It Started in Homeroom - Part II

My experiment to be more out-going started in homeroom on the first day of 9th grade.  Fate (alphabetical seating) placed two nice girls at the science table behind me.  I talked with them.  It was surprisingly easy.  After homeroom I saw a girl who’d been in my English class the prior year.  I asked how her summer went.  After she did a double-take, we talked for a few minutes.  I talked with everyone I encountered (including teachers).  That’s how I ended up with the school misfit as my science class partner—no one else would talk to him (he was strange, but a nice guy). 

 

I tried out for the school soccer team. The coach was late the 2nd day, so I organized the other boys and led them through warm-ups. The coach saw that and made me team captain (I was not the best player).  I noticed kids (including Harper) sat in the bleachers to watch practice after school most days--enjoying the fall weather.

When I missed a month of school (December), a rumor started that I'd died.  People were shocked when I returned in January.  As a result of my new openness (and being the subject of a rumor) it seemed everyone at school knew me.

I joined the wrestling team and was made captain.  Oddly, people watched wrestling practice too--peeking through the windows.  Kids at my old school never showed such support for the teams.  That's when things started to get weird.  Or at least that's when the weirdness was pointed out to me.

 

During a break at a school dance (February), the kids all sat on the floor.  Not me--I kneeled (floors are dirty), so I was a little higher up.  As one of the chaperones walked by, she asked if I was someone special. I didn’t understand the question and asked what she meant.  She said every kid in the room was sitting facing me. I looked around and saw she was right.  I wasn’t in the middle of the room, but I seemed to be the center of it.  That was weird.  I asked my friend if kids were watching me.  She laughed.  She said I was popular and kids were always watching me--including at soccer and wrestling practice.  It was the weirdest thing I'd ever heard.  I was amused.  In spring I made the baseball team and, once again, people showed up to watch me practice.  I noticed that my friend was right, people were pretty much always watching me.

 

You know what? It was fun at first, but it started to annoy the hell out of me.  Most of those people didn’t even know me.  How could they like me?  They didn't.  But I was "popular" and that attracts phonies.  And when you have people liking you for no good reason, you end up with people not liking you for no good reason.  Kids got mad at me for being friends with other kids!  Three times I found myself surrounded by gangs of boys wanting to beat me up--some of whom I thought were friends.  A set of twins started telling people that I slept with them (I was 15!!!).  As a result of that lie, some female friends stopped talking to me.  I was shocked when I found out why.  There were other weird goings-on, but this post is too long.

Finally, the last day of school arrived.  When I got on the bus to go home, a group (led by my two homeroom friends) gathered on the sidewalk and started shouting goodbye to me.  As the bus drove off, they ran along-side, waving (some of them crying).  It was nuts.  As the bus made its way back to my neighborhood I thought, “Thank God that’s over. Those people are #$%^#$% crazy!”  I was so happy to be out of there. 

 
That experience helped me realize being popular doesn't mean much--and can be a bad thing.  You can't tell who your friends are.  People want to associate with you even if they don't like you.  And sometimes they don't like you for no reason.  I knew I was better off with a circle of true friends.  Being out-going is good, but it's good to know when to pull back too. 
The experience helped me realize that others being popular is also pretty meaningless.  My "school misfit" friend was a nice guy.  Why should I have cared what other people thought of him?  Or anything?  After my experiment I found I had no interest in the "in" crowd.  They were no better than anyone else.  I didn't care what they thought, wore, etc.

I learned to go my own way. 


There was a downside.  Everyone peaks at different times.  We usually feel bad for the poor souls who peak in high school.  But I peaked in junior high!!!  :D