me, but it could have been so much better if I had
gotten a grip on myself and relaxed a little during 8th thru 10th
grade. I actually had to eat plain yogurt for weeks because I
developed a stomach ulcer in the 9th grade due to worrying about
whether or not I was normal and doing everything right. Thank
goodness I am no longer anything like the person I was then.
Whew. That was a lot of reflecting to do on a Thursday afternoon. It
felt kinda good.
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
ugh...i was a dud with few social skills, and these were limited to
the "class participation" domain. i was truly better at talking with
and picking up cues from teachers than in my own age group. lots of
mad crushes on unattainables.
even so, i was constantly trying to improve myself, be it a nose job
at thirteen, collecting hunters run and forenza trinkets of fashion
from the Limited, mall makeovers by the month, oh, and then there was
the eating thing ... where i tried to shrink into the 'in' scarecrow
physique ... by eating nothing but raw lettuce (by the head), broccoli
and cauliflower ... contrary to my concerted efforts to fit in with
the beautiful people, i didn't ... in fact, i would have hated to sit
anywhere near me in any enclosed space (phew!).
don't know how i did it, but somehow i navigated myself into the
speech and debate world where things started to turn around a bit ...
at the very least i had something to do on weekends, but better yet, i
was involved with a group of people similarly geeky, similarly smart,
and fun in peculiar and interesting ways ... it became okay to be the
me i'd been trying so heartily to gloss over ...
but all in all, high school stunk for me (no pun intended), and i
honestly am happy to be halfway across the country from the whole
experience (and any reunions) ... it was college where i blossomed
and college i truly enjoyed.
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
I was the girl who was thought of as weird because she didn't go along with the crowd. I was always reading, writing and going to New York City. I realized that these were selfish, narcissistic people and not only did I want nothing to do with them, but I feared I would become one of them. So I ostracized myself and hated everyone and it made high school really rough. I can relate to a lot of things you said Pamie, because I experienced things like that too. I think you said it best as, "I was a Sylvia Plath in a world of John Hughes." That was me. (I read The Bell Jar at least six times in high school.)
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
High school was a pain for awhile. I was always falling for girls
that I should have been "friends" with. Stupid stuff like that.
I remember I had asked this girl to a homecoming dance and this was
the first girl that I had met that was not in my circle of friends.
She was a cousin of one of my best freinds but we ran in slightly
different circles.
So our team had just scored a touchdown and everybody is excited and
I turned to her and the follwing scene happened..
Me: (Yelling looking up..she was tall) Hey! ...you want to go to home
come ing with me?!!!
HER: (Eyes examining the men on the field..biting index finger nail)
Ummmmm I don't knowww.....
I spent homecoming night playing tennis with my best friend and it
rocked. From that point on I realized all that stuff was a bunch of
hooey. Good freinds got me through high school...and I had a great
time.
As for the girl I asked out. She went stag to the dance and met some
guy that she fell in love with. So much so that by the time they were
seniors they were wearing shirt that had puffy paint enscriptions
like "Tweedle-Dee" and he would where one that said "Tweedle-dum".
That is no shit. As a matter of fact, I even saw her pick his nose
for him at a party. It was like a reflex to her. They broke up the
day after graduation.
I think I made out ok...all things considered.
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
"I remember the really bad times-- when I'd get so mad at myself and
feel so horrible that I'd hurt myself. How I'd take a lighter and
make the metal all hot and then press the metal against my wrist. It
hurt. I wanted it to hurt."
What the!?? Pamie? Are you alright? Silvia Plath? The oven lady?
This is a side of Squishy rarely seen. One wonders what else lurks
in the drawers....
Hmm. Well, I'm 23 now, I've lived other lives since highschool...
Clique? None. Sure I was a band geek, hell, I even become one of
their leaders, but I never spent time with any other band geeks
outside of band. Never went to band camp, heh. But I also played
two sports. Not sure what I was...
So what was I always doing? Yeah I was in love too and I wrote a
lot. Alone? Yeah, but only in the off seasons. Popular? No,
although I might have had a shot at popularity.
If Pamie was tame, then whoa, I was a putty tat.
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
oy was i a dork in highschool! at least from grade 9 through 11. i was
really really a complete... well - i was sheltered, unaware, totally
clueless... my parents were really strict so just going to the mall
was a battle. i always had friends though...
i started 9th grade with friends from elementary school, hung out with
two different groups of people. i've got one close friend left from
that bunch that i'm still in contact with. which is pretty surprising
since i moved to f*&%ing australia in 11th grade!
anyway - but when i got back from australia, the guy i had a crush on
before i left ended up "asking me out" as the saying went. and he was
in a band, and a mod, and really really cool and i was of course, cool
by proxy. yup... i was the girlfriend of the lead singer. woohoo!
then i moved into my own apartment (at 17!!!) and of course, you're
instantly pretty damn hip if you're a teenager in a small town with
your own apartment. i'd also clued in a little bit thanks to my
boyfriend, did the vintage shopping thing and presto - a life.
even after he and i broke up, my roommate and i moved into a house
with these two guys (roomies), and we lived in THE party house and
well - i had the time of my life for a year or so. and i met the
people who are now my closest friends. and i did very badly in my last
year of highschool... we would skip class to go and watch ren&stimpy
but early highschool was a bad scene. i've got the pictures. *ick*
-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999
Well, I got to tell you that what you people are writing here gives
me some real good points to tell people who think that US high
schools (read: general schools with all the kids in them) are better
than slovenian (and most european) high schools (read: specialized
high schools with less people).
when I was in high school, I was two years younger than everybody
else (a psychologist thought I was really smart, so I skipped third
grade) and weirder than all of you together (btw, I'm still weird,
and I don't particularly care). anyway, at a high school like yours,
I would have died. but here, it was generally only "smart" kids, so
we didn't really have cliques. when I come to think about it, we had
more popular and less popular kids, but nobody called it that, and
we, the "populars" never had any problems with other kids hanging
with us. I don't think I ever heard anybody say "don't invite him/her
to the party, because he's a geek/nerd/dork/whatever". And all
the "popular people" were into plays, band, computers, and most into
sports. hell, our "smart" school was still kicking ass in all
athletic competitions.
oh and of course, it made for a really interesting school. to be cool
you had to be either a goth, a punk, a rocker, a hippie... whatever.
the only uncool thing was the general fashion of the day. and of
course, all music was cool except kylie minogue/jason donovan/rick
astley/debbie gibson junk. even listening to mozart or wagner was
considered cool.
so, whenever we meet (and I'm still hanging out with those people),
all we talk about is high school and how we all agree that it was the
best time of our lives. and it's been 10 years since we've finished
it.
hell, i gotta call some friends. we gotta get drunk tonight and
listen to some Pixies albums.
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
Ditto on everyone else's answer.. I never had a "grouyp" I fit in
either, but knew plenty people in all. Yes, had a fashion show
everyday as well, shop at Sally Ann, and listed to all the Bands
NoOne Heard Of (which are now quintesential 80's)... add to that the
stupid idea that sex=love...(read=I-was-a-slut) and getting pregnant
halfway thru grade 12... well now I want to go back in time and smack
myself up the head... I can't believe who I was! I recently caught up
with my best friend from back then, and she says I haven't changed a
bit! Ha!
I thought I was soooo cool, so trendy so hip. Now I have 3 kids, live
way out in the country and play housewife (well, it felt like play-
acting for the first 5 years or so, it was kinda surreal, I kept
waiting for the "real" parents to show up)
*eckh* time to move on... I'm getting depressed.
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
I was a typical teen in high school. Sometimes quiet, sometimes shy,
sometimes loud and sometimes in trouble. I had a lot of messed up
stuff happen but my overall memories are quite fond. Even so, I
couldn't wait to graduate and move on. I felt stuck, not in who I
was, but in who others THOUGHT I was. The urge to post was more in
response to the lines where you state ..."It get's better... It's
amazing. What happens to and around you in high school can control
your every thought and emotion. You graduate and two weeks later it
hits you. "What the hell was I thinking ? None of that sh*t means a
damn thing." And your life becomes what you want it to be. It gets
more than better. It gets real.
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
I was a completely different person in High School than I am now. I
was the biggest bully. I had a small circle of friends, all bullies,
and we tortured everyone. Our most enjoyable tortures were performed
on the stuck up "rich" kids who were in the National Honor Society but
(mind you ) CHEATED their way there. We each had different seperate
and collective friends from all different cliques that we associated
with but mostly it was us that we stuck with. I was part of the "Burn
Outs": heavily into partying w/ drugs, not frat type keggers, and
skipping classes to get stoned or roam the halls, trash the bathroom,
etc. I had a very low self image and I felt empowered by the amounts
of attention being this bad created. Everyone knew us, everyone feared
us. We really believed we were invincible.
I was different from the rest of the clique in that I was in
mainstream classes and excelled at schoolwork when I applied myself. I
loved reading novels and would cut classes to sketch something or
scratch in my journals while smoking a half pack of cigarettes in the
bathroom. Walk down the hall, stop at the locker to take a swig from
the Absolut I had on the top shelf, and then outside to hit a roach
or do a bong hit (nice that we had woods surrounding our school).
I was lucky I was smart enough to reach out to my Mom when the drug
use became an addiction and I had lost thousands of dollars (that was
supposed to be for college) on cocaine and hotel rooms. With her
support I quit the drugs, gave up my loser friends and moved on. I
would like to think that I am nothing like my past self. I am friendly
and cheery and although I do still toke once in a while, I haven't
touched another drug since. I worked my ass off Senior Year and
attended College Courses in the evenings to get credits to graduate. I
did, and even though I couldn't motivate for College, I have a great
job that's leading to a career and I'm doing great!
ooo said too much, sorry
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
Chalk me up as another geek-in-training. But the funny thing was
that my senior year in high school was incredible. For one thing, my
parents were living two thousand miles away...they moved to L.A. and
I was still in the Chicago burbs attending New Trier (home to Liz
Phair, Lili Taylor, Hal Sparks, and that white supremicist who killed
two people in July). I lived with a friend's family.
And I belonged, all right--to the music crowd (I played viola), to
the Monty Python and Dr. Who and gaming crowd, to the Shakespeare
Workshop. I wasn't popular, but NT was large enough to have many
many groups, and I'm grateful to have found mine. To this day I'm
glad I stayed that year.
I'm going back to visit next week--primarily to see the English
teacher who knew me better than I knew myself, knew I'd blossom in
college rather than high school. I only keep in touch with one
person from high school; the others vanished along the way. It's all
right. They were there once.
The irony is that the north shore is John Hughes country. I was
hardly pretty in pink either.
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
[ what was i like in high school? ]
i re-met a high school alum when i transferred schools in my
third year of college. after a lengthy chat, she admitted to me that
all through high school she thought I was a hippie, drug-using,
pseudo-intellectual.
[ cliques? ]
i hung around with a bunch of relatively sensitive guys who also
happened to be in the top of our class. being the emotionally immature
guys we were, most of our spare time was filled with role playing
games, cruising around town, and playing unhealthy amounts of super
nintendo.
[ what was I always doing? ]
i was always drawing. doodling. thinking. designing. building. my
parents were worried because i was more interested in hacking linux
and working with guided diode detectors than doing homework and
meeting girls.
[ did i feel alone? ]
once. i think i ended up scaring a girl because i placed all my
aloneness on her.
[ was i popular? ]
heh. a skinny korean guy with no fashion sense in a school full of
white, middle-class yuppies?
high school was a fun time for me, no matter how bad of a picture I
paint. nowadays it serves as contrast for a much richer life.
-edward
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
I dunno, I think high school was a pretty dark time for me. I think it
hit a low during junior year, although it could've been sophomore, I
can't remember now. I half ass tried to kill myself with a dull
razorblade.... I remember for a while it was so bad, I would sit in
the back of class, and be incapable of concentrating on anything going
on becasue I was too busy weighing the pros and cons of different
methods of suicide in my head.
I did a bit of what you describe as self mutilation, although I don't
really regret it. Of course, I'm into tattoos and peircings, so I see
it a little differently I suppose. Durring my junior year, I pierced
myself six times, I still carry four of those peircings. The only
thing I regret is that I could have done a better job at cutting the
chinese charater for my last name into my arm.
Yeah, high school isn't the best of times. I'm not sure if it just
seems worse because everybody's growing up, and there hormones are in
flux, or if it's bad becasue of that. I've never had a whole lot of
friends, just a few close ones. That bothered me much less in college
I suppose.
noise
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
Ooop, it was such a good topic, I wanted to contribute right away, and
then went back up to read. Forgot a few things....
Cliques were really bad in my school. I ended up kinda in between
cliques. I got along well enough with the really smart geeky kids, but
hung out more with the strange appathetic hate the world kids becasue
despite all the depression, they seemed like more fun at the time. I
think that a lot of the depressed thoughts I had were because I felt
really unpopular. In retrospect, I think that at least part of this
sense of unpopularity was self engineered, I would push people away
becasue I thought they were too cool to enjoy hanging out with me.
Towards the end of junior year, cliques seemed to dissolve, and I
think that everyone was getting along a bit better. I missed out on
senior year because I went the geek route, and headed off to college
early for a free year through a nifty state program we've got in
Minnesota. Sometimes I wonder if I missed out on anything, I didn't
really stay in touch with anyone from my class once I left.
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
I'm with zocky on this one... I went to a very non-tradiontional
school. Just about everyone was "cool," or at least not an outcast.
Most of the kids at other schools in the area thought we were a bunch
of pregnant lesbians and druggies. We had so many unique people...
It was good to be smart, good to be weird. I acted in Antigone, taught
my own drama class (yeah... we could teach classes, as students!), and
generally had a great time. It was really cool because the students
were for the most part really mature. The student government had real
power in the school. I painted a mural in the art room, MC'd a talent
show, did a screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show in the girl's
locker room during a school-wide sleepover.
I miss high school.
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
ah, pamie, how you have resurrected some bitter and beautiful
memories. from ninth grade to mid-junior year, i tried on many
different hats (read "cliques") but none felt genuine or real. i
eventually found some real friends and caused quite a bit of trouble,
but i regret nothing. we listened to grunge, skipped school and went
downtown to museums and look at sculptures in downtown houston,
bought all clothing at value village, and made enough money in my
part time job to...experiment with a couple of mind-altering
substances. my beloved circle of friends was centered around a band
and we loved each other and partied together without a care in the
world. that is what i miss--the feeling of invincibility. i would
not re-live that time now, it belongs in my past. but i have no
regrets. i had the best friends in the world and although soul
searching late nights at the kettle were bonding experiences at the
time, i'm glad i let my curiosities run wild before leaving for
college.
okay, this is waaaayy tooo long...thanks for the walk down a quite
fuzzy memory lane.
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
I, too, spent many evenings at the Kettle.
The Kettle is where we went after rehearsal, after school, after a
movie. We'd do homework, talk, try cigarettes, play Street Fighter--
we stayed and they let us stay because no one else was coming in.
They would make me a special grilled cheese sandwich with bacon and
tomato. I've never gotten a restaurant to make something similar
since.
Sometimes, when I'm feel nostalgic, I just want a grilled cheese
sandwich with tomato and bacon and a never-ending cup of coffee.
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
just as a sidenote, anyone else remember a song that came out a
couple of years ago by nada serf called 'popular'? i dug that song,
captured a superficial slice of high school angst, it made me laugh.
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
I guess I was lucky...I moved to my "home town" as I was entering the
9th grade...so I sort of got the chance to start over...no one knew
me, so I could be whoever I wanted to be. I suppose I just got lucky
and fell into the popular crowd and stayed there. I was friendly
with everyone and can honestly say that overall I had a blast.
Surrounded by friends can still be a lonely place...and even though
on the outside it looked like I had it all, I still felt lonely
sometimes and worried constantly about what other people thought of
me. It sounds funny now. If I could go back and do it all over
again, I would not take myself or my friends as seriously as I did.
Weekends consisted of parties and tons of underage drinking..it still
baffles my mind how we were able to come across so much alcohol. We
thought we would live forever and nothing could hurt us...I'm
suprised that none of us got hurt doing the stupid things we did,
from driving too fast and recklessly to staying out all night at
places we had no business being. Kinda makes me wonder what kind of
Mom I might be one day knowing whats really out there.....
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
well, i was just outside the inner circle. i was in student council but i wasnt a cheerleader. i was a drama fag. i was in the honors classes, but only the ones that didnt conflict with my activities. so i wasnt quite an intellectual either. i was in tons of clubs and had crushes on the nerdiest guys, though i never admitted it to anyone who "mattered". when i was a freshman, my best friend was a junior. i never really hung out with the ppl my own age until i was a senior, which is weird because now, most of my friends are at least 4 years younger than me. i dated the capitan of the baseball team, but i didnt like him much because i was pining for the mock trail lawyer and the debate team guy. i was able to be included in all circles because i was funny. i could always lighten the mood by making a a stupid joke out of the situation. i was known by pretty much everybody, but i wasnt KNOWN by anyone. it was like they had heard of me but they couldnt remember what for. i was friends with some of the teachers, but not in a brown noser way. i was also one of the few hispanics in my predominately white school. so i had to claw my way up to the top, though i never quite made it to the tippy top. i was a chubby girl with a pretty face and a good personality. i did ok. my students ask me if i could go back to high school and do it over, would i... i have to say no. it wasnt fun then and even though i have all this hindsight, i learned a lot of lessons that make me who i am today. so no. i wouldnt do it again.. wait .. make that HELL no.
-- Anonymous, September 03, 1999
Oh man. To know what I was like in high school you have to understand
what I was like in 7th grade. Picture a slightly chunky kid from
Alabama who just moved to Ohio with spiked up hair and a jean jacket.
I would wear that damn thing everyday. I thought everybody hated me,
so I always thought it was a trick if someone told me that a girl
liked me or when I was invited to a party. Now take all of that
self-doubt and bitterness, take away the accent, and move that kid
back down to Alabama to go to a private school.
At first I was just in the nerd herd, then I tried to distance myself
from that. I started hanging out with the very few skater/artsy kids.
Somehow the popular kids decided we were cool. I know now it was just
an insidious way to infiltrate us and change our sense of fashion (I
actually wore turtlenecks!).
I ended up not really belonging to any group. I was on the speech team
and in plays, so that took up a lot of time and gave me a group to
belong to, but I was also accepted by the popular kids, maybe because
of the parties I had or because all the girls thought my brother
was hot and that I would eventually look like him (a girl once told me
that she should probably ask me out before anyone else realized that,
then she turned me down when I asked her to homecoming. If anybody saw
the Real World finalists, she was Lisa, the crazy blonde from Alabama)
But they like me well enough to make me prom king and "Best All
Around" in the yearbook.
I drank before almost anyone I knew and soon tried other things, so
that gave me a sort of weird reputation. It also led to my own special
brand of self-mutilation. I'd get really drunk at a party, go off into
a corner or a field spouting off poetry as I made it up, and then put
a cigarette out on myself. In my twisted teenage head I thought that
meant I could overcome fear and pain, so I could do anything.
I guess although I was accepted, I felt like nobody knew the real me-
they just liked crazy-drunk-stoned Andy. That's something I've only
just recently gotten over. It's weird. I actually had a girl come up
to me in college and tell me that I had changed her life, made her
become more open-minded and accepting. Maybe I wasn't such a freak. I
just remember one guy telling me I was "mysterious" once. I thought
that made me so cool. Ha!
-- Anonymous, September 05, 1999
I had an obsessive compulsive disorder when I was a kid, so high
school was a real treat for me. The pressure to fit in is so great
that I learned to stop licking buttons or tapping my feet in this
specific pattern non-stop but I found other things. If I could not get
my locker open without the dial moving past the number in the
combination even a little bit, I'd start all over with ten turns to
the right, so I was late for class all of the time. And when I was
taking notes in history, I had to write on every inch of paper. No
skipped lines, paragraphs, or headings-pure European History notes.
And my handwriting had to be perfect. I did most of that stuff in
college, we just didn't have lockers. Socially, I was totally
mercenary. I had three great friends, but I did everything. I
couldn't stand having a moment that wasn't scheduled. Aside from
theatre though, none of those activities interested me. It's really
funny to think about myself in some of those clubs or sports where I
really shouldn't have been. Like Model U.N. What the hell? I'm the
worst diplomat ever.
-- Anonymous, September 05, 1999
In high school I was the smart kid. I was a nerd. I didn't think anyone could see me in any way but as the smart kid or as a nerd so I had terrible self image problems.
I had a stutter and had no confidence socially. I hung out in a group of social outcasts, among whom I didn't have any close friends. I think a lot of people in the group secretly disliked each other, but stuck together because they had no one else. After graduation I stopped seeing all of them. As a group we knew very few girls and went on even fewer dates. I didn't get invited to parties and got taunted by some of the more popular kids.
I was resentful of the popular clique. I gave up trying to be accepted but still desperately wanted to be. I got up the nerve to ask a few girls out and was always turned down.
It was a rough time. I would get very depressed and couldn't sleep. I was lonely. Being alone made me feel even more depressed. I was fortunate to be athletic - I found some relief throught sports. I was on a team every fall, winter, and spring season of high school and ended up with six seasons at varsity. I rarely felt like I was part of a team, but at least I could sublimate.
Mostly, I just felt like I was waiting for things to change. Thankfully, I went away to college and found a life.
-- Anonymous, September 05, 1999
My high school years were a nightmare, largely because I was so
completely clueless about everything.
I was pretty and that must have driven my mom nuts because she was
overweight and always bought me clothes that were 3 sizes too big,
though I didn't figure out I was a size 3 until my junior year.
Actually, I must admit that now, as a fat chick myself, I often think
clothes are smaller than the actually are. I once tried to give a
size 6 friend a very lovely petite size 12 dress that no longer fit
me. So never mind.
I never knew that I was pretty though. I would look into the mirror
and see all these weird angles. A chin like Jay Leno, googly eyes
that weren't large and liquid and beautiful but somehow big and weird
looking. Hair that frizzed and was forever torturing me because I had
somehow forgotten that my hair was actually wavy/curly and kept trying
to straighten it in that perpetual teenage "If I wish for it hard
enough it will happen" haze. So instead of working with my fine,
chestnut hair that waved all over the place, I had straight, flat,
frizzy hair with peacock bangs.
I was friends with a fairly large group of brains that were too
poor and brainy to be popular and too tame to be popular in the
alternative way. I, for instance, would never wear cool vintage
clothing or shave my head. I had a horror of second hand clothing
because that what I received for most of my childhood and I was far
too chicken shit to shave my head.
I also had social pretensions, aspirations to be one of the Shiny
Happy Girls about campus. I even went to one pep club meeting but it
never worked out. Only later did I realize I was beautiful, that I
looked good in vintage clothing, and that despite every effort, I
would never attain the alterna credibility or the straight moneyed
popularity I longed for. I was, and am, too tame for the alternas out
there. I am too well dressed. I wear khakis, I have regularly worn
color. As to the straight, well adjusted, moneyed popularity? I'm not
well dressed enough, now I'm fat, and my skin is behaving weirdly. I
have red marks that aren't scars after almost every pimple I get
because fat girls often get breakouts. (Fatty tissue= more
estrogen=way more zits than in high school). I haven't the energy or
the confidence to fake either. I am as I am, still very much like I
was. A little too easily frustrated, bored, feel slighted when I'm not
taken in by the clique at work, nice but too self deprecating. But at
least not willing to give up my friends to become what I wanted to be
then, and probably would still like to be now, a show pony, a riot
grrl.
-- Anonymous, September 05, 1999
Oh, man. This is great.
I just graduated high school this past year, but already I can look
back and laugh at myself. Man, what a complete idiot. Let's take a
look
at the pictures, just to give you an idea on how ultra-cool I really
was.
We'll begin with my sophomore year.
|
Look at this. I mean, come on. What the hell was up with my hair??
Nice bangs. Nice braces. Love the outfit. Oh, and you have to love the
eyebrows - I was scared of the tweezers. All this time, I sat around
wondering
why I couldn't get a date to save my life. Now I know. I was a dork,
plain
and simple. I really hope I didn't pass this picture out to
anyone. |
Moving right along to my junior year..
 |
Okay, so we got a little better. But can someone please tell me
why
I didn't iron my shirt? And why my part starts a few inches above my
ear?
And why didn't I cut my damn bangs before I left the house that
morning?
Oh, yeah, I was growing them out. I forgot. |
Finally, the moment of truth. The senior portrait.
|
I'd say I improved just a little bit. I found the tweezers. My
bangs
are an acceptable length. I got my braces off after 6 long years. Oh,
and
I learned how to put on makeup and wear clothes that didn't make me
look
like a big dork loser. Go me. |