Girls would say eww why is Alex here if I sat at a lunch table. If I commented on someone’s photo they would tell me to stop commenting. I commented compliments nothing inappropriate. I was very quiet and didn’t speak to almost anybody. I was nice never a bully. People did not want to be around me other than very close friends. I went to a dance and tried to dance with some people from my classes and they thought it was weird I just came up to them.
I have friends and I’m more outgoing now but I don’t know how I was repulsive back then.
31 comments
Are you neurodivergent possibly?
I got the same reactions from people. I also felt like no one likes me and I was a drifter through life.. I used to get looks of disgust when sitting certain places. So I decided to eat alone. And I would always say no one wanted to touch me with a 10 foot pole.
Same exact experience. I’m autistic and also have ADHD. I still don’t know why people hated me so much for seemingly no reason whatsoever.
literally same
as a very introverted girl I was treated the same. I feel like people just create a common enemy to make fun of together as almost a sort of bonding activity. and if we ‘give them a reason’ why being mean to us is actually okay (like being quiet, being weird etc.) then they justify it with that and don’t even feel like a bad person.
Once I got out I was also treated way better but the feeling of everyone else being better than me is very hard to get rid of.
There may not have been any reason at all.
“Little person syndrome” is an unfortunate affliction that many people suffer.
It involves their own insecurities making them feel “less than” so much that they target someone else to pick on, so no one will notice how awful they feel about themselves (because they might agree).
And then others around them with their own insecurities pick it up and continue because they’re all terrified of being that person who gets targeted.
Please believe that not all people are like this and some who are can actually grow out of it if their life experiences help them open their eyes.
If you look at adults, you can see the same scenario playing out albeit a more complex environment because of the diversity of locations and social situations.
I would say they are the ones who are socially awkward, not you.
Try not to read too much into it. It’s really not about you unless you do something to make others uncomfortable.
I know it hurts so much and I’m so sorry that happened to you.
If you keep doing what is right and good and kind, you will leave the world better than you found it.
If anyone ever says something that’s rude and seems to be for no reason, just deflect with “are you finished?” And keep your head up because there’s nothing wrong with you.
The way I see it middle / high school is like dealing with a pack of apes. They have social structures that aren’t based on anything logical, moreso physical appearance and your ability to get along with the crowd. It’s common for people take anyone that sticks out and antagonize them / push them further down the hierarchy to cement their own status.
That being said there may have been situations in which you interacted with people “wrong” (i.e. too shy, awkward, etc) but most of the time you’d know if that was the case. And based on your description you were usually polite.
You were probably just weird. A large portion of teenagers are. Sounds like you grew out of it.
If you want to understand it, you need to watch how teenagers interact while you’re an adult. Whats “cool” is relevant to small social groups and changes constantly. A cool kid in Maine would be weird in California. The weird kid in Alabama might be cool in Texas.
I lived in a lot of places as a kid, and the cool kids in one place would not have transferred their coolness to new schools.
You were probably just different and not fitting in.
I was in a similar situation when i was in the early stages of highschool because i was a wallflower listening never inputting, eventually i just said fuck it. I searched in the deepest pits of my own mentality and asked myself whats the worst thing someone could say to me. Then after i figured that out people couldnt come close to the shit i could come up with about myself. I started to realise bobody actually knew me they just knew what they saw and what people have said. After that i came up with a list of maybe 50 insults i could throw back in various savarity. If someone had something to say id double down on that person and was able to throw it back. That gained me popularity pretty quick once people stopped trying to make fun of me out of fear that id destroy them in retort it became easy to make friends. I started focusing on positive messages and started getting into hobbies by the end i made very close friends and gained the respect i comanded from people around me. Good for you to look at yourself instead of blaming others for being shitty people. People are shitty people to you because you let them, because you let things bother you because you cant think on the fly. But truth is most people cant thibk on the fly they just pre rehearse insults to gain popularity because they see a hierarchy. The good news is that chat gpt exists now so it makes finding funny insults easy. Also note: dont be afraid of violence. Eveyone around you is afraid of violence too so when you clap back they just get stunted. And if it does come down to it. Youll gain popularity and or sympathy by getting your butt kicked. And if you win. Well theres only upside there.
it may be that there was nothing wrong in particular. Kids are just horrible.
I was bullying a couple of kids myself. And was bullied by some others too.
Later we just all grew out of that shit and were pretty friendly with each other. One of the kids I bullied actually considered me his only school friend after we graduated
Best advice, ask your friends from that time. A lot of this stuff is subtle and unconscious. You might not have consciously thought about doing whatever it is you did.
As for what it could have been, maybe it was simply confidence. Confidence causes postural and behavioral changes that cause people to like you more. Meanwhile, lack of confidence sends out the opposite signals. If a bully decided to start bullying you on a whim, the resulting confidence dip can lead to a feedback loop: low confidence->vulnerable body language-> bullies see an easy target->bullying->low confidence. Once in college, the fresh start may simply have not sent you into that loop.
Beyond that, it’s hard to say without more info.
Honestly when I was a kid there was a group of girls who pranked each other by sending one of them on a scavenger hunt or something. The girls who put the other one up to the scavenger hunt near the end came and grabbed me tell me that somebody has a crush on me and that they wanted to come find me, only for that girl to be completely disgusted by the idea that I had even considered myself a potential partner for anyone. I’ve had a really hard time trying to date anyone after that, and it was a decade ago. Good times for everyone involved /s.
Tl:Dr kids are cruel, and they don’t need a reason to be
I was literally telling my 5 yr old daughter to never join in on this social ostracism. I said it in a way she could understand. Basically explained if other kids are running from a kid or saying they are stinky…ewww!… or saying not to play with one of the kids that I expect her to be kind and let me and the teacher know.
Happy to hear that for some of you this stopped after you left school and as adults, not the effects can be long term and profound.
So many fantastic comments regarding the social dynamics of immature children. It’s all relevant!! I’ll be livid if I know my children conduct themselves that way and work so hard to teach them to be above it. I do hold to a higher standard but seeing posts like these break my heart…
Also I was not super popular or bullied. I was in that sweet middle and ALWAYS befriended the kids who were out grouped. I was exposed to so many wonderful perspectives and personalities this way and truly hope that this is taught more by parents and in school
People in general, especially in high school, are scared when someone looks “different”. When people see a quiet and introverted kid, who behaves in a totally different way from how the popular teenagers do, they mistakenly label it as “weird behavior”. Once you are labeled as a weirdo, everyone that approaches you earns that title too. But there wasn’t anything wrong with you, you sound like such a sweet soul 🙂
There’s usually a reason why someone gets singled out, but then again high school is a giant house full of irrational lunatics.
The best thing you can do is to stay in your own lane and try to better yourself in as many ways as possible.
There’s no shortage of people who have irrelevant opinions. What matters is your own.
Because you weren’t part of the in crowd. Their existence is based on exclusion. You drew the short straw. They still exist today. A goofy human behavior that dictates self worth based on the dehumanization of others based on arbitrary or artificial characteristics
You’ve got your head on straight. There’s nothing wrong with you. You didn’t do anything. They did
People develop an in-group, out-of-group dynamic. Maybe because you were quiet, those who felt themselves in the in-group (or wanting to impress the in-group) would pick on you to set themselves apart. It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong or that there was anything wrong with you. Some cultures are more susceptible to such behavior, and children lack the maturity to break out of such patterns, with rare exceptions.
It’s because kids are assholes with a pack mentality. If you have anything about you that’ll single you out, you will be. Then kids will be mean to you just to that they belong as well.
It’s likely because you’re neurodivergent and/or have some kind of trauma that limits your ability to pick you and follow through on social cues. I noticed it a lot in my highschool. I’m weird but good at making friends with other weird ones so i was never singled out. I’d notice the ones who didn’t stick by friends would be bullied about every little thing they did that was ‘weird’. Slightly inappropriate or clueless comments, nervous ticks and stims, trying to engage in conversation with the wrong person…
Fuck that place man. Adulthood is so much better. I’ve surrounded myself with allllll the weird kids and we’re growing and thriving together 🙂
Teenage girls are somewhere between rattlesnakes and piranha on the affability scale, hormones and social pressure do bad things to people. I really, really wouldn’t take from your experience that something was wrong with *you*.
If you’re saying you have trouble with social cues, that’s all it takes for you to not be in the pack, it’s a difference, and when you have a school full of people, all with their own insecurities, sometimes (read:often) people learn the wrong lessons about how to fit in. One of those lessons is that if someone is more different than you, you can fit in by putting them down to draw attention away from your own flaws.
Most people grow out of that behaviour. The ones that don’t are a nightmare to deal with.
It was never *you*.
Hang in there, hold your CLOSE friends and family tight, and try not to worry too much about people outside that circle. Everyone has their own things going on, and it often isn’t you. Do your best to be a good person, measure progress about yourself, and try to learn from your mistakes. That’s all you can do 😊
Kids are mean. Even if you’re a bit different or whatever, they group together as a hive mind so that they can try and be the same, as the common dream is that everyone in school wants to fit in with whatever sub group they are a part of.
I’m sorry you went through that, it sounds like you’ve made great progress and maybe rather than dwelling too much on what you were like back then, imagine how younger you would be proud of how far you’ve come in your development.
Yo, that was me. I wanted to change, but got the same reactions. I paraphrased this for an article I read: Quiet people are hard to read. Some find this unsettling. They don’t know what you’re thinking, and this may make them uncomfortable
Problem is that I went to school with most of these people for a decade, so it was hard for them to get over what they thought of me. Luckily I was content with sports and trying to get good grades.
Sometimes people become pawns. “Hey I don’t like this guy either! We’re so alike!” Especially those who don’t defend themselves.
I had this experience as well. Though I know why they treated me like shit. I’ve had a chronic illness my entire life and for some reason kids are assholes. Oh they pretended to be tolerant and kind whenever the teachers and adults were around, they even sent cards to my hospital bed once. But as soon as I was back amongst them, the insults and bullying started again. Leaving school was the best thing I ever did. I haven’t kept in contact with anyone from school. One of them tried to contact me not long ago (I left school in 2006) about a High School reunion. I told them no, I have better things to do. Not sure why they thought I’d wanna speak to them let alone see any of them
Yeah, this messed me up big time.
To be honest kids in high school are just shit heads for various reasons. It doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong but just that the kids in your school were a bunch of stuck up scum bags
Same this started in 7th grade although i never was considered popular and was known as the quite nice kid. The thing that started this was when I got into fashion and started to keep up with modern trends. I started to dress different as my other peers (mind you i went to a middle school in a semi rural area where most kids put no-effort into there style). People started treating me as an outcast and ignored me, this made it easier for them to bully me. This affected me a lot and I started to be a loner and not try making friends as I was scared about the rejection, I still suffer from this experience to this day and haven’t found a way to fix it. But ponder that if I would’ve moved to a different school in the city or close to the city I would’ve been treated more nicely and would have had an easier time making friends, urban kids are more in tune to the latest trends than rural kids.
Everyone said things that I agree with so here’s something else:
Everyone creates their own hell. Those high school idiots who estranged you are losers who will be constantly wondering who they can trust. They mask their insecurities with self importance. They outlaw honesty, vulnerability, open mindedness, facts, logic, and good character all so they can look superior. That very same “superiority” makes it illegal for them to open up about their problems and mental struggles. They’ll often never have many actual close friends and they don’t know who they can trust. They only know how to party and look important.
Your hell is believing their lies. Believing that they really were superior. Believing that you deserve their baseless insults. Pull yourself out. You didn’t deserve that.
Hygiene, possibly. Kids don’t realize how bad they stink sometimes.
For me it was the same. I moved to another country and started elementary school in the second trimester. They either bullied me or didn’t even approach me, I’d be the last one they picked when playing in P.E, etc.
Then, in middle school I had new classmates from another classroom and from other schools. Some of them would talk to me, but as soon as they realized I was like the outcast, they’d either stop talking to me or even begin to bully me along with the other kids.
Fuck, I’ve always been nice to everybody and never did anything wrong, I think I wasn’t even the type you’d call ugly or fat. And whenever I tried to defend myself it would end worse. Sigh.
I was an outgoing girl and I was bullied like that too. Kids would say “don’t invite bluescrew to the party” right in front of me. One very attractive, popular girl announced on the bus that she decided against getting a haircut because she was afraid it would make her look like me.
Looking back I know exactly what I did that was off-putting, but it might not be the same for you because kids can find all kinds of different behavior disturbing. It mostly has to do with how much you differ from the norm, and how low your confidence is.
I was a people pleaser who never voiced my opinion unless it was the same as everyone else’s. I got accused of “copying” people because they could tell I was insecure and didn’t really have an identity.
I had undiagnosed ADD. My symptoms appeared as oversharing, rambling, being a know-it-all, reading books constantly even during class and during conversations, poor hygiene, being unprepared, always being in detention for missed homework even though I aced every test without studying, nor letting other kids cheat off me during said tests because ND people tend to have an acute, black-and-white sense of justice. I also dressed weird because I get stimulation from variety and didn’t want to wear the same boring clothes every day.
Also I was the new kid. I stayed from 4th grade on through high school graduation but in a small town there aren’t a lot of kids who come and go. There were still only about 10 students who were newer than me, by my senior year.
It’s a trait of group human behavior that I’ve never looked up to.