You see, as I was thinking about the past years, I remembered when I was in between things. Friends and decisions to make. Not quite on one side, and not ready to be on either side.
It was the year my best friend abandoned me for a guy...yeah, a guy she broke up with anyway. She tore me apart...piece by piece until I couldn't take it anymore and pushed her away. She did, once, and I just remembered, try to come back, but by then, I had sort of let go.
She started my friend problems now. I dwindled with the people who were, in my school, the under popular. You see, our social ladder sorta went like this:
Popular
Under-Popular
Followers (Somewhat Popular)
Smart/Unsmart Sorta Popular
Smarts
Idiots
Gays
Nuetral
Popular being the highest of course.
God, I was so niave. The Under-Populars were the people who associated with the Popular group. Under-Popular were the people you would go to get dirt on the unpopular. It sorta went something like this. The Nuertrals associated with everyone, they were passive and sometimes would jump between categories before returning back to nuetral. Then the second lowest were the gays (I didn't come up with this social ladder for my school. I have no hard feelings for gays and support same-sex relationships!) who befriended mostly the idiots.
The idiots, well, sometimes they included the class clowns and the people who were hopelessly failing classes, but they were friends with the Smarts too. Maybe friends isn't the right word...entertainment. The idiots entertained the Smarts and in return they would recieve some help.
The smarts, they were the people who were A+ in every class. With the Gays and Idiots, they hated popular people and they dared not to speak to anyone above their social class unless it was needed. Of course there were exceptions, but let's not split hairs.
The Smart/Unsmart-Sorta Popular was the category I fit into along with my current boyfriend's friends. Only one of us was top of the class. He was super smart, but he had the good looks and wasn't too nerdy. He wasn't a bragger and that made him likeable. I excelled in language arts and math, kept a steady science and history grade. There were a few idiots that could have been in the Idiots class, but they managed to fit in with us because they weren't all that dumb. You see, the Smart/Unsmart-Sorta Populars associated with the Followers, Under-Popular, and sometimes when needed, the Popular group.
The followers were the people who were wannabe popular people that befriended the Under-Populars in order to get to the highest level. They followed the Under Popular person or people they befriended until they either learned that being popular isn't everything, or they actually achieved getting there.
Under-Populars were, as I said the people who had the dirt on all the popular people. They mingled with them and knew their way around the popular crowd and they seduced many followers. That's how I saw them, but somehow, I befriended one of them when I was supposed to be a Smart/Unsmart-Somewhat Popular with my new best friend (my current BF).
I wanted to achieve being an Under-Popular, but I was seduced like everyone else who were Followers until I felt I was being hurt too much, perhaps another reason why my friendship broke off with my ex-bestfriend.
Eventually I learned better and settled down in the Smart/Unsmart Somewhat Popular class and felt comfortable. I had my own circle of friends, associated with a few followers and even a few Under-Populars that weren't low enough to be a follower, but sorta weren't qualified to be an Under-Popular.
I worked the top part of the social ladder. I understood that I could have been better off as a nuetral, but my heart lay in the Smart/UnsmartSomewhat Popular class. It was the first years of getting to know my new best friend better.
Our lunch tables were classified by the Social Classes and I was proud to be the only gal at a guy's table. I didn't care about the stares or comments by teachers, I wanted to show the world I had guts! So that's where more story shall start tomorrow....what I learned and am still learning from my lunch table and my boyfriend's friends.
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For All Your Maximum Ride Needs
12 years ago
1 comment:
Sam,
It is funny, how half a world away from you, almost quarter of a century ago from the time you describe, the "casts" (or "layers") of the school social ladder were almost the same in my homeland Russia.
But because our school system was different, and our classes consisted of 30 or so people, and each class was separated from the rest, and kinda always moved together, hitting the same schedule together throughout the whole school (elementary, middle and high - which were all in the same building), we had that exact social ladder, described by you, just within that small group of students, labeled by school oficials as "class A" "class B", and so on.
So, i was in "class B" all my life. And we had our "popular" people. It was, basically, just one girl. And she also happened to be gay. Lesbian, to be exact (like you said - nothing against gays, i'm transgendered myself - but that's what it was).
She had massive physique, she was very strong, and she held everyone in fear. About every year or so, she'd chose herself "a friend", elevate him or her out of the crowd, and rule everyone else with that person. Next year that person would fade away, she'd chose someone else...
She was rude, she was cruel, and she was very smart. Besides the fact, that she was a ruthless pig (she could order the boys to chase some girl down and beat her up just for her personal entertainment), she had everything going for her... Her name was Elena. Elena the Queen...
So all around her were girls who she liked... "Under Popular" - according to your scheme. In the amount of, like, three or four people (don't forget, there were only +/-30 of us, and half of them were boys, who had their own social ladder). Just like i remember now - they were Svetlana, Vika, Svetlana and Elvira. They were stuck up and full of themselves. Well, they were the Queen's favorites, after all...
As opposed to us, commoners. Yes, of course, as in every kingdom, there was a layer of "commoners". And me and my best friend and lover Meinush were among them.
We were kept in constant fear - Elena could approach any one of us at any moment and get rude, call names, mock, harass, hit - anything she wanted, almost always just for her entertainment.
And then there were losers.
We also had neutrals, and they held up as much as they could - but a "neutral" almost always meant "a loser", when they could not win a physical fight with Elena, when she felt like fighting.
My diaries at a time were full of descriptions of Elena's harrassment and bullying of me and others... After i finished school i had nightmares of her chasing me down the school hall yet again to beat me up. I had those for about 10 years after i finished school. Then at some point in time i realized i had to let go and forgive that b--ch, and move on.
Some people, especially those in the "loser" layer have never recovered from Elena's bullying. But i believe it only made me stronger.
So, here is a breakdown of a social order in a public school, in Moscow, Russia in the 80's.
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