High School

I remember high school pretty vividly.

I was miserable.

My grades were poor and I genuinely felt like killing my counselor when she told me that I was not realizing my potential.

Because of moving every two years from the start of 5th grade, I didn't have many friends. I have never been good at making friends. This meant that I was an outsider for 8 years. While I cherish the friends that I did manage to make, let's be honest, the people who will befriend the stranger are not, generally, part of the mainstream popularity portion of the high school social scene.

I definitely changed some to fit in with the people who would accept me. That meant that when the next move happened, I would be even further from the mainstream and it was that much more difficult to make new friends.

It's perhaps lucky that Columbine didn't happen while I was in high school. Such a thing never occurred to me. If I had seen that on the news in 1986, I would have thought, "WHAT A GREAT IDEA! I REALLY NEED TO DO THAT!"

I graduated with a whopping 1.89 GPA. Prior to the 5th grade I was a straight A student with the exception of one quarter where I got all Fs (second quarter, 3rd grade).

In college, I was not part of the social scene, but at least college welcomes people who are there merely to learn. My grades soared! I was back to getting As and Bs! I graduated with my BBA with a 3.15 GPA.

It occurs to me that the main problem I had with high school is that everyone there was forced to be there. 90% of the people there had known each other nearly their whole lives. Solid friendships existed that did not tolerate additions to the clique. A newcomer who was socially awkward was a novelty to play with, and destroy. No risk to the existing social order since they didn't belong to it. The plucky underdog does not win in the real world.

The personality shaping events from high school are still haunting me.

The Lovely Harvey adds:

I had "lasting friendships" until I went to lockup. Got back from that and it was hell, like I had never been at that school my whole life. I had a few what I thought were true friends but over the years if they haven't died they changed or I did and it sucks. I still have issues making lasting friendships as well. At least we have each other.