Via TJBNYC76 @ Flickr.
Ladies, I don’t know about you, but my junior high and high school years were fraught. I was nerdy, sharp-tongued, barely dated and was much more interested in reading and studying than in drinking, partying or boys. The Queen Bees of my high school did not have much use for me and my bookishness and unstylish clothes, and they let me know it. When I first read Margaret Atwood’s novel Cat’s Eye, a shiver of recognition ran down my spine and a few faces from junior high swam in front of me. I don’t look back on my teenage years with any pleasure; you’ll never hear me fondly reminiscing about them as “the best years of my life.” (I’ve always thought that anyone who said that must have shipped out to a war zone or a maximum security prison immediately after graduation).
But at 17 I graduated and went off to college, where I found plenty of like-minded geeks, had a couple serious boyfriends, and then moved to New York City, where the dating took off like a rocket and the bookishness provided me with steady, fulfilling employment. I created a truly happy, satisfying life for myself, but aside from a small handful of close friends, I never kept up with anyone from high school, nor did I ever look up anyone during my frequent visits home. Looking back, I suspect that my unpleasant teenage experiences were vital to my adult success—they helped me develop a thick skin, self-reliance, a good bullshit detector, and an ability to say “fuck you” and walk away where appropriate. All of this proved extremely handy when I moved to New York and entered a hyper-competitive, often bitchy, industry.
Yet, oddly enough, when I joined Facebook a year ago, the first people to send me friend requests were girls—women, now—from high school. I hadn’t talked with any of them in at least 15 years. How they found me, I’m not sure. But when they did, I was torn. On one hand, I was wildly curious to know where life had taken them, and on the other I was confused, and slightly irritated. Why did they want to be friends now, after being so unfriendly in high school? But my curiosity got the best of me, and I clicked “accept”, figuring I could always find out what they were up to and then quietly de-friend them later.
What happened next came as a total shock. It turned out that these girls had grown up into nice women. Most of them were married, with children, which I am not. The vast majority were still living in or around where we grew up, which I am not. They were as different from me as adults as they’d been when we were teens. But all of them expressed real pleasure at having reconnected, and I was suddenly swamped with compliments: “You look amazing!” and “You were always so smart!” and “I totally envied you back then because you were so confident!” O rly? That’s not quite how I remember it, girls. It’s odd how despite my success and happiness in my adult life, a mere whiff of those teenage years pulls me right back into my defensive, 15-year-old, fuck-you mindset.
But despite my initial cynicism, I came to realize that their friendliness and desire to reconnect were genuine. I took the compliments and ran with them, and discovered that whatever nasty mean-girl demons had possessed these women as teenagers, they were for the most part fully exorcised. To my surprise I discovered real, unexpected pleasure revisiting our shared experiences. Two of the women who frequently drop by my Facebook page were my best friends in 8th grade—we had a tight little clique of mall-ratting and phone-calling and sleepovers when I was 13. By high school, however, they’d dropped me, almost overnight and without any explanation. I think they found me too serious and geeky when the high school partying and boy-chasing began in earnest. The rejection stung at the time, but I found different friends, and hadn’t thought about them in years, until they both friended me on Facebook. One is now a successful lawyer in Florida, the other an active full-time mom in my hometown. They both have adorable kids and seem happy and it’s been a delight to chat with them and share our lives in this casual, on-line way. Go figure. If you had told me all this would happen back when I graduated high school and left town for good, I would have laughed in your face (or, more likely, flipped you the bird). Life is strange. But I’m thankful to Facebook for reconnecting me, and for, in many ways, redeeming my teenage years and the girls I spent them with.
I have more friends from high school now than I did in high school. I was a cheerleader that was in all AP and honors classes. The cheerleaders hated me because I was a dork (not that I had any interest in socializing with them anyway) and the kids in my classes hated me because I was a cheerleader. I had few friends and hated high school immensely. I was one of the few to leave my hometown and went to Boston for college. I discovered who I really was, and came into my own.
Coming back home, I was shocked by how willing people from high school were to reconnect with me. But I also found that not only had they changed, but because I had, too, it was easier to make friends with these people that I had always found to be so different from me. I carry myself differently and am happy and content with who I am, and that makes other people happier and accepting of who I am, too.
And I think that girls are so bitchy and mean in high school because, deep down, they really are just insecure teenagers. To put someone else down brings them up and makes them feel better about themselves. Their meanness masks their insecurity and doubt. And once they’ve matured and are not longer insecure little girls, there is not the need to be mean to those who are different than them. There is no need to mock someone for being smart, when the truth is that they are probably just intimidated by and jealous of her intelligence.
When you are more secure in yourself and your life, you are more accepting of other people’s as well.
Oh good, it’s not just me.
One of the first people to out of the blue friend me on Facebook was a girl from high school, and I remember being particularly nonplussed. In retrospect, she wasn’t the WORST of my tormentors, but she did her fair share, and we sure as hell weren’t friends. But I friended her back, since I was curious – she’s still at home, a single mom but just got engaged – and this prompted a veritable deluge of friending requests, mostly from people I had planned to never see again.
I think part of it is what Britni said – I was very insecure, had very low self-esteem in high school, and if they’d taken a vote on who the most likely to have an interesting career in New York City was, it sure as hell wouldn’t have been me.
I was extremely lucky to go to a very, very small high school that was pretty much devoid of cliques and queen bees. But I was still miserable and self-isolating because I always felt (and still feel) “weird.” Even though I probably have about 15-20 Facebook friends from my high school (all very cool people), I still have those same insecurities. My 10 year reunion is in May and I still haven’t RSVP’d because I am scared they will not think I am as cool as my Facebook alter ego! And then I wonder why I care.
High school was actually better to me than grades 6-8 in which, among other things, I received A Letter from a certain clique of girls explaining that my friendship services were no longer required.
Hilariously, the author of said letter is now an FB friend for no reason whatsoever – she wrote this long chatty email requesting it. She has these weird lame photoshopped pictures of her wedding in Hawaii and does community theatre productions of No No Nanette. Schadenfreude, thy name is Pilgrim Soul.
However! I hated adolescence so much I actually refused to apply for Supreme Court clerkships on grounds of being unable to live there ever again.
@P.Soul: I think I got a letter like that in 8th grade from a different group of girls, explaining why they didn’t want me to sit at their lunch table [cringe]. Thank God we grew up before IM and Facebook and e-mail, b/c I’m sure that kind of thing is infinitely worse now that mass communication and groupthink is so much easier on-line.
Incidentally, SarahMC lives right near my high school, which was recently completely demolished and rebuilt. I wanted to built a bonfire and dance around it after the wrecking balls did their work.
i now realize that i would have done better in school had i actually liked high school. i was nerdtastic and a dork on top of that, and my parents were strict and didn’t dress me in the latest designer clothes, not that i would have had the body for them anyway. my thirtysomething self cringes at my attempts at friendship in my teenage years with girls who personified the word “bitch” and had no problem stabbing me in the back at every turn. oh yeah, and all those backstabbers friended me on facebook.
i have a big reunion coming up and it’s not surprising to see all the cliquey popular girls still hanging out with each other, all married and mothered off, all still looking perfect on their facebook pages. i went to my 10 year reunion which lived up to the phrase “once a bitch, always a bitch”. after the reunion i was mystified at how stupid people can still be and my mom said “oh, wait until the 20. life hasn’t really happened to most people 10 years out of school. in 20 years, the real stuff happens, and it’s a leveller for everyone.”
i really, really hope she’s right.
@Becky – I was just talking to one of (my two total) friends I’ve had since high school about how miserable life would have been if Facebook or MySpace had existed. All we had was AIM and 3-way calling, which was more than enough to ruin friendships and cause endless heartbreak.
I’ve only been really surprised by a former classmate’s Facebook info once or twice, which itself is surprising. I guess those of us in the drama department were so, uh, dramatic to begin with we didn’t manage to do anything really shocking in the past 10 years.
High school was neither the best time of my life nor the worst. I was smart, very involved in nerdtastic activities like band, the paper, and the Quiz Bowl team, and I had a small group of core girlfriends (most of whom I had known since the third grade) with whom I’m still in touch to this day. They’re the types who, whenever we get together, even if we haven’t spoken in months, we can just pick back up wherever we left off. I was in student council and most of my AP classes with all the popular kids, so we were friendly even though we didn’t hang out outside of our school activities. Now I’m Facebook friends with most of them, and we’re still the same sort of loosely-in-touch that we always were.
I will say that I really found “my people” in college. The friends I made there (a tight group of English major girls and a handful of boys who all managed to come out of the closet by the time we graduated) are more like a family, and I miss them fiercely now that I live far from all of them.
Becky, this was my experience. To a T. All of it. And I had the same pleasant reaction you did — I can’t believe how adulthood levels the playing field, in many ways. These old high school students on Facebook are now just people — some with families, some with fabulous careers, etc. I think I’m just to a really great point in my life; I’m no longer projecting my teenage insecurities onto them, and they me.
WOOOOOO, QUIZ BOWL!!!
Ahem.
I was neither popular nor pariah, but I am happy that HS is over. I left that town for a whole list of reasons, and I’m glad it’s in my rearview mirror. There are a number of people I’m glad to have reconnected with, even if the surfacey, “hey-there!” FB way. I don’t wish anyone ill, but I didn’t go to my 10-year reunion, partly because it was poorly timed, and partly because most of the people I’d want to see wouldn’t be there either–it would be a gym full of people who never left home, never even considered it.
And as much mellowing as happens over time, I’ve always found the opposite is equally true: people really don’t change. The judgy, super-religious girl is still judgy and super-religious, the shallow soccer player is still shallow and soccer-playing, just with bad knees. Et cetera. I was dorky then, et voila.
@funnyface, PhDork: QUIZ BOWL REPRESENT!
I’m glad to see the other Quiz Bowlers! TEAM CAPTAIN BABY!
Team Captain here too, bitchez! (And yeah, the other two players on my team were boys. WIN)
With the advent of Facebook, I’ve had no desire to go to my ten-year reunion because I know enough about my classmates to know that I have nothing to discuss with them, at least right now. Maybe in 20 years I will feel differently, but the advent of Facebook has actually made people I liked in high school unlikable now, mostly because they are either dull, too focused on their special-snowflakness, or too eager to dive into the panties of my former classmates that I have no desire in going to a dinner where we all compare career achievements like they are fucking merit badges on the sash that is life. I have my friends from that period and that’s more than enough for me, you know?
It has been nice to be reached out to by people who I thought were way too cool to notice me (not that they were mean, but that we just didn’t run in the same circles and instead just had some classes together), but I have no desire to reach out to the girls who gave me dirty looks because I dared to date an otherwise unattached guy who their friend decided she’d marry after college, nor do I seek their approval.
I just joined FB last week (I am hopelessly lame) and so far no one from high school has found me. I’m guessing they’d have a hard time spelling my name, so I’m probably safe for a little while. No one was horrifically mean to me, but I do not look forward to hearing from anyone I’m not still in contact with (which would be everyone from HS except for three people).
What I’m really dreading is being friended by an ex-friend who dropped me senior year of college after I started dating my husband. I do hate that bitch, and there’s no way she’s become nice in the last 9 years.
Also, so jealous of you Quiz Bowl people. We didn’t have that, and I would have KICKED ASS at it. Seriously! I was on Jeopardy and everything. My trivia cred is solid.
Maritsa: YOU WERE ON JEOPARDY!? Ooooh, come sit by me! Are you in NYC? There is a seriously hard trivia night at a bar in Williamsburg that I go to from time to time, and I NEED MOAR BRANES to win.
I had the same experience, too.
And…I’m grateful for it. I think in a lot of my nerdtasticness, I just plain refused to get to know people who weren’t into books, theatre, and band. How silly is that? I’m looking forward to my 10-year reunion–I was so afraid of getting hurt in high-school, I missed out of getting to know a lot of very cool folk…