Your High School Cliques: Where Are They Now?
(originally posted on postgradproblems.com)
Disclaimer: This post brought to you by exaggerated stereotypes and a heavy dose of sardonic humor.
In 1997, “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion” exemplified the high school reunion experience forever and always. Somehow, a completely idiotic movie perfectly embodies the stereotypes behind the “cool” girls from high school ending up as losers, and the “losers” ending up being pretty cool.
A decade and then some later, these clichés still hold true and make the “uncool” kids from high school smirk with twisted delight. Most days, I question why reunions even happen anymore. What’s the point? I’ve been watching your lives unfold via my newsfeed for nearly 10 years. I know what you’ve been up to, and, frankly, I’m not interested in seeing any of it or you in the flesh. BYE FELICIA.
The Meatheads
A few actually went on to become professional athletes, marrying “real” housewives in “real” situations with “real” tits and “real” problems. By a few, I mean, like, one.
Most of the others just beefed up in a super awkward way that makes you cringe when you look at their profile pictures. You imagine they probably just waddle–not walk–around. It’s that weird, upsetting combination of fat and muscle that leaves you confused and questioning everything you’ve ever known.
A handful of meatheads kept up their regime of being “cut,” turning their once innocently adolescent gym love into full-blown gym rat obsession. Their pecs are bigger than some of your former classmates’ fake racks, and they probably have no idea how to perform eye-crossing cunnilinigus on a woman. You know who does though? Yep. The “losers.”
The Drama Kids
I did theater until I decided to up my “cool” game and try out for the dance squad sophomore year. With only my krumping skills to speak to, and without any former training or absolutely zero working knowledge of how to perform leaps and bounds, I made it. I was “cool” for, like, a second, and it did nothing for my dating game. I still ended up dating the goofiest looking Persian motherfucker in our grade. But, I digress.
The “serious” drama kids went to various colleges, working toward their degrees in the THEE-ATE-UR. Probably only one has actually done something with it. The rest do sad, local theater, but they find worth in it somehow. One or two may teach dance or drama now, because those who can’t do…well, you know.
Most of them are still pretty weird and hang out exclusively with other weirds. They probably have their headshots as their profile pictures with more than 100 likes on it, even though the biggest roles they’ve ever had were leads in a local Agatha Christie plays. Oh well. We can’t all make it big, can we?
The Straight Up Weirdos
They’re still weird as fuck. Like, creepy weird. They have Facebook accounts, but their profile pictures are something you can’t quite make out–it looks like them, sort of, but the pictures are either really blurry or they’re staring straight into the lens with wide eyes. Or, their pictures are side-profile selfies they took on their old 6-pound flip phones in 2003. They maybe have 20 friends total, and consistently post disturbing status updates:
“fuq dat shiit! you don een KNOW! bitches talk blahblahblah. LOL. WHATEVA HOE. HOOPDEEHOOP!” They’re also white males.
You confirm their friend requests because you’re not completely heartless. However, once you see what they’re subjecting you to, it lasts about two days before you defriend them and never look back.
Sorry. Y’all are just too weird.
The “Popular” Girls
As one could predict, most of them are married. What did you expect? Popular in high school in no way equates with originality, so of course they all followed societal suit and got that ring STAT. They peaked at 17, so they gladly accepted the first boyfriend-turned-proposal that landed at their gel-pedicured feet. They’re the luckiest girls in the world!
Even luckier are the ones who married and divorced by 26 or 27. Even luckier than that (if you can believe there’s such a thing) some of them are already divorced and have kids! They hang out with the exact same girls they hung out with at 16, 17, and 18. You haven’t seen a new face in their pictures since 2004.
Quite honestly, when you really think about it, the “popular” girls in high school are the poor man’s celebrity train wrecks. You don’t have to pay money for an Us Weekly or a People magazine subscription, because those gawk-worthy pictures and that sticky drama is right at your fingertips via social media every single day. Too much money, attention, and exploited sexuality at a young age not only effects celebrities, but everyday high schoolers, too. “High School Skanks: They’re just like US!”
The Normal People
You flew under the radar during most of high school. You were a chameleon floater, fluttering from group to group but fitting in seamlessly wherever you decided to land that day. You dabbled in all the cliques: popular girls, loser girls, popular guys, loser guys, drama, sports, dance, cheerleading, nerd clubs. Sure, you felt unaccepted at times, but other times, you felt above and beyond your peers. You tried cigarettes and lukewarm beer at “cool” parties, but spent most weekends with your parents seeing movies and praying your crush would get on AIM at some point so you wouldn’t feel like such a loser being home on a Friday night. You didn’t French kiss until your late teens and you didn’t bone until college. You flourished socially and mentally in undergrad, and continue to do so in the real world.
Basically, you won. Hard. You start every day asking yourself, “Turn down for what?” For nothing, honey. For absolutely nothing.
