What were you like in high school?

[_Lynn_]

Sorry you had to go through that. I have found more wisdom in satire films liked Unpregnant and Saved! regarding such circumstances than I have in other more judgmental media. That’s the main reason I’m pro-choice.

Thank you.

I learned a lot from the struggles and challenges though. And without it all, I wouldn't be the person I am today.

 

[obladi]

I was, and pretty much still, a nerd. Difference is I didn't get my period until late so kind of flat. Painful to watch my friends with blossoming boobs lol

Small boobs are the hottest. I know a many an older woman that is less than appreciative of their large, sagging boobs. Please appreciate what you have, and what you are. Okay, Dad rant off.

 

[MrPixel]

Small boobs are the hottest.

Uh huh. I agree. Some of the ladies here are going to hate me for saying this (you're free to use the angry "like"), but my direct experience as a frequenter of nudist resorts is small-breasted women tend to keep their youthful figures longer.

 

[Winter_Fare]

Sometimes I wish I could go back and show my younger self what I've seen. Being bullied is never because of something you've done or something you are, it's the bully who's deficient.

 

[WyreBendr0417]

In high school, I was a mere shell of my later self. Never quite fitting in anywhere, and quite uncomfortable with that realization. I still don't fit into many circles, but I've accepted it with a huge dose of 'I don't give a fuck-edness.' Life gets complicated when you spend all your time trying to be something you know you are not. We are who we are.

 

[Bamagan]

Approximately 14-18.
Apologies if this joke was already made.

 

[LetsMisBehave]

Introverted intellectual with just enough social awareness to be accepted by my classmates as a good egg. Full of self doubt and better at being friends with girls then attracting them. Eighteen year old me was a kinder but more ineffectual man than the grown up me.
I remember rebelling against the unofficial uniform of jeans and T-shirt oustside school. Fair enough. The brown denim jacket with a kipper tie was still a fashion crime.

 

[Mastered_again]

High school. I was the good girl, working part time at the local library (children's department). Started full time after graduation (1974, so, yeah, I'm old). It wasn't until I got a new job for an engineering company that I started to explore the world. More fashionable clothes, trying new foods (I grew up on a meat and potatoes diet), meeting people from foreign countries, and, of course, dating. Then I met this guy, we liked each other, but for the next 3 years, seems one of us was always dating someone else. Finally, at a typical Friday night get together at a local bar, our friends pretended they had to leave, so we'd be alone. IT could have been a one night stand, but nearly 40 years later, we're still together. I've learned a lot and done things that I wouldn't/couldn't imagine when I was in high school. My apologies if this is TMI

 

[MetaBob]

I was comfortable in junior high but my family moved me to another state the day before high school started, straight from the farm. I didn't find my tribe for two years. In the meantime I was in the high school band, an outstanding band, getting invited to high-profile parades that you've heard of all over the state and to play the national anthem in MLB ballparks, indeed to a presidential inauguration, but they weren't my tribe. I wrestled on the team for two years but they weren't my people, either. It wasn't until I went out for cross-country that I really found something to love: I loved running. It's not like I was terribly good at it, but I found my place, and my teammates became my closest friends if they weren't already. I was too big and athletic to get picked on, except a few times (thanks-no-thanks for the wedgie, cutie) by girls who I suspect liked me but didn't know how to say so (and I certainly didn't!).

I was scared to death of girls. No prom, no dances, no way (except that one fundraiser for which I didn't get onto the floor until the last couple hours, under duress). I was a math/science geek, playing chess and Monopoly and D&D and a few other board games with my (male) friends. But I also had a wonderful freshman Honors English teacher who introduced me to science fiction. I became a voracious reader, haunting the mall booksellers. Later, she told me she was disappointed that I was heading into a STEM career, because after enough voracious reading, she also thought I could write (and even act!). She even wrote me a letter of reference to Princeton, though I didn't go. Yeah, I got good grades.

It wasn't until I started working in a department store that I started to have comfortable interactions with women. A couple cheerleaders asked me out, and the one in school (a petite redhead two classes behind me) was aghast when I ran the other way. But there was little pressure at the department store, everyone dressed nicely, I looked good enough in nice clothes to get asked to model for the store, and everyone (usually) behaved well. Some of the female salespeople my age were beyond merely cute, and at least three of them also seemed like wonderful people. There was also the other cheerleader who went to a rival school, and when that sexy queen bee in fishnets saw me bonding with a non-cheerleader, she came over, monopolized the interaction with me, and left that other young woman, who I really liked, crushed. I had no idea what to do except to apologize later.

My Dad made me go to Europe as a foreign exchange student one summer. I did NOT want to go, but it ended up being the highlight of my young life.

College was so so much better.

 

[AmandaKellyUK]

Think St Trinians and its not far off

 

[MillieDynamite]

For me, high school wasn't meant to be. My folks caught me up with my education before high school. I even tried to go for a time. I was a black girl with white parents. I didn't handle teasing well, and when boys flirted with me, I got hostile with them. I was a tiny terror who knew where and how to hurt guys and did. My sophomore year (the only one I was actually in school) didn't go well on any front.

Teachers considered me a troublemaker. I didn't fit into any group, sport, or niche, nor did I try to make friends. I took pride in being an outsider. The only place I felt at home, other than my parents' house, was the theater. I was kind and polite to everyone while there. But anyone took a break with me, and I pushed them away. This and the fact that I made actual enemies insured (or ensured?) my folks would homeschool me.

At that time, that was what I wanted. Once I had my GED and decided to move out and get a job, I began to change. Meeting Jo saved me from ending up back out working on the street. That and the thought of my father finding out I'd fallen back into old habits. When I went to work in security, I ended up working for a man who'd been a PI and had partnered with my dad. When he discovered I was Dad's adopted kid, he moved me into the PI side of the company.

I didn't go back to the 10-year reunion in 2017, even though I was invited. I did run into some of them that weekend because I was visiting my folks. One of the football players, who tried several times to date me, told me in the end he was scared to death of me. "I was just one spooky little girl," he said. That's a height and weight thing, the little girl thing, I mean.

 

[Krigirl1233]

A brat

 

[Zrosey]

I was a very introverted, shy kid in high school. Terribly confused about my gender feelings, and felt so lost as I was raised in a very religious background. pretty sure I would have been bullied and beaten up had i been out as transgender.
Even so I had some nice friends, we tended to be on the periphery of the goth scene.

 

[Abbafan]

Eskimo.

 

[Blind_Justice]

When I began attending the boarding school for the blind at seventh grade, I came from a small, rural school and was the quiet, studious guy who listened to a lot of strange British goth music. The metal kids mercilessly picked on me until I had enough. My dad always told me I shouldn't answer bullying with violence, but that day they tossed a literal bucket load of pollen in my hay-fevered face, I snapped. I grabbed their biggest bully and decked him with a few well-aimed punches.

The bullying stopped from one day to the next. Suddenly I found metal mixtapes on my table, with notes like "educate yourself" stuck to them and eventually I ended up a member of that circle. And boy, did I educate myself. I ended up liking the "weird" stuff. While everyone else was into Metallica and Megadeth, I listened to King Diamond, Savatage and Sanctuary. And when the death metal explosion went off in the early '90s, I was the weird guy again, preferring the Swedish, more melodic stuff to the sledgehammer-to-face American noise (which was very good too, like Morbid Angel or Death, but Cannibal Corpse can fuck right off. Way too technical for me)

I turned from a quiet, reserved kid into a very unfiltered, "class clown" type of person. Became a musician too. I was a decent drummer (not Neil Peart, more Phil Rudd - steady, with a powerful groove), an OK bassist and halfway decent keyboard player. (look below at the Bandcamp page for the stuff my lady love and I are making). Unlike many other metalheads, I kept hard partying to a sane degree and kept an open mind for other music genres. I shared a dorm room with a massive hip-hop nerd for two years and we educated each other - I learned to appreciate the fine art of gangsta rap and he became a fan of the "barbarian metal" style, the music Manowar and Manilla Road played.

My love life at the time was, to put it mildly, total chaos. I tried to date lots of girls, collected rejections like other people collected stamps. My first long-term relationship, all of two years, began when a friend of mine asked me if I could show her where the clothing stores were. She was a fully blind, shy, reserved girl with ambitions of becoming a lawyer and we'd been classmates, maybe loose friends ever since I've given her a Clannad compilation when she was very sick. She said she needed to do a bit of emergency shopping and none of the dorm staff were available that afternoon. Anyway, since I had a bit of eyesight and a lot of time that afternoon, I took her to the shopping district and she gleefully announced that she needed help buying some bras and panties. Well, I did help pick out some sets, she said "I'd model them for you, if you want." I had been absolutely clueless up to that point she was hitting on me, but after THAT announcement, we kinda sorta became an item for two years. She grounded me, even helped curtail some of my more self-destructive tendencies. While many of my metalhead friends ended up drunk in a dorm cellar somewhere, I spent cosy evenings with my girlfriend. And no, the others didn't mercilessly mock me - after all I HAD a girlfriend while they were still jerking off to naughty audio dramas.

Sadly, idiot me fucked things up with said girlfriend when we entered our final years and her workload meant we ended up seeing each other less and less. My hormones ran rampant and I ended up fucking around behind her back and the girl I was doing it with demanded I cut my ties to my girlfriend. If I did, she swore, I could have her anywhere, any which way. Well, horny me did what she asked and I ditched my girlfriend of then two years and eight months and I returned to the dorm the other girl and I shared. I was deeply depressed and horny as fuck and when I came to her room to claim my prize, she grinned, flipped me the bird and said she just wanted to see if I really had the balls to go through with it. And she hated my girlfriend's guts, so making her miserable was a bonus too.

Not my finest moment. A few months of self-enforced celibacy on my part later I met my lady love during band practice and the first thing I did was try and strangle her with a guitar strap. We've been together for the past twenty-eight years, murderous beginnings be damned

If there's been a class reunion, I haven't been invited to it. But I'm pretty sure after half a decade being cooped up together, most of us were happy to be dispersed to the winds again. We came from all over Germany, some even from abroad (Austria, Switzerland) and after the Abitur, most of us went our seperate ways. I am still in contact with my ex and we're on pretty good terms, all things considered. But the others? No clue and not much desire to find out.

 

[davion2308]

I graduated in 2000 so consider me a 90s kid.

I was a mix of athletic, strong, and I played sports. I also enjoyed friendships with the folks in the math and science classes, I liked Warhammer and D&D, so I mixed it up with just about everyone.

I also learned early on to emotionally support all people and while I wasn't taking stands for anyone in particular, I was friendly with just about everyone. Over the years, people have reached out to me because I was an accepting guy in high school and they appreciated that.

I roved all the social circles and never really ended up in a specific one. I was a wanderer with my friends.

 

[Series 6]

I went to high school in the mid 80's. I was basically a "second tier" jock. I wasn't a star athlete, but I was on the football team and indoor and outdoor track teams. Football I was JV/Scout Team. Keep in mind, the team was nationally ranked. Track I was that 3rd guy on a relay team who could get enough points to earn varsity letters as a sophomore and junior. I was considered well-liked, but I was definitely not one of the popular kids, if that makes sense. I was friendly, but too shy to ask girls out.

My senior year I was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident. My class was VERY supportive and I think gave me a little confidence in myself.

As a student I was really lazy and barely graduated. Which is funny because I am going back to college now and am highly driven and haven't gotten anything lower than an A-.

 

[MindYaBitness]

I was/am extroverted and had a few really close friends, but floated in & out if any social circle pretty easily. My friends were all athletic, I can't "sports" in any way, but I'm pretty coordinated so I tried out for and got on cheer. I was in choir & drama, and was involved in all of our plays. I loved to laugh, and am always the clown of the group, and it was no different then. I've always been comfortable in my own skin & very confident, which strangely made me unapproachable to the opposite sex. (of course I had insecurities, but I tried not to let them dominate me)

I saw a boy in the hall freshman year, after 3rd period, he always walked by my best friends locker. He looked like Johnny Depp & Lou Diamond Phillip's love child. He was just "hot senior" until I learned his name a few months later. We've been married for 25 years now.

 

[jasperrocks51]

I was the first full-blown hippie in my high school, shoulder length hair, bell bottoms, beads...this was from 66-69 in WVa. I was shy, and went through periods where I avoided talking completely. I was terrified a lot of the time, and despised, to the point that I can remember wishing I could have a belt, with a button I could push, which would create a shield to protect me from the bad vibes that were a continuous part of my day. And, it taught me some valuable lessons. I began to observe that there were kids who were more alienated than me (for different reasons), and I made it a point to include them in my life. This was the birth of compassion in me, which is now a core value.

 

[colddiesel]

I never went to High School. Although the leaving age was raised to 15 in England in 1947 it was not applied in Scotland so I left at age 14. I spent the next few years before I joined the army fixing things on fishing boats in NW Scotland working for a local man. There was only 3 of us and we had to handle every mechanical, electrical and construction issue which came up. In hindsight it was a terrific practical training and much better for me than the High school then medical school which both my elder sisters attended.

 

[AchtungNight]

I was the first full-blown hippie in my high school, shoulder length hair, bell bottoms, beads...this was from 66-69 in WVa. I was shy, and went through periods where I avoided talking completely. I was terrified a lot of the time, and despised, to the point that I can remember wishing I could have a belt, with a button I could push, which would create a shield to protect me from the bad vibes that were a continuous part of my day. And, it taught me some valuable lessons. I began to observe that there were kids who were more alienated than me (for different reasons), and I made it a point to include them in my life. This was the birth of compassion in me, which is now a core value.

Thinking about using this background with my work’s most prominent hippie character. If it’s ok with you. Just know that for him- a gay hippie tabloid reporter- the shield has to be a bit thicker. And the compassion greater too. Especially when he meets an albino of Gypsy-Jew heritage going through similar struggles. Both these characters have been featured in my work before but their backgrounds can always use more depth. Heh.

Colddiesel- I applaud you for getting through your non school training and finding value in it. My family pretty much assumed I would require school training to get a good career and pushed me into college even though I wasn’t sure about what I wanted to do there. I got a degree that they didn’t entirely like just to get out, then went looking for careers that could give me practical skills over classroom experience. Still in the factory industry retaining my security skills today. And I’m a writer too.

 

[djrip]

I was the first full-blown hippie in my high school, shoulder length hair, bell bottoms, beads...this was from 66-69 in WVa. I was shy, and went through periods where I avoided talking completely. I was terrified a lot of the time, and despised, to the point that I can remember wishing I could have a belt, with a button I could push, which would create a shield to protect me from the bad vibes that were a continuous part of my day. And, it taught me some valuable lessons. I began to observe that there were kids who were more alienated than me (for different reasons), and I made it a point to include them in my life. This was the birth of compassion in me, which is now a core value.

The shield reminds me of how much I used to fervently wish, as a child, for the ability to stop time so I could have as long as I wanted without anyone bothering me, to just imagine stuff, and maybe read, without having to be interrupted by all the things and people in real life intruding constantly.

 

[jasperrocks51]

The shield reminds me of how much I used to fervently wish, as a child, for the ability to stop time so I could have as long as I wanted without anyone bothering me, to just imagine stuff, and maybe read, without having to be interrupted by all the things and people in real life intruding constantly.

I understand completely, and even in grade school I didn't fit in. I spent a lot of time day-dreaming in class just to escape. This was in a catholic school, and even though I'd tested with a high IQ, I only got middling grades. Our report cards had a section based on IQ called "Quality of Work According to Ability", and I never got above a C. I just didn't care, I didn't want to be there. After reading Stranger in a Strange Land, and later, Steppenwolf, the world began to finally make sense. I fully embraced being an outsider, and it has served me well. In order to survive, and not succumb to the pressure to conform, it built a rock solid character that could withstand the headwinds of going in a different direction than the rest of the world.

 

[jasperrocks51]

Thinking about using this background with my work’s most prominent hippie character. If it’s ok with you. Just know that for him- a gay hippie tabloid reporter- the shield has to be a bit thicker. And the compassion greater too. Especially when he meets an albino of Gypsy-Jew heritage going through similar struggles. Both these characters have been featured in my work before but their backgrounds can always use more depth. Heh.

Colddiesel- I applaud you for getting through your non school training and finding value in it. My family pretty much assumed I would require school training to get a good career and pushed me into college even though I wasn’t sure about what I wanted to do there. I got a degree that they didn’t entirely like just to get out, then went looking for careers that could give me practical skills over classroom experience. Still in the factory industry retaining my security skills today. And I’m a writer too.

Of course, if anything about my history is useful, be my guest. And if you need more, I'd be happy to supply more details.

 

[jasperrocks51]

Thinking about using this background with my work’s most prominent hippie character. If it’s ok with you. Just know that for him- a gay hippie tabloid reporter- the shield has to be a bit thicker. And the compassion greater too. Especially when he meets an albino of Gypsy-Jew heritage going through similar struggles. Both these characters have been featured in my work before but their backgrounds can always use more depth. Heh.

Colddiesel- I applaud you for getting through your non school training and finding value in it. My family pretty much assumed I would require school training to get a good career and pushed me into college even though I wasn’t sure about what I wanted to do there. I got a degree that they didn’t entirely like just to get out, then went looking for careers that could give me practical skills over classroom experience. Still in the factory industry retaining my security skills today. And I’m a writer too.

Amen on more compassion. I've thought about this a lot, and more than any other concept/quality/idea, the world would be transformed in an instant if compassion were practiced. But, most people are locked into their conditioning, and self interest. There is a catch though, to allow compassion to take over our lives, there's a really, really scary step that precedes it...and that is becoming vulnerable. And this scares the shit out of most people. It scared the shit out of me too, but I did it, I broke through my fears, my shields, my masks...and it transformed me, and I've never been the same since.