You’ve read all the updates on the Phoebe Prince case, which has made you cry, and you’re not alone. You read this story last Sunday in the Globe and felt terrible for Lexi, and you’re not alone. The increase in news about bullying lately has made you reflect on how mean people at school were to you when you were younger, and you’re not alone. But when you were in middle school, it sure felt like you were.
So you were awkward. Not because of one thing, but a combination of things that added up. You had long, tangled hair and an overbite so bad you couldn’t close your mouth. You didn’t make friends easily, and the friends you had were awkward for their own reasons. You liked to read on the bus. You did well in school, which often made you a target. You weren’t quite sure how other smart people managed to escape the labeling and being badgered about grades, so that people could either make fun of you for doing well or for not doing so well this time, but you certainly couldn’t. You weren’t good at sports and always got picked last in gym class. You could never figure out what the right clothes to wear were, and when you tried to wear something trendy, you weren’t comfortable.
To be fair, you didn’t do yourself any favors, either. You didn’t pick up on some social cues. You cried easily, when you didn’t do as well on a test as you wanted to or when you were upset with someone. You would talk about how much you didn’t like the popular girls in your class, which sometimes got back to them. If people made fun of you, you’d try to come up with a comeback, which usually backfired when they just laughed at you more.
But you certainly paid for it. People would ask you why you were wearing what you were wearing in a pointed voice. They’d tell you to get a haircut. They’d put two fingers in front of their mouths making fun of your teeth and call you a buck-toothed rabbit. You heard “nerd-girl” and “Miss Perfect” a lot. Every time people found out your grade on anything, they’d make fun of you, and they’d announce every mistake you made. People would ask if you and your equally awkward friends were lesbians. One guy asked you if you’d ever had a date, and when you asked him why he wanted to know, he said, “Because it doesn’t look like you’ll ever have one.” If a guy was teasing his friend, he’d call out to you, “Hey, will you go out with Mike?” because you were like the symbol of all that was uncool in a girl. It wasn’t just one person or group of people, either—it was pretty universal in your grade.
High school was better. It was bigger, first of all, and since everyone was trying to get into college, it was no longer uncool to be smart. Most of your classes were honors or AP classes, where the people were nicer and more like you. You enjoyed school for the most part, and you made new friends, but they mostly weren’t close friends. You never thought that people would miss you if you weren’t there. Some semesters, you spent a lot of time in the library during lunch. In group settings, you felt like you were always saying or doing the wrong thing and spent a lot of time beating yourself up over it. People mostly thought you were really quiet because you’d decided, to paraphrase an old saying, better to keep your mouth closed and be thought awkward than to open your mouth and erase all doubt.
Even now that people have long since stopped making fun of you to your face, the fear that they’re talking about you behind your back remains. In college, you thought you’d found a group of friends who’d actually miss you when you weren’t there, until you realized that, because you’d once again not picked up on social cues, they actually thought you were annoying and didn’t want you around at all. Sometimes now, you see on Facebook that your friends were invited to a party that you weren’t, or you see pictures from a birthday party or wedding that you weren’t invited to, and you can’t help but take it personally and wonder why no one wants to get close to you. The guy who told you you’d never have a date was right for a long time- you didn’t go on a date until you were in your twenties, and you’ve still never had a boyfriend. You wonder if the things in you that made people taunt you over ten years ago are still in you now, and people are just too polite to say so.
Someone you’re close to doesn’t like to hear you talk about how much middle school sucked. She never had a hard time in school herself, so when you bring up your own middle school days, she rolls her eyes and, in so many words, tells you to get over it and stop playing the victim. You wish you could just relax and have confidence that people do want you around, but it’s hard. You never assume you’re welcome anywhere without an explicit invitation, and you scrutinize everything you say, still beating yourself up if you think you made a faux pas somewhere.
You’re glad that awareness of bullying is increasing, at least in the media, but you’re scared about how school must be for kids today, now that there’s Facebook and Myspace and Twitter and Formspring. You know that rules and laws can punish kids for physical violence or saying outright mean things, but that there are some things that can’t be controlled—the spreading rumor, the subtle dig, the eye-roll. Bullying might never go away, and maybe you always would have been the awkward kid no matter what, but you do spend a lot of time wondering who you would have turned out to be if people hadn’t been so mean to you all those years ago.
I've been thinking a lot about this post. I had (somewhat) similar experiences in middle school and was an outsider in high school, though for different reasons than you — and college was socially better from me than it was for you, it sounds like. I still struggle with fear of people talking behind my back.
I don't want to come off all obnoxious/advice-y since that's probably not what you were looking for with this post, but I'm wondering if, when it comes to the people who were such assholes to you/or who you worry are assholes, why these mean people's opinion matters so much to you. it is something I have been thinking about a lot, too, with my own shit re: people talking about me. for me it's the idea that they think they know something about me that I don't already know myself.
I'm not sure what the answer would be for you — it's just a spring board sort of suggestion. I'm also not trying to say people's opinions shouldn't matter to us, because… obviously we cannot ever completely escape that. but I think we ascribe power to these people and their opinions when maybe they are not deserving of so much power.
-Rebekah
I've been thinking a lot about this post. I had (somewhat) similar experiences in middle school and was an outsider in high school, though for different reasons than you — and college was socially better from me than it was for you, it sounds like. I still struggle with fear of people talking behind my back.
I don't want to come off all obnoxious/advice-y since that's probably not what you were looking for with this post, but I'm wondering if, when it comes to the people who were such assholes to you/or who you worry are assholes, why these mean people's opinion matters so much to you. it is something I have been thinking about a lot, too, with my own shit re: people talking about me. for me it's the idea that they think they know something about me that I don't already know myself.
I'm not sure what the answer would be for you — it's just a spring board sort of suggestion. I'm also not trying to say people's opinions shouldn't matter to us, because… obviously we cannot ever completely escape that. but I think we ascribe power to these people and their opinions when maybe they are not deserving of so much power.
-Rebekah
Thanks, R- and you didn't come off obnoxious/advice-y at all! It is partly that, wondering if other people see something in me that I don't, but now I'm less concerned about what assholes think of me than I am with what nice people do. That's what really worries me- that people don't really like me and are only nice to me to be polite or something, or that I'm doing something wrong or awkward and no one's telling me.
Gah, could I sound any more neurotic?
Thanks, R- and you didn't come off obnoxious/advice-y at all! It is partly that, wondering if other people see something in me that I don't, but now I'm less concerned about what assholes think of me than I am with what nice people do. That's what really worries me- that people don't really like me and are only nice to me to be polite or something, or that I'm doing something wrong or awkward and no one's telling me.
Gah, could I sound any more neurotic?
(To preface: I stumbled upon your blog a while ago and enjoy a lot of your recommendations!) Obviously, I don't know you at all so I probably can't make a useful comment, but aren't your friends reading your blog? I don't know, I just think that if a friend of mine wrote a blog post saying that she didn't think her friends were really her friends, it would throw me for a loop and I would, in turn, start to question that friendship even if I hadn't before. I don't want to sound like I'm passing judgment when I don't know the whole story, but I'm just wondering if this type of post is shooting you in the foot a little bit friendship-wise? Just another angle to consider!
–AnnMarie
(To preface: I stumbled upon your blog a while ago and enjoy a lot of your recommendations!) Obviously, I don't know you at all so I probably can't make a useful comment, but aren't your friends reading your blog? I don't know, I just think that if a friend of mine wrote a blog post saying that she didn't think her friends were really her friends, it would throw me for a loop and I would, in turn, start to question that friendship even if I hadn't before. I don't want to sound like I'm passing judgment when I don't know the whole story, but I'm just wondering if this type of post is shooting you in the foot a little bit friendship-wise? Just another angle to consider!
–AnnMarie
Ugh! I HATED MIDDLE SCHOOL!!! I moved every year of middle school- and 7th was the worst!
In 6th grade, I was more flat chested than most girls, I had thick rimmed pink glasses, and a big overbite which sucked cause I inherited my dad's HUGE teeth which don't really fit in my mouth. :/ I made friends with the “losers” (as people called them) and got made fun of a lot. There was this one bully who was in 8th grade and her and her friends were, like, 6 feet tall and they loved threatening me and chasing me down. I used to push them then run. This was around the time of September 11th- the last day they bullied me because after the events that happened, the bully moved.
In 7th grade- I was the same ole girl- but I never dressed up fancy like I did in 6th grade. I wore a baggy sweater at all times and to make matters worse- my sister cut my bangs off in my sleep and I had had surgery so my arm was in a full cast for almost 2 months. I had no friends except for this one kid who for some reason befriended me cause he was over sexed and had no guy friends to talk to about girl's butts and curves. =P Teachers were rude because I'd get pushed over a lot and would hurt my arm and then cry and they'd yell at me about it. I really hated myself then and I ended up being depressed and sleeping a lot. The worst part was, I missed so much school cause of my arm that I had to do homework at home left handed and my teachers didn't care enough and so I kept asking them if they graded my papers and my math teacher screamed that I was annoying!
It sucked!!
In 8th grade- things started getting better! I made friends and I started looking better. My arm was and is still VERY bad! It's causing me to lose friends :/.
But to quote a few things in your blog:
-Even if you didn't give a care what people thought- you still wound up caring in middle school. It was like middle school was not only there to prep you for education in high school but also for socializing in high school. I even felt that way! I said I didn't care but I'd still get upset when people hee-hawed at me in school.
-I did do a lot of crying more than I did in high school. My main high school concern was college, my elbow, and trying to get people for my culinary team. In middle school everyone said everything and even if it wasn't mean it made me cry!
-As for the part about your friends- I noticed that a lot both in middle school and high school. A lot of my “friends” were never truly my friends. They never hung out with me or talked to me outside of school. It wasn't until college was done that I found out what true friends were like.
http://forevera90skid.blogspot.com
Ugh! I HATED MIDDLE SCHOOL!!! I moved every year of middle school- and 7th was the worst!
In 6th grade, I was more flat chested than most girls, I had thick rimmed pink glasses, and a big overbite which sucked cause I inherited my dad's HUGE teeth which don't really fit in my mouth. :/ I made friends with the “losers” (as people called them) and got made fun of a lot. There was this one bully who was in 8th grade and her and her friends were, like, 6 feet tall and they loved threatening me and chasing me down. I used to push them then run. This was around the time of September 11th- the last day they bullied me because after the events that happened, the bully moved.
In 7th grade- I was the same ole girl- but I never dressed up fancy like I did in 6th grade. I wore a baggy sweater at all times and to make matters worse- my sister cut my bangs off in my sleep and I had had surgery so my arm was in a full cast for almost 2 months. I had no friends except for this one kid who for some reason befriended me cause he was over sexed and had no guy friends to talk to about girl's butts and curves. =P Teachers were rude because I'd get pushed over a lot and would hurt my arm and then cry and they'd yell at me about it. I really hated myself then and I ended up being depressed and sleeping a lot. The worst part was, I missed so much school cause of my arm that I had to do homework at home left handed and my teachers didn't care enough and so I kept asking them if they graded my papers and my math teacher screamed that I was annoying!
It sucked!!
In 8th grade- things started getting better! I made friends and I started looking better. My arm was and is still VERY bad! It's causing me to lose friends :/.
But to quote a few things in your blog:
-Even if you didn't give a care what people thought- you still wound up caring in middle school. It was like middle school was not only there to prep you for education in high school but also for socializing in high school. I even felt that way! I said I didn't care but I'd still get upset when people hee-hawed at me in school.
-I did do a lot of crying more than I did in high school. My main high school concern was college, my elbow, and trying to get people for my culinary team. In middle school everyone said everything and even if it wasn't mean it made me cry!
-As for the part about your friends- I noticed that a lot both in middle school and high school. A lot of my “friends” were never truly my friends. They never hung out with me or talked to me outside of school. It wasn't until college was done that I found out what true friends were like.
http://forevera90skid.blogspot.com