It bothered me for a while that I don’t seem to fit in anywhere. I fit in everywhere. No matter who I am with, my personality adapts. That left me to wonder who I really was, and who I was going to be. Now, as this adult thing-a-ma-jig, I don’t care anymore. I never cared, I just thought I was supposed to.
My high school wasn’t particularly cliquey, but everyone had a group for the most part. People they felt the most comfortable around. I spent my freshman and sophomore year trying to find that group with little success. The cheerleaders liked me, the jocks thought I was cool (enough), the nerds thought I was smart (enough), and the outsiders liked that I treated them as a human. I mostly ate lunch with people I knew in middle school, and we were kind of the mish mash of different personalities and interests. The group often varied from week to week because my friends would introduce us to people and we would always accept them. Basically, I hung out with the nice kids and the ones who were always left out because one of us would inevitably invite them to eat lunch with us.
Apparently, that wasn’t good enough for me. I noticed other lunch tables that had other kids I liked to talk to. I wanted to sit with them sometimes. But I didn’t want to split loyalties, so I didn’t. I would walk by and talk to them, but they never invited me to sit with them or anything. After a while I made friends with some kids who always ate lunch alone or with their significant other, so I made an effort to talk to them too. By junior year, lunch became very stressful because I wanted to talk to everyone I thought was cool and wanted to get to know better, which was hard to do in half an hour. Then people who actually wanted to be friends got confused as to why I didn’t eat lunch with them as much anymore. It was very confusing. I table-hopped a lot, trying to fit in with someone the best.
I went to Sno-Isle my junior year, though. That meant I only went to my high school for three class periods. The rest was spent in one classroom. So I became closer to the ones that I rode the bus with and the ones that were in my year-long classes. It was around that time I thought I fit best in the nerd group. At long last! I had found where I belonged!
Or so I thought. The thing with most of my nerdy friends is that they have always been nerds and spent their whole lives doing nerdy things, like playing video games and reading fantasy literature. I didn’t. I read books, but not the ones they did. I didn’t particularly care for video games except Portal, which was probably why I embraced it so tightly. It was the only genuine interest I had that helped me relate to these nerdy, sarcastic boys. They all liked me ok, because I would research what they liked to talk about (i.e. a video game I’d never play) so I could contribute. Besides, out of all the groups I adapted to fit into, I felt most comfortable here. They were sarcastic, but incredibly smart and logical, and that was awesome. As high school boys are, though, they were also incredibly immature and dirty-minded. I didn’t mind at the time.
Senior year was, I think, when I was the strongest and most mature, which kind of goes without saying. In Sno-Isle I always worked with the same group, and I found out that I was always my team’s leader for some reason. I’d always thought of myself as more of a follower, but I’d need to take charge or else nothing would get done. For some reason, these nerdy, sarcastic boys listened to me. If they were really slacking, I would baby them until they straightened out. Or if they were trying their best and hated it, I would empathize, because I felt the same way. That worked with them. My adaptation skills actually came in handy. By the end of the year, we were the group that got the most done, despite our teacher having a brain hemorrhage and being absent the majority of the school year. Of course, I don’t take credit for all of it or anything, because I wasn’t technically the team leader. Another classmate of mine always wanted to be it, because he thought he was good at it. I let him take the title and when he would break under stress and snap at our teammates, I would calm him down and give everyone their jobs according to how much work they’re capable of doing. I hated almost every second of it due to stress and my own procrastination, but I learned a lot about myself and where I fit best.
By the end of the year, I took a step back and looked at all the friends I made. They were all nerdy people, but it’s not like I seeked them out because they were nerds and I was one too. It just happened. I guess it was a nerd group, but it didn’t feel like it. It didn’t even feel like a group. There were at least two groups that would sit next to each other that I hopped back and forth between. Then there were some individuals who would just pop in once a week or so. Almost everyone had other groups of friends that they were closer to who I wouldn’t hang out with. Most of us drifted apart, inevitably. Nobody (with the exception of Hayley) really thought of me as their buddy or close friend. And the feeling was mutual. They were just cool people I liked to talk to, and I really liked it. It was the perfect group. There was no commitment behind it or anything, it was just a casual friendship. I think that’s how high school friends should be, at least for me. It made it a lot less sad when I graduated, let me tell you. The only thing that made me genuinely sad was the fact that my AP Lit class was over.
Then I started wondering if I really was a nerd, because I related to so few. I liked the idea of a nerd being someone who is unironically enthusiastic about something that they care about. But that just makes the athlete a sports-nerd and the girly girl a makeup-nerd. That completely changes the stereotype. I struggled to place what I was.
Finally, I came to the adult conclusion. Adults. Don’t. Care. I don’t know any adults that go around telling people about how much of a nerd they are or how preppy they are. Who cares!? Just be you. It doesn’t need a label attached to it. There’s more important things to do.
It doesn’t matter that I feel the most comfortable around sarcastic adults who are significantly older than me. It doesn’t make me anything, nerd or otherwise. It really doesn’t matter, never did. It only appeared to matter in high school. I’m simply a person. There’s not a specific group I fit perfectly into, there’s just people that I enjoy being around more than others. Those people tend to have similar traits. That’s all.
And one of these days I’ll find someone who likes to discuss books as much as I do. Then my so-called quest will be complete.
My high school wasn’t particularly cliquey, but everyone had a group for the most part. People they felt the most comfortable around. I spent my freshman and sophomore year trying to find that group with little success. The cheerleaders liked me, the jocks thought I was cool (enough), the nerds thought I was smart (enough), and the outsiders liked that I treated them as a human. I mostly ate lunch with people I knew in middle school, and we were kind of the mish mash of different personalities and interests. The group often varied from week to week because my friends would introduce us to people and we would always accept them. Basically, I hung out with the nice kids and the ones who were always left out because one of us would inevitably invite them to eat lunch with us.
Apparently, that wasn’t good enough for me. I noticed other lunch tables that had other kids I liked to talk to. I wanted to sit with them sometimes. But I didn’t want to split loyalties, so I didn’t. I would walk by and talk to them, but they never invited me to sit with them or anything. After a while I made friends with some kids who always ate lunch alone or with their significant other, so I made an effort to talk to them too. By junior year, lunch became very stressful because I wanted to talk to everyone I thought was cool and wanted to get to know better, which was hard to do in half an hour. Then people who actually wanted to be friends got confused as to why I didn’t eat lunch with them as much anymore. It was very confusing. I table-hopped a lot, trying to fit in with someone the best.
I went to Sno-Isle my junior year, though. That meant I only went to my high school for three class periods. The rest was spent in one classroom. So I became closer to the ones that I rode the bus with and the ones that were in my year-long classes. It was around that time I thought I fit best in the nerd group. At long last! I had found where I belonged!
Or so I thought. The thing with most of my nerdy friends is that they have always been nerds and spent their whole lives doing nerdy things, like playing video games and reading fantasy literature. I didn’t. I read books, but not the ones they did. I didn’t particularly care for video games except Portal, which was probably why I embraced it so tightly. It was the only genuine interest I had that helped me relate to these nerdy, sarcastic boys. They all liked me ok, because I would research what they liked to talk about (i.e. a video game I’d never play) so I could contribute. Besides, out of all the groups I adapted to fit into, I felt most comfortable here. They were sarcastic, but incredibly smart and logical, and that was awesome. As high school boys are, though, they were also incredibly immature and dirty-minded. I didn’t mind at the time.
Senior year was, I think, when I was the strongest and most mature, which kind of goes without saying. In Sno-Isle I always worked with the same group, and I found out that I was always my team’s leader for some reason. I’d always thought of myself as more of a follower, but I’d need to take charge or else nothing would get done. For some reason, these nerdy, sarcastic boys listened to me. If they were really slacking, I would baby them until they straightened out. Or if they were trying their best and hated it, I would empathize, because I felt the same way. That worked with them. My adaptation skills actually came in handy. By the end of the year, we were the group that got the most done, despite our teacher having a brain hemorrhage and being absent the majority of the school year. Of course, I don’t take credit for all of it or anything, because I wasn’t technically the team leader. Another classmate of mine always wanted to be it, because he thought he was good at it. I let him take the title and when he would break under stress and snap at our teammates, I would calm him down and give everyone their jobs according to how much work they’re capable of doing. I hated almost every second of it due to stress and my own procrastination, but I learned a lot about myself and where I fit best.
By the end of the year, I took a step back and looked at all the friends I made. They were all nerdy people, but it’s not like I seeked them out because they were nerds and I was one too. It just happened. I guess it was a nerd group, but it didn’t feel like it. It didn’t even feel like a group. There were at least two groups that would sit next to each other that I hopped back and forth between. Then there were some individuals who would just pop in once a week or so. Almost everyone had other groups of friends that they were closer to who I wouldn’t hang out with. Most of us drifted apart, inevitably. Nobody (with the exception of Hayley) really thought of me as their buddy or close friend. And the feeling was mutual. They were just cool people I liked to talk to, and I really liked it. It was the perfect group. There was no commitment behind it or anything, it was just a casual friendship. I think that’s how high school friends should be, at least for me. It made it a lot less sad when I graduated, let me tell you. The only thing that made me genuinely sad was the fact that my AP Lit class was over.
Then I started wondering if I really was a nerd, because I related to so few. I liked the idea of a nerd being someone who is unironically enthusiastic about something that they care about. But that just makes the athlete a sports-nerd and the girly girl a makeup-nerd. That completely changes the stereotype. I struggled to place what I was.
Finally, I came to the adult conclusion. Adults. Don’t. Care. I don’t know any adults that go around telling people about how much of a nerd they are or how preppy they are. Who cares!? Just be you. It doesn’t need a label attached to it. There’s more important things to do.
It doesn’t matter that I feel the most comfortable around sarcastic adults who are significantly older than me. It doesn’t make me anything, nerd or otherwise. It really doesn’t matter, never did. It only appeared to matter in high school. I’m simply a person. There’s not a specific group I fit perfectly into, there’s just people that I enjoy being around more than others. Those people tend to have similar traits. That’s all.
And one of these days I’ll find someone who likes to discuss books as much as I do. Then my so-called quest will be complete.
