Were you liked or disliked at school, and did it have an effect on you?

I was lucky enough to have the same best friend throughout junior and secondary school so I didn't care if I was liked or not.l by other people.

I was liked by the teachers because I was a swot.

I always felt I was down the pecking order, not one of the popular ones. Wasn’t disliked as such, but overlooked.

Yes it has affected me. Always trying to fit in and be approved of.

Always feel I gave lots of acquaintances but not many close friends.

I definitely wasn’t popular but had a string of a few one to one friends iyswim, when friend went off me, I had no friends until I became someone else’s best friend as it were.

What an interesting thread.

I wad very much disliked, save a few people. It made me an angry child and a cynical adult. However, it also has made me hugely resilient and very empathetic towards other people's situations. I am opinionated and vocal and towards the end of my teenage years, I revelled in being the one who stood out. As an adult I don't really care what anyone else thinks. I cut those out who are toxic or threaten my piece. I wouldn't change a thing.

I realised about 10 years ago that my superpower I that I'm likable. Throughout school and most of my life I've had a large group of friends but not really best friends with a single person.

at school I deliberately stood out from the crowd dressing in a distinctive way (we had no school uniform). This (and the awful verbal abuse my mates and I gave each other) has given me a very tough skin and I often in social or work groups make myself the butt of the jokes when I can see others not enjoying the banter.

I was badly bullied from infants school up until the last two years of secondary school when I had loads of friends. I had a condition which was beyond my control which I was born with which made me someone to be avoided. Won’t put anymore information about this too embarrassing. My brother bullied me too. It has left me with a life long feeling of inferiority and shyness. The medical condition was eventually cured by surgery. Children can be cruel.

I had plenty of friends in school, in different groups, and generally got on alright with most people but was below the radar of the popular crowd.
I'm not good at keeping in touch with people though unless I see them regularly and I left the country. I keep in touch somewhat on facebook with a fair few from my school days, and will get together with at least one friend every time I visit but I don't talk regularly with anyone from those days.

I'm in school again now, adult education, and its interesting watching the social dynamics, the little cliques that form. But everyone gets on alright in general - not like teenagers!

I think I was liked. I'm 53 and still in touch with many school friends, about 10 quite often, 30odd on FB. Both male and female. My current bf is an old school friend who we re connected by FB.
About 10 of us stayed in touch despite some going travelling, some going university and some going straight into work. We all went to each others weddings, our partners became friends and we all still meet up. Our kids have been friends over the years and still are as adults. It's lovely. I speak to my best friend from school every day. My other best friend stayed in Aus after we travelled there but we are in contact constantly on FB. We travelled together for years 18-24 and I love her to bits, her husband too who travelled with us. He was 60 last week and I'm looking forward to seeing them both next weekend. She moved to Surrey and I'm still in London but we still get together.
Sadly a couple of school friends have died. We do still remain a close group. I'm thankful to still have my friends from school age - some don't even look any different!!

I was liked and fairly popular because I was bright, good at sport and easy going. I got on with most people because I'm pretty cheerful and liked a good time and my whole year group were a good mix of folks who mostly hung out together. I come from a small town where everyone knew each other and it wasn't really cliquey.

I'm not in touch with any of my old friends now. It's 40 odd years since I left school and we've now got adult DC and I guess some are grandparents. Our lives moved on once we all went off to separate universities.

There wasn't the internet, mobile phones or social media when we were young. You just lost touch with people unless you both made massive efforts to keep in touch.

I was strongly disliked. As an adult I look back at what caused me to lose all self esteem, and whilst there's blame in the family home as well (one of my siblings was abusive) I do look at what happened to me in secondary school like What The Actual Fuck Was That? I was disabled and took endless shit not just off kids either. It wore me down.

At primary I had friends, but there were a lot of fall-outs and dramas. There was also a (different) group of girls who took a dislike to me and I got a bit bullied. At secondary I was a bit 'out crowd', but I did have a nice group of friends and am still in touch with a couple of them. At sixth form college I was on the periphery of a group and struggled socially a bit.
The common denominator is, I think, the feeling of not quite fitting in, which probably has lingered into my adult consciousness.

I went to a very small rural school, so the pot of people I could know was tiny, really.

I was fine. I was a little young for my years socially, but not at all academically. People really disliked that I could get good marks. So I got accused of thinking I was better than everyone else, and that has made me very careful not to ever do that. (I actually think that's turned out a positive effect on me, even though it was difficult at the time, obviously. I'm in my 50s so have had a long time to mull it over.)

I had friends, but for a couple of years in the middle I had very few friends because someone I thought was a friend spread a lie about me and it kind of stuck. I find I'm angrier about that now than I was at the time. I kind of went into this very practical state of thinking, ok well I will simply do x,y,z and not interact or react. As these things do, it fizzled out, and we became friends again, and the worst people left school early anyway, but wow what a headfuck for a couple of years.

However in that time I read a lot, I listened to a lot of music, I wrote, I was pretty creative actually! Fuck that person, she never had anything like the positive effect on me that those couple of years did.

Then my last two years were great, I went out a lot and had a lot of friends. But 'a lot' doesn't mean a lot in a rural setting, where everyone knows everyone. I'm only really Facebook friends now with them but I think back fondly.

Then I went to university and left my family (a positive for me) and that's when life really started. Not that it's been easy, I am definitely prone to monitoring if people like me or not, over thinking a lot about interactions, and all that is probably because of school. But on the other hand when I meet people with whom I hit it off, it goes well and I have friendships that are decades long, just not with people from school.

I had my own group of friends but I wasn’t what you’d call popular.

I was on the periphery of most circles but preferred to keep myself to myself on the whole. I could get served in the offy by the time I was 14 so I expect I was handy to know. My two best friends both went to different schools though so fall outs in class didn't bother me that much as I still had people to hang out with.

I haven’t kept in touch with anyone from school. I had some pals there from time to time but not close friends. I was fairly invisible and remain so in adulthood. No uni friends either. Once I’m out someone’s life I don’t really exist 😂
I have tried keeping in touch when social media came about but there’s no reciprocal effort and I have enough self respect not to bother too much.

I know loads of people to chat with and am never really that lonely. I am liked just easily forgotten

I was invisible. Rarely actively disliked, but nobody took much interest in me. It's taken me a long time to develop social skills I'm happy with.

I was kinda ignored by the popular girls but I was in a group of great girls and we all loved each other and are still in touch and still find each other good company. We live in different countries but I value their friendships

I'd find that now, people who don't know me may quickly dismiss me but if I work with people long enough/know them long enough, they like me. Eventually. What's not to like. But I think I come across a bit low status.

Why not ?

Why would you post that online

Was in the 'misfits' at school. DH was in the 'sporties'. DH and I wouldn't send DD there if we were still in the area.

I was fairly popular and got on with everyone. Was targeted and bullied by a few girls in the year below, weirdly, because boys fancied me and not them (not a humble brag, I had big tits). Still very close to around half a dozen of my school friends despite living 300 miles away.

I think I was liked by everyone and got on with everyone across all the different groups but never really in the cool gang until I left school and started at college. I'm still very close with my friends from high school (there are 9 of us, some of whom I've known since nursery) and we regularly do days/nights out and trips away. My best friend though I met in college but she's been assimilated into my high school friends.

I had friends at school and a good social life up to the Upper Sixth. Things happened during the summer term that were mis-represented by the girl concerned and when we went back to school life was very difficult. My social life fell apart and my sister introduced me to a young man who took me to a Valentine’s Day Dance and I met my husband.

I wasn’t in any of the popular gangs but I didn’t struggle socially and always had a “tribe”.

I honestly think being in one of the popular gangs is ultimately more of a curse than a blessing. It has some perks, sure, but usually these gangs are more about PR and politics and most of the “friendships” within these groups are ones of expediency.

If you spend most of your life riding on other people’s coat tails you never learn to develop proper friendships.