Pandering and popularity

Interesting:

I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in a crappy town in the middle of nowhere and like anyone who lives in rural America, social relationships are nothing if not an intensely interlocked microcosm of social jockeying. I had a pack of friends and when times were good, we’d have slumber parties in the tent of our front yard, play stiff as a board and light as a feather and listen to the GoGos and the Human League on permanent repeat. But the whispers of friendship can quickly become conspiratorial if you don’t recognize who is in charge. I was clearly not the head of that clique. It was my neighbor who was admired for her ability to pick and choose among our social circle and steer us to the proper girlish activities—boys, lavender and lip gloss, among other things. Now being neither heterosexual nor finding many of these activities clearly interesting, I always felt like I was on thin ice and when I ended the seventh grade, the shit finally hit the fan.

I wish I could remember what the conflict even was because at the time it seemed like the end of the world. And I knew what was happening. I was being completely iced out of the social group and my former friends could not even be seen with me. I paid the price of being angry at the head girl in charge. Because I refused to apologize for the sake of returning to the social circle, I didn’t speak to any of my friends for a solid year. I merely pivoted, spending my time in another social group. It was frustrating because I remember feeling that I was not wrong. I know enough that it was an interpersonal dispute and not some egregious act of war. And I did not feel okay about apologizing for no reason. Maybe my stubbornness was my undoing. But after a year, I finally did broach my friends without an apology but by saying that I did not want to fight with them anymore. I was reluctantly let back into the social group but I never felt close to them again. I did not trust them anymore because their friendship was not based on mutuality and care but by an ability to not piss off whoever has the most social capital. I did learn something about friendship. When I left this town, I was not going to be in relationships that required constant acquiescence.

The first two years of High School were difficult ones for me. My mother was in the process of divorcing my stepfather, who was nothing if not abusive and manipulative. I was clearly depressed and had difficulty getting through the day. Of course, anyone who knows High School well knows that when you are weak is often when people are ready to pounce. There is nothing that makes people feel more popular than the opportunity to victimize someone else. There were three boys who were ruthless in teasing me. Everyday, they waited outside of school to mock the way I looked, the way I dressed, the way I spoke, my interests and eventually, the mortification I clearly showed when they made fun of me. The thing I hated the most was that I one of my legs turned inwards at the time—it was just a birth defect that I could not fix without extensive surgery. I remember I broke down in class crying after one of the boys spent the entire gym period behind me, mocking the way that I was running. Even the teachers were appalled by their teasing and this was long before anyone cared about bullying.

Even more than hating those boys, I hated the ones who joined in to be part of the crowd. They were not feeling the intensity of derision but rather the desire to gain popularity. They were clearly pandering. I mean, the alpha males at the school were assholes enough but their followers just had no respect for themselves. I learned one thing about that time in my life—I was not going to throw people under the bus for the sake of popularity. It diminishes you as a person. Oh and the other thing, I hate pandering—it’s total bullshit.