Popular Kids and Geeks-How Did They Turn Out?

[Dancing Fire]

[quote="Black Jade|1329535489|

BTW one of the girls who bullied me the most and wouldn't stop ended up swallowing a whole bottle of aspirin one day in a suicide attempt. Fortunately, she didn't die. She was gone from school for a bit and then came back a lot nicer, though I can't say that we exactly became friends. I met her 'gang' years later though at a school reunion--the posse that used to follow her around and laugh while she picked on me, and we had quite a nice evening together--twenty years later, it didn't seem that important, and the fact that they used to pick on me didn't ruin my life or anything, so who cares? They seemed to have grown up happy with themselves and weren't being nasty anymore so we all forgot about it.[/quote]


20 yrs is a long time to wait. you should have kick her butt ...

 

[steph72276]

AN~ I think the reason the SAHM thing keeps being brought up is because you directly responded to my thoughts that a person can consider themselves successful as long as they feel fulfilled in life. I said I do feel successful even after not going the route of a high paying job and instead doing what I was passionate about and teaching, and still feel successful as a SAHM because I have a wonderful life that I wouldn't trade for anything. You then directly responded to me and said "I can't picture myself thinking that a person who sits around all day and does nothing yet feels happy and fulfilled is successful" indicating that is what you think about SAHMs since it was directed at me. But now reading down, I see that is not what you meant it to indicate, at least I think?

Anyway, I stand by my thoughts of my personal definition of success. Each person has their own definition of what is a successful life. To some people it's the school they went to, or the career path they chose, or the amount of money they make. I feel successful because I am able to live a comfortable life with my husband and family and spend my time contributing positively toward society. I raise my kids in a way that they will hopefully contribute positively to society as well when they get older. I volunteer, I give to charity, I help friends in need, etc. along with taking care of my children. The simple fact is I don't need to get a paycheck to feel like I've done something with my life. Now of course if I wasn't married and able to make the choice of staying at home, I would have obviously continued my career as a teacher so that I'm not living off of the government or my parents. But when you get married and start having children, a lot of factors come into play and each family does what's best for their situation. I have a male friend from high school. He was always brilliant and went to an Ivy League school on full scholarship. Know what he does now? He's a stay at home dad. He does this because his wife is a doctor that works really long hours and is on call a lot of nights. Do I now say oh wow, he's a failure of a person, I thought he would do more with his life? Of course not. They could obviously afford to hire a nanny if they wanted to, but that is what he chooses to do because the situation allows him to make that choice and that is what brings him fulfillment. And if that is what my son chooses for himself in the future, I am fine with that as well. To me, there is no point in achieving great success if it doesn't make you happy in the end.

 

[beebrisk]

The concept of "success" is completely subjective. No one's life is ever as it appears to another person and none of us can possibly know how "successful" any person considers themselves--which is, frankly, all that counts. If you think you're successful; great. If you don't; keep working at it--if you want to.

I think the OP meant for this thread to be a light-hearted look at her past vs. present reality which is why I posted about the absolute geekiest kid in my school becoming one of the most popular journalists on network TV. Somehow the discussion has become one big, judgmental, self-righteous, beeotch fest. Oy. Lighten up, people!

 

[Skippy123]

The concept of "success" is completely subjective. No one's life is ever as it appears to another person and none of us can possibly know how "successful" any person considers themselves--which is, frankly, all that counts. If you think you're successful; great. If you don't; keep working at it--if you want to.

I think the OP meant for this thread to be a light-hearted look at her past vs. present reality which is why I posted about the absolute geekiest kid in my school becoming one of the most popular journalists on network TV. Somehow the discussion has become one big, judgmental, self-righteous, beeotch fest. Oy. Lighten up, people!

haha, that is what I think!!! both paragraphs I guess I didn't take this thread that seriously.

eta: this thread reminded me of Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion; anyone see the movie??

 

[TravelingGal]

In my experience with people in general in life.

The nice people stay nice.
The mean people stay mean.
Most people though, are in between.

I have known people to really and honestly change. Fortunately, usually it's bad changing to good--not the other way around.

Most of us do change quite a bit from high school years to adult years--teenagers are hormone-driven, insecure, and ruled more by their peer's opinions than most adults, and in the years between 15 and 25 most people change a lot--mostly for the better, I think. It's called 'maturing'.

I usually think those people are in between (meaning somewhere on a wide spectrum). I haven't known many core rotten people to change in my experience, but that's just my experience. There's usually only a handful of truly mean people in any given high school, if at all. In my HS, I think there were only two, IMHO.

 

[Autumnovember]

AN~ I think the reason the SAHM thing keeps being brought up is because you directly responded to my thoughts that a person can consider themselves successful as long as they feel fulfilled in life. I said I do feel successful even after not going the route of a high paying job and instead doing what I was passionate about and teaching, and still feel successful as a SAHM because I have a wonderful life that I wouldn't trade for anything. You then directly responded to me and said "I can't picture myself thinking that a person who sits around all day and does nothing yet feels happy and fulfilled is successful" indicating that is what you think about SAHMs since it was directed at me. But now reading down, I see that is not what you meant it to indicate, at least I think?

Anyway, I stand by my thoughts of my personal definition of success. Each person has their own definition of what is a successful life. To some people it's the school they went to, or the career path they chose, or the amount of money they make. I feel successful because I am able to live a comfortable life with my husband and family and spend my time contributing positively toward society. I raise my kids in a way that they will hopefully contribute positively to society as well when they get older. I volunteer, I give to charity, I help friends in need, etc. along with taking care of my children. The simple fact is I don't need to get a paycheck to feel like I've done something with my life. Now of course if I wasn't married and able to make the choice of staying at home, I would have obviously continued my career as a teacher so that I'm not living off of the government or my parents. But when you get married and start having children, a lot of factors come into play and each family does what's best for their situation. I have a male friend from high school. He was always brilliant and went to an Ivy League school on full scholarship. Know what he does now? He's a stay at home dad. He does this because his wife is a doctor that works really long hours and is on call a lot of nights. Do I now say oh wow, he's a failure of a person, I thought he would do more with his life? Of course not. They could obviously afford to hire a nanny if they wanted to, but that is what he chooses to do because the situation allows him to make that choice and that is what brings him fulfillment. And if that is what my son chooses for himself in the future, I am fine with that as well. To me, there is no point in achieving great success if it doesn't make you happy in the end.

I will respond to this soon but very quickly, I absolutely did not mean to make it seem that I was directing that at stay at home moms because I believe being a mom is one of the most difficult jobs.

 

[Lottie]

The concept of "success" is completely subjective. No one's life is ever as it appears to another person and none of us can possibly know how "successful" any person considers themselves--which is, frankly, all that counts. If you think you're successful; great. If you don't; keep working at it--if you want to.

I think the OP meant for this thread to be a light-hearted look at her past vs. present reality which is why I posted about the absolute geekiest kid in my school becoming one of the most popular journalists on network TV. Somehow the discussion has become one big, judgmental, self-righteous, beeotch fest. Oy. Lighten up, people!

haha, that is what I think!!! both paragraphs I guess I didn't take this thread that seriously.

eta: this thread reminded me of Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion; anyone see the movie??

Yes! I loved that film when it came out, very Funny.

 

[iLander]

The concept of "success" is completely subjective. No one's life is ever as it appears to another person and none of us can possibly know how "successful" any person considers themselves--which is, frankly, all that counts. If you think you're successful; great. If you don't; keep working at it--if you want to.

I think the OP meant for this thread to be a light-hearted look at her past vs. present reality which is why I posted about the absolute geekiest kid in my school becoming one of the most popular journalists on network TV. Somehow the discussion has become one big, judgmental, self-righteous, beeotch fest. Oy. Lighten up, people!

haha, that is what I think!!! both paragraphs I guess I didn't take this thread that seriously.

eta: this thread reminded me of Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion; anyone see the movie??

Yes! I loved that film when it came out, very Funny.

I have GOT to rent that movie! Yes, that is how this thread was intended.

I think sometimes people like to take things personally . . .

 

[Black Jade]

[quote="Black Jade|1329535489|

BTW one of the girls who bullied me the most and wouldn't stop ended up swallowing a whole bottle of aspirin one day in a suicide attempt. Fortunately, she didn't die. She was gone from school for a bit and then came back a lot nicer, though I can't say that we exactly became friends. I met her 'gang' years later though at a school reunion--the posse that used to follow her around and laugh while she picked on me, and we had quite a nice evening together--twenty years later, it didn't seem that important, and the fact that they used to pick on me didn't ruin my life or anything, so who cares? They seemed to have grown up happy with themselves and weren't being nasty anymore so we all forgot about it.

20 yrs is a long time to wait. you should have kick her butt ... [/quote]

Think how miserable I would be if I had spent twenty years worrying about this! I prefer to let things go.
I'm not (and never was) interested in kicking anyone's anything, life is too short!

 

[justginger]

Yes, from the moment I opened the thread, I thought of that movie - which was funny when I myself was in high school, but can't vouch for it when it comes to adult humor (I remember rewatching the infamous "Clueless" and being gobsmacked that it wasn't anything like what I remembered).

And you make an interesting point, iLander. Some people do naturally take offense to generalized comments more than others - they seeem to enjoy the state of righteous indignation. I used to be VERY much like that, but for me personally it was a function of age/maturity. When I moved to Oz at the tender age of 21, I was on the defensive 24/7, struggling to dispel all the American stereotypes. As time passed, I became more self-assured and picked up a bit of the Australian attitude, then I settled. There's no need to feel as if I am personally being attacked when someone complains about a greedy American company trying to trademark 'Ugg', or cracks a fat American joke, or whinges about the loud American couple who complained about everything on their flight to Melbs. I'm now in the headspace to know a) that's not me they're referring to, b) they're only intended to be passing remarks, and c) there ARE some greedy, fat, annoying Americans out there. I have plenty of verbal ammo about greedy, fat, annoying Australians, if they'd like to hear the score evened.

In general, just because you fit into a category of people being raked over the coals, either humorously or maliciously, there's no need to get your back up and bare your teeth. Relax. You're happy with you, so ignore it. If you're not happy with you, and the comments hit a bit close to home, perhaps think about how you can fix that.

 

[Black Jade]

[quote="Autumnovember|1329540646|Interesting Black Jade. someone very close to me was also severely bullied (head bashed into a car windshield one day..) and there are many, many awful stories I remember. And let me tell ya, her attempted suicide when she was 15 was SURELY because of that.[/quote]

I am so sorry for what happened to your friend. This must be a painful memory and I didn't mean to make you feel bad.

However, I still think other things are probably going on besides bullying when someone commits suicide. I never had my head bashed into a windshield but there was a year when I was thrown on the ground daily after school and kicked by a mob of kids; I had earrings ripped out of my ears so that they bled (not just once, several times); I had my face scratched so deeply that I had the marks for weeks; I was threatened with having my hair cut off--I could go on, but you probably get the idea. This went on for a YEAR.

However, I knew my mother was trying very hard to get it stopped (and she did get me out of that school); I knew that if I could manage to get home, away from the kids, I would then be in a safe place and I knew I hadn't done anything wrong or anything to deserve any of this. I'm not an especially strong person either physically or mentally--I'm little and I've always looked like a target, I look defenceless, which physically I basically am. I just was lucky to have a great support system outside of school and that's what I'm saying, we need to look at what else is going on with kids besides the bullying--the bullying needs to be stopped, but my sense is that that alone is not going to solve things for suicidal kids--that there is generally something else going on, too.

 

[Haven]

Black Jade--I agree that there are often other things going on outside of school for children who commit suicide. Anyone who has taught junior high or high school probably knows all-too-well the pain of losing a student to suicide, as well as the avalanche of insight about home and other personal issues that floods out *after* a child dies. It's so tragic, and I know it's easy to blame the school or a bully, but it is just never that simple.

 

[smitcompton]

Hi,

I think the fact that Balck Jades mom got her out of the school says it was most important to do that for her child. I believe we have selective memory and Black Jade, as a child, couldn't have been as indiffernt as she says. School is important and can make a child unstable if her fellows treat her with malice.

I Lander good post.

I want so badly to know what happened to others in my class. Its as i I want to know the end of the story. I am old so Its like tidying loose ends. I know you meant for the thread to be fun. Some people must feel such guilt in life if they can't poke fun at themselves or others once in a while.
When I was a teenager we had all religions and ethnic backgrounds in my group of friend and acquaintances. We told polish jokes, blond jokes, Catholic jokes, Jewish jokes, Italian joke4s ect. Not one of us ever got mad, even underneath. We laughed together. Many of us are still friends and its a long long time.

Thanks,
Annette

 

[Black Jade]

Hi,

I think the fact that Balck Jades mom got her out of the school says it was most important to do that for her child. I believe we have selective memory and Black Jade, as a child, couldn't have been as indiffernt as she says. School is important and can make a child unstable if her fellows treat her with malice.

I Lander good post. [snip]

Thanks,
Annette

You misread me, I never said I was indifferent to this as a child.
It was extreme suffering, I thought I made that clear.
I said two things that you may have mistaken for meaning that I was indifferent. One was that I never thought of committing suicide (which is what makes me think that other things are going on with the poor children who do so or attempt it). Two, is that these events way in the past are not important at all now in my life. People do get over things, some of them much more unpleasant than being bullied. Which is why it is so sad when kids commit suicide because most likely in a few years whatever it was that was going on would not have mattered to them anymore at all. As adults we realize this, but kids have no perspective. They need someone older who is loving them and working on their behalf, which in my case was not only my mother but also my dad.
If I was from a different kind of family, it might have different, I'm well aware. Which is why I wish that school teachers and counsellors and so on could do more. But they usually don't even have the information, as pointed out in a post above, until AFTERWARDS. Its just way easy to say, but not true, that events like this are because of the other kids bullying or cyberbullying or whatever they think of to do, which I know kids can think of quite a lot to do. People that aren't kids anymore often forget just how inventive in their cruelty kids can be. (I was tormented in grade school, not high school. The cute little grade schoolers can be monstrous, especially in a herd when that whatever it is kicks in, there's a technical name for it, where you no longer feel responsible for whatever it is because there's a group of you doing it, not just one). I didn't forget (though I did forgive and let go) because of what I went through.
I think good can come out of everything (another reason not to commit suicide) and I know I am a different person than I might be otherwise because I was bullied so badly. I notice when other people are being picked on. I notice when other people are being left out or ignored (which can be a form of picking on people, believe me). I am hypersensitive that way, and although I am truly a coward (as I said before, I'm not physically very strong) I WILL speak up when I see someone being picked on. I take steps to include everyone present in conversations and I hate making judgments about people based on their outsides and try to talk to everyone to find out the kind of person they are. I am sure I don't do all this right, but I try.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[MissStepcut]

I will admit that I was a "mean girl" in high school. Not exactly proud of it. I am sure there are people who watch my facebook wishing for a devastating pregnancy or other major failure.

 

[iLander]

I will admit that I was a "mean girl" in high school. Not exactly proud of it. I am sure there are people who watch my facebook wishing for a devastating pregnancy or other major failure.

Never would have called that one, you're so nice now!

But Why? What compelled you to act mean?

I'm asking from a strictly anthropological standpoint, since this type of behavior was/is a mystery to a lot of people.

 

[MissStepcut]

I will admit that I was a "mean girl" in high school. Not exactly proud of it. I am sure there are people who watch my facebook wishing for a devastating pregnancy or other major failure.

Never would have called that one, you're so nice now!

But Why? What compelled you to act mean?

I'm asking from a strictly anthropological standpoint, since this type of behavior was/is a mystery to a lot of people.

There was always a lot of passive aggressiveness and snarkiness in that "circle" of girls. I don't want to make excuses for it, so I will just say it was the culture, and I didn't try to separate myself from it very much. I don't remember it being directed outside that same circle, but then, I suppose it must have been, if nothing else by exclusion.

 

[Laila619]

I see this thread, started as a bit of "isn't life funny", Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion-style, tongue in cheek fun as going downhill very quickly. The ex-geeks are rallying that the person who gave them swirlies is a lifetime WalMart greeter and they're a Nobel Prize winner, and the ex-popular kids are rallying that they were always nice people (bullies conveniently never remember being total asshats) and are happy with 3 pageant-winning children and a house at the lake, all y'all are just still jealous losers. There's already a 2 paragraph soliloquy about how the normal girls never understood the difficulties of being gorgeous... Talk about a can of worms, ilander!

And for the record, I was Jill Average in HS, so thankfully no old wounds or axes to grind!

Bwah hahaha!

I like your post, justginger.

 

[Madam Bijoux]

Life will eventually kick everyone's arse, whether or not they were popular in grade school or high school. A popular guy I knew in grade school and high school ended up working in my office after several other jobs. I don't know what happened to him along the way, but he became a bitter person who didn't have a good word to say about anyone. The people in my office laughed at the cruel remarks he made about co-workers when they were face to face with him, but behind his back they all said they hated him and thought he was horrible.

 

[Madam Bijoux]

Life will eventually kick everyone's arse, whether or not they were popular in grade school or high school. A popular guy I knew in grade school and high school ended up working in my office after several other jobs. I don't know what happened to him along the way, but he became a bitter person who didn't have a good word to say about anyone. The people in my office laughed at the cruel remarks he made about co-workers when they were face to face with him, but behind his back they all said they hated him, did not trust him and thought he was horrible. He'll never know what people really think of him.

 

[Madam Bijoux]

My apologies for the double post. Hopefully, the mean kids mature and become better people.

 

[iLander]

I will admit that I was a "mean girl" in high school. Not exactly proud of it. I am sure there are people who watch my facebook wishing for a devastating pregnancy or other major failure.

Never would have called that one, you're so nice now!

But Why? What compelled you to act mean?

I'm asking from a strictly anthropological standpoint, since this type of behavior was/is a mystery to a lot of people.

There was always a lot of passive aggressiveness and snarkiness in that "circle" of girls. I don't want to make excuses for it, so I will just say it was the culture, and I didn't try to separate myself from it very much. I don't remember it being directed outside that same circle, but then, I suppose it must have been, if nothing else by exclusion.

Then I'm not sure you qualify as a "mean girl" (phew!) It sounds more like you had "frenemies". I think mean girls are just mean to those outside their group, and tend to pick on each other to keep a pecking order. Frenemies just pick on each other. My DD has a couple of friends like this; they're nice sometimes, but just rude and snarky other times. I swear, I wonder if it's just bad PMS or hormones.

At least that's how I think it goes.

It all sounds pretty awful to me, glad you're in a happier place now.

 

[NOYFB]

I haven't read all the posts, but wanted to comment to say that I was a "geek" who now has a graduate degree, a professional license and a pretty impressive job. Another "geek" in my graduating class went on to get a PhD. A kid who no one paid any attention to went on to become a big shot lawyer. The most popular guy in my class --- now works as a wrestling coach for the very same school we graduated from.Oh, and one of the biggest stoners of my class just won $1M in the lottery.

 

[Autumnovember]

[quote="Autumnovember|1329540646|Interesting Black Jade. someone very close to me was also severely bullied (head bashed into a car windshield one day..) and there are many, many awful stories I remember. And let me tell ya, her attempted suicide when she was 15 was SURELY because of that.

I am so sorry for what happened to your friend. This must be a painful memory and I didn't mean to make you feel bad.

However, I still think other things are probably going on besides bullying when someone commits suicide. I never had my head bashed into a windshield but there was a year when I was thrown on the ground daily after school and kicked by a mob of kids; I had earrings ripped out of my ears so that they bled (not just once, several times); I had my face scratched so deeply that I had the marks for weeks; I was threatened with having my hair cut off--I could go on, but you probably get the idea. This went on for a YEAR.

However, I knew my mother was trying very hard to get it stopped (and she did get me out of that school); I knew that if I could manage to get home, away from the kids, I would then be in a safe place and I knew I hadn't done anything wrong or anything to deserve any of this. I'm not an especially strong person either physically or mentally--I'm little and I've always looked like a target, I look defenceless, which physically I basically am. I just was lucky to have a great support system outside of school and that's what I'm saying, we need to look at what else is going on with kids besides the bullying--the bullying needs to be stopped, but my sense is that that alone is not going to solve things for suicidal kids--that there is generally something else going on, too.[/quote]


It wasn't my friend. It actually was a family member and I watched mostly all of the bullying happen and I also watched how much it changed this person and what it did to them psychologically. This went on for YEARS. The support system was more than plentiful and being very honest, there was not anything else going on. I

 

[Circe]

Hm. Though I like where the sentiments are coming from, I have to say that a lot of the commentary on success is coming off a little disingenuous. While I don't think anybody would say the CC graduate or the air conditioner repairman is a less worthwhile human being ... but by the general standards of our society, I think we sort of know what the word success signifies.

Influence.

It can be financial or social (CEO/i-banker vs. talking head/journalist), but that's what it comes down to. Now, we all have different images of the sorts of influence we want - me, I always wanted to shape tender young minds - but at the end of the day, our images have certain commonalities. So ... translate the main question of this thread to, have the people who were influential at 15 remained proportionately influential in adulthood if it makes things better, I guess?

As for me, personally? I'm the biggest geek who ever geeked. I was so unpopular that one time, when I got called onstage during an assembly randomly? I go booed by 500 of my peers. (I took a bow, and ducked a couple of flying objects in the process.) And I was on the road to success by my own standards when I got derailed, and now I'm actually quite happy to just be ... happy.

See, I'm an all-or-nothing kind of gal. I think you're successful when you meet all your goals. I wanted, a) tenure, b) love, c) a family, and d) security. I wound trading (a) for (e), all-of-the-above-except-for-a. So now, I'm just enjoying myself ... and figuring I'll slot in a different goal after I raise my kid(s) while working part-time, 'cause, frankly, I think I care more about my own quality of life than I do about my former classmates opinions. (I hope Tina-the-CC-grad and Mike the AC repairman feel the same, frankly - being an asshat back in the day doesn't mean you're doomed for eternity, I hope.) And gods willing, I have another 50 years to court "success." Count no man happy until he be dead, right?

 

[smitcompton]

Hi Black Jade,

Thnaks for the clarification. I actually did think about this on the weekend. Since I thought you were so indifferent to the horror of getting beaten up, I extrapolated the possiblity that you might be a witch and the bullies could sense that. So glad you cleared that up.

Yes, I do agree that not all terrible experience4 stay with you or damage you permanently. However your bout with ugliness was handled, it was done well. Others could probably learn from it. It saddens me when I hear so many stories that seem to leave such damage on people. I am thrilled you overcame this. You had great parents!.

Circie, you make such good sense.

Annette