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Your Place On The Social Ladder of High School?

  
  

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fidrich
11:47 / 07.05.03
I wasn't really on the social ladder at all in school. In primary I spent my time wandering around the playground, singing to myself and talking to trees. In secondary, I spent most of my time skipping classes and going to the library. Apparently it seemed to the outsider that I was pretty badly bullied, but being quite a solitary person I didn't think of it like that.

In secondary I remember being in a little group of friends. There were eight or so of us, and within about eight months we'd all grown apart (or exploded rather spectacularly). That was about the extent of my in-school social life.

I still have side effects of being an outcast for so long - I'm rather socially deficent. Things like seeing people on buses throw me completely - do I wave? Say hello? Ignore them? Acknowledge them but make no move to start a conversation? (No joke. I remember once on the bus I saw my best friend enter. I was upstairs, she was down. I spent so long trying to work out what I was supposed to do that she got off the bus without knowing I was there).
 
 
PatrickMM
01:39 / 05.04.04
Came across this in the search, and I'm bringing it back since it was interesting reading.

Around sixth and seventh grade, I was bullied a bit by people who were semi-friends, but I still had many other friends, so it wasn't that bad. Back then, I was seriously concrened about grades, but towards the end of middle school, I started to care less, and became a bit more popular. First years of high school were okay, I sort of hung around with my friends, and wasn't bothered by other people then much. Then, in the last two years, I may not have gained popularity, but I gained respect, as a funny, creative person. I did a rap with a couple of my friends for this school day, and it was like 8 Mile, the reaction to it. It was great, and I got one of the most popular girls to appear in a short movie I made, which was really cool.

One of the really interesting things I observed in senior year was that a lot of people who made awful grades, and had claimed not to care at all about doing well actually said how much they regretted not doing better. I guess the prospect of going out in the world does that, and it was interesting to see.

That article mentioned upthread was pretty interesting, and I definitely see most of the points. One of the things that resonated for me was the idea that you really are there to do nothing, just occupy time. I did so little work, and just wasted a lot of time while in high school. I was happiest when working on movies, or music, because it made it seem like all the pointless stuff I was doing during the day was just for show, and I was doing the real work that would help me in the future on my own.
 
 
XXII:X:II = XXX
23:19 / 09.04.04
When I finally found my role in high school, it was as the outsider who secretly wished to be an insider, but while in that role completed it with a big black trenchcoat (this was before MATRIX and Columbine) and sneery editorials in the school paper that went waaaaay over the heads of my classmates, usually only garnering proper praise from the parents and faculty. It was at this point I stopped allowing myself to be pushed around, and actually nipped an uncomplimentary nickname in the bud: when a kid I never met yelled it at me across the library, I beat the snot out of him. Not admirable, I grant you, but it seemed to have did the trick. I was by no means a bully, but the bullies didn't know what to do with me: I was a little too visible and out of their league for them to fuck with me much. Which came in handy when I called out the bulk of the athletic contingent for their overt homophobia and latent homoeroticism; MAN were they pissed, but that seemed to have only made me more popular. Even after I left kids were writing about me in the school paper, trying to figure out where the hell I had come from. New York City, bitches, NEW YORK REPRAZENT!!!

OK, I am so ungangsta, and was even more so then, but still, I take comfort in knowing that within that little microsystem I was a pretty big playa, and would only become more so once I got to college.

VJB2
 
 
unheimlich manoeuvre
14:42 / 11.04.04
i reckon near the bottom of the great chain of being.

i was always a gobby shite at school and it got me into trouble. i was just about smart enough to talk or joke my way out of some situations and lucky enough not to sustain any permanent injuries from the ones i couldn't. most teachers disliked me because i was lazy, doing only the minimum to stop them kicking me out.
 
 
Nobody's girl
14:57 / 11.04.04
Bizzarely, until I came out as queer I was bullied really badly.

I remember the pivotal point: I was 15 and my friend and I were walking to registration and this kid called my friend a "Lezzer" so I turned on him, kneed him in the bollocks and told him if he ever said anything like that again I'd deck him. The poor lad didn't know what hit him. Heh.

At that point I decided I would take no more shit. I was ready to take on anyone who gave me hassle, but everyone seemed to pick up on that and left me alone. Bastards.

It all proves the prison/schoolyard truism though: either you make someone your bitch or you become someone else's bitch.
 
 
Jester
19:59 / 11.04.04
Well, my school memories are a bit different than most peoples' seem to be, as far as primary school goes. I was totally miserable in primary school. I went to a state primary, and the atmosphere was just really nasty. I think that the intelligence/lack of popularity thing really came into play there, despite us being so young. I wonder if it was because they very visably 'streamed' us, with the smart kids on one table, the middle kids on another and the not at all smart kids on another, and so on... I was on the smart table, and I also had freckles which got me called a lot of names
I was more teased than physically hurt, but because of trouble at home, I was terribly oversensative and it had a big effect on me that only wore off much later. There was a real gang dynamic at that school, with massive groups of girls. If you weren't in a gang (and I wasn't, even when asked), you were bullied. And if you refused to bully you were automatically thrown out of the gang. That said I did make one or two good friends, one of whom I am still friends with now.
I went to a private, liberal secondary school until I finished my A levels, and that was a totally cool thing for me. Throughout my time there I went through pretty much all the different social cliques, but for the most part I was in the 'arty' one, I guess. Overall, I just had different friends in different groups and that was totally ok. I always identified with the kids that got picked on, so I would try and be nice and make friends if they were interesting and nice too. I went pretty wild when I was in the middle of secondary school, because things at home were weird, and my mum died when I was 13/14. I took a lot of drugs and drank a lot, and did stupid stuff and maybe in the weird world of school that helped my popularity a bit Although I wasn't so popular that I didn't have the horrible experience of being dumped by a boyfriend because of not being popular enough!!

That said, there was a lot of pretty unpleasant peer pressure going on. In my last year of A levels I basically didn't talk to anyone for the whole year, except my best friend. That was my first really intense friendship with a girl since primary school, and I was totally secretly in lust with her too, to no avail Anyway, I didn't even talk to her by the end of the year, as I was way more preoccupied with what was going on out of school, and got really sick of the cliquiness.
Overall, though, I have mostly positive memories of secondary school, probably because it wasn't your average school...
 
 
bodbod
19:04 / 13.04.04
Er - hi - I'm new here.
I went to bording school from the age of 10 and would see my parents 3 times a year.
I was bullied non-stop from the age of 6 until 16. I was not only bullied by the boys but I was bullied by the masters.
The reasons were complex and are now fully understood.
It is something that even now, when I look back through boredom of mind, in the place in life that I am in (a very happy one) and as the person that I have become (happy in my own skin) I still feel a hot pang of anger and hatred. I don't like that.
 
 
the Fool
00:05 / 14.04.04
I got all the usual bottom rung treatment. I was crap a sport and went to a sport dominated boys only high-school. I was lucky that there was one rung beneath me, that poor kid copped hell. Was last to be picked at sport, was bullied and stuff, though it was mostly verbal abuse, by the 'jock' types and didn't have a lot of friends. Got called 'gay' a lot, which turned out to be true at the end of the day, but hurt a lot at the time. Even the friends I did have had a tendency to turn on me. I hated high school.

Uni was much better. Though enjoying meself much more now.
 
 
William Sack
07:35 / 14.04.04
I was part of a group that bullied someone at school. It wasn't physical, but was nonetheless hurtful and humiliating. There was no reason why this boy was singled out other than a pathetic need in us to victimise someone. Years later I still feel ashamed and embarrassed by what I did, and I hope your bullies feel similarly, Bodbod.
 
 
Char Aina
02:48 / 15.04.04
man.
bodbod, i hope the teachers who bullied you have since been struck off, and perhaps died painful deaths, coughing and spluttering bloody lumps of lung up until the slow and bitter end. it just wrong that those who teach/care for children can do someting like that.

you didnt go to rockhampton in queensland by any chance, did you?
 
 
The Prince of All Lies
04:04 / 15.04.04
High School was definitely the worst part of my life..I was bullied 4 years, nonstop, everyday. I wasn't even the bottom of the ladder, I was buried beneath it. It was a very painful experience, since it all started the first year of high school, when my best friend (whom I had known since I was 6 years old) turned on me, made new friends (all the bullying morons) and dedicated his next 4 years to making my life miserable. I used to fake being sick to avoid going to school, I cut classes and took naps in the school's rooftop, etc. I was really miserable, even the few guys who I considered friends would turn against me when the other bullies came to bully me. I didn't get my ass kicked a lot, a few times I kicked their asses back, but it was impossible to fight 20 guys..so the worst part was the psychological bullying. They called me gay (which I'm not), throw pieces of chalk at me when the teacher wasn't looking, they would take my books and my backpack and throw them around, stole things from me,etc.
The effect of all that was of course a growing anger and self-loathing. I couldn't get out of that situation because I was too weak-minded and buried in self-loathing.
The worst part for me was that when I was in other social contexts (in clubs and places like that) I used to bully other people, I didn't want to do it, I knew I was being a moron, but maybe it was a way of getting back at them. I'm more ashamed of that than I am of being bullied, because when someone's bullying you, you always hope someone will come and stop them, or that one of them will make a stand and help you, but that never happens.
If the same thing happened to me as I am now, I would kick their collective asses, or deal with it differently. But the main thing is I think that awful experience actually helped me become a better person, by being more empathic and being able to relate to other people's problems. All my friends (most of them are from my primary school days, I only have one high school friend) now come to me for counsel, since they know I'm a good listener and all that. But at the same time, it's made me harder on the outside, which is a blessing and a curse..I don't take much crap from people but my social skills are weak, I've never had a lot of luck with women due to my lack of confidence.
But I think I took some good things out of it. I wouldn't be me if I hadn't gone through that, and while there are things I don't like about myself, I like the person I'm becoming.
But at that time, if someone had come to me with a gun and 100 untraceable bullets, I would have killed all of their bullying asses, and the teachers too, for being silent accomplices to that situation...
Thankfully, I'm over my anger issues...
 
 
Z. deScathach
08:33 / 15.04.04
I basically learned to blend in and be invisible, so I hardly got bullied at all. That's really the only way to describe it. I just became un-noticed, and when I look back at it, I don't even know how I pulled it off.......
 
  

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