the cheese stands alone

Everything about that saying describes exactly what my elementary and high school experience was like. For this weeks them from Cheesy Bloggers.. we delve into the complicated and sometimes painful world of Popularity.

I remember a time in early elementary... like primary.. where we all got along. Not any one person was "cooler" than another and everyone was invited to everyone else's birthday party.

Then... it all went downhill.

The problem is... I never really figured out why. I was never able to pin it down to one event or one thing I did or didn't do.. it just happened. People sorted out into their little groups, and I didn't make the cut. I was uncool. I remained that way throughout the rest of my public education life. It didn't help that I was in the same elementary school for the full 7 years (in Canada that's how we roll) and the SAME high school for 5 years. This means all the same people who branded me uncool when I was younger continued to follow me to high school. Even though new people were added to the brew and somehow it seemed like a fresh start.. it wasn't. The cliques still formed... and they formed without me.

Not that my educational existence was completely miserable.... admittedly at the time I felt like the world was ending on a daily basis... but truth be told, it wasn't all bad. Looking back, I definitely had some good times. I found a crew that accepted me... and they were wonderful. We had our fun and our laughs and maybe we weren't "cool".. but we didn't care. We were us.

I think it worked out for the good though... as cheesy bloggers said, "I don't want any part of it." ..and I think that's true for me as well... sometimes I think, wouldn't it have been nice to be popular and cool...? To do that, though, I'd have to give up what I had and I don't know that I'm willing to do that.

I think the popular girls always seemed to have more drama and the shut outs were more extensive. I remember two girls that were best friends in grade 7 and were both popular. Then out of nowhere they started fighting.. actually fist fighting outside during lunch. As of that day, they weren't friends... and one ended up cool whereas the other was eternally an outcast. Why? To this day, I have NO idea... and again, I don't know that I want to know. Being uncool wasn't the best, but at least those uncool people accepted me for who I was and still accept me today for who I am. That's a theme that never seemed to stick in the popular crowds... if you didn't follow along, you were left behind.


Like everyone (uncool) I still have my moments like cheesy bloggers where I'd love to be popular ... and have twitter followers and blog followers and people who know me.... but it's a fleeting feeling. I know the followers I do have follow me cuz they actually enjoy what I write or what I tweet... not just cuz it's the "cool" thing to do... and those 9 followers for THAT reason mean MORE to mean than 1000 followers that aren't genuinely concerned about me or what I have to say.


Popularity... it's definitely not all it's cracked up to be. I just wish there was a way we could express this to our children... maybe make the cycle just a little bit easier on them than it was on us. Then again.. maybe it's just a struggle and a realization everyone has to come to on their own terms.

Either way... you'll always end up on one side of the fence. I'm with the stinky cheese.. it tastes yummy... like brie.

Wait.. is brie stinky?

oh well... for sake of a great ending statement, lets just say it is.

Comments

  1. Hey, most of "us" weren't cool kids either. The "cool" kids in my class... well... most of 'em ended up in dead-end jobs with multiple baby daddies and completely unhappy. I county myself LUCKY to have stood alone in the HS days!

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  2. so true!

    I think there are more uncool than cool out there in the world... and hey.. there's always the saying, "be nice to the geeks, they're the one paying your salary in the future"

    ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't know if I know any friends who were popular. Most seem to be in the same situation as I was growing up, which is probably why we're friends :). I do know Facebook has connected me with some of the popular people in high school I thought would never know me from Eve, but I'm still not sure if that's a good thing or not. I'll be writing my own blog about this soon.

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