Were you in the "popular group" at school, and how content are you now?

[TulipsInBloom1]

In my old secondary, there were four groups.

The Popular Group - usually (not always) sporty, a broad mix of academic ability. One of you was always head girl or boy alongside a Nerd. Slightly cheely chappie, usually lead the way in terms of bag choices/make up/music etc. Most vocal. Most known amongst the staff. Held the parties.

The Wider Circle - the peripheral group on the fringes of the Popular. Sometimes pulled into the fold if it became known your parents would allow booze at a house party, but in the main, left out of it. But always with an eye out incase an opening came up. Bought the bags and wore the makeup but just never quite got in there. Swung between caring about this and enjoying the reduced pressure.

The Invisibles - the ones who toed the line. Generally followed the rules. Never cared about being a Popular, but maybe a bit hmm about feeling like you didnt quite fit in. People dont remember you from school. Maybe you got left out of the yearbook list because you just got forgotten. Content with your friendship circle at school. Vague nerdyish tendencies which make you empathetic to the kid who got the piss ripped out of him for wearing his tie down past his crotch.

The Nerds - Back before Big Bang theory came along and made nerdism cool, when carrying a briefcase wasnt ironic, and you were singled out from playing war games and chess. Your parent was a school govenor, or worse, a teacher.

Which group did you fit into? Or were there more groups?

And how would you rate your life now?

I was an Invisible. I think I swung into Peripheral in y8 and y9, then back out again. It was too much.

My life now id say im a 9 out of 10. Happy. Content. I have what I wanted in terms of home and relationship. Id like to have used my further education more in work. I do sometimes wonder what people at school are up to (am in touch with 4, regularly, in my friendship circle, out of a yeargroup of around 200).

So Invisible. 9/10.

oh and a nerd. I had a computer and someone tried to bully me about it (this was 40 years ago). I laughed in their face.

I was Definitely an invisible at senior school and college.

Now i’m happy. Beautiful ds, good job, no commute, nice house. A few good friends. I’m lucky

Invisible now i'd rate my live 11/10 but i think others would rate it 7/10. I have a friend (not from school years) who was the most popular girl in school and her life now is 10/10 on anyones scale.

I was wider circle and am 10/10 happy now.

I think many people here are secretly hoping the popular kids are all miserable now but firstly I think there are as many misconceptions about popular kids at school as unpopular ones and secondly I think it’s shitty as fuck to keep looking for something bad to happen to others as your way to feel good about yourself. I know it comes from a place of hurt and damage but it’s not good for you.

Lower secondary school years very uncool. This improved in years 10/11 a lot and I'd say I was firmly middle group. 6th form the oringinal cool folk tried to hang on but once it go out that my group weee going to mod nights and clubs in London on the weekend things rearranged a bit!

I'm pretty content now

Friendless and weird I was often bullied, I'm still not really sure why.

Funnily enough, when I left school and went onto Sixth Form and University I was still weird, but had a lot more friends!

Still weird, very content. "Friends" with a few of the popular girls on Facebook/Instagram and enjoy seeing how they live their lives, but it's not the life for me. I have settled down and many of them haven't. I was the first to get married from my year by the look of things, and I'll be the first to have a baby.

I found the same thing when I went to Sixth Form, @Stephisaur - it was almost as if the bullies grew up, over the summer holiday - or maybe they realised they had to behave better, in front of kids they didn't know (our Sixth form drew from a much larger area than the catchment for my secondary school).

Sadly, for me, the damage was already done, and although I have made more friends over the intervening years - good friends too, who say they really like me and that I am a good person and a valued friend - I still struggle to believe them, and to see myself as they seem to see me.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius I’m definitely the same. I’m convinced that I’m actually a burden 😂

I didn’t fit into any of those categories. Had a small team of close friends and was all good. Uni was a distaster for friendships though.

As an adult: total nerd and have a better social life than I ever did as a teen.

I don't know what group I fit in at school. I suppose 'the invisibles', although I wasn't invisible enough not to be bullied. I was very academic, at schools were intelligence was highly prized, so was not bullied for that. I wasn't sporty though and the popular group were. I was a bit awkward, very quiet and bookish and quite plain and I just didn't fit in and it made me an easy target. Sometimes even being actively dismissed is a form of bullying in itself. I had one or two friends, but no one I've really kept in touch with.

Uni was the making of me, I had an amazing friendship group, gained a huge amount of confidence and grew into myself and my looks and had a wonderful time. Now I'd say I'm about a 9/10 happy with my life. I'm married to a lovely man, own our own home, expecting our first baby, lots of great friends and, as far as I'm aware, I'm largely well-liked, which is a big thing, having always felt that I wasn't likeable at school. I'd like to be earning more money by now but we have moved around a lot due to my DH's career and that has stalled things a little. I enjoy my job now and hope it will be the opening to a proper, stable career, now we have settled in one place.

I still feel a certain amount of resentment towards the people at school who made my life miserable, but they all seem to be doing OK and that's good, I don't wish them any ill. Interestingly I am now fairly sporty, when not pregnant, and pursue a number of athletic hobbies, whereas most of them seem to have stopped altogether. I just needed to find the type of sport that suited me I think, and school games lessons are woefully inadequate in helping anyone who isn't good at netball/hockey/rounders/track and field to find their niche and develop their own athletic ability.

Personally I was in the outer circle and could flit in and out of the nerds and popular circle when I wanted but I was a chameleon. Invited to all the parties and never bullied but I was never really me.

DDs high school cliques (all girls Inde) are very different. In order of popularity-
The geeks- very popular and celebrate difference/weirdness/intelligence (form captain, head girls etc and like science, chess, politics, comics, manga, etc)
The jocks - sporty and competitive but often 'jolly nice'
The artists- alternative (goths,emos, arts and drama)
The nerds - clever introverted and keep themselves to themselves
The chavs - hair, makeup, boyfriends bitching and backstabbing
The outsiders- have a single best friend and aren't in any group. The bullies are in this group because they have been ostracised from the other group.

All the groups seem to interact due to a touch points across them. DDs in the "geeks" but has a really good friend in the "jocks" and a good friend in the "nerds". Her friend in the "jocks" has a friend in the "artists" ....

Everyone seems to look down on the chavs (betrayers of feminism apparently) my how times have changed!!!

None of the above. A mosher/metalhead, getting told off by teachers for wearing black combats while others were allowed to walk around wearing skirts shorter than my belt lol. Our group were very much about music and band nights. Mixed abilities as far as grades went.
Currently 9/10 with life, does go up and down... still a metal head 😃

We had the Trendies, the Casuals.

Anyone else recognise those groups?
1980's era.

I was in the popular group right up until 17/19. My friends started to want to spend every weekend clubbing/drinking and it wasn't my scene. We grew apart. I am now between geeky and invisible but at least I can play Warcraft in peace

I was a nerd but fairly sociable and generally got on with everyone. My friends were often bullied for being boffs and whilst I enjoyed high school not all my friends did.
All of my close friends from school who were nerds are financially and professionally successful and are very content with their lives. Looking back now we were lucky to be smart at school as it gave us lots of opportunities and choice as we got older.

I was kind of in the middle.

Joined school late so was introduced to a bunch of nice, slightly dim, periphery type kids. In that school the “cool” and popular kids were the bottom of the class, have a laugh, snog the boys/girls, always in front of the mirror pushing the boundaries type.

I was clever, sporty, and had a good line in pretending not to give a fuck.

As a result I was in a lot of classes with the clever kids, hung around with the periphery types, but generally did my own thing.

Always suprised me that quite often kids would chat to me, cool, nerdy, whatever. I was never in their groups but i didn’t fit anywhere else so i think they saw me as neutral ground, iwswm.

Popular, I suppose, though people didn’t really stratify themselves like that then , like some American teen movie. I always in the group that tended to be the leaders which I ascribed to moving a lot for my father’s job as a child which made me very good at coming into a new school and sussing out the social dynamic. Also was conventionally pretty and clever, tbh.

Had a ‘oh’ moment, though a few years ago : was visiting my hometown, met up in a pub with a couple of old school friends who I had kept in touch with and were also visiting. We noticed a group of men having a drink, who were looking at us and we looked a bit closer as they seemed familiar . One came over just as we said ‘ oh, hi! It’s ‘Tom’ isn’t it ?! Remember us from 6th form ?! How nice , how are you ?! He said ‘ Do you remember us, then ? The quiet ones sat in the corner ? I’m surprised you do. ‘

We were baffled - the three were a) the best looking boy in the class, that we all fancied, though he seemed very shy b) the funniest boy, could make the whole common room laugh with his dry and witty comments and c) the most talented artist, who had made it professionally and whose work I had a print of - his originals being out of my price range .

Had a really nice chat with them - they thought they had been the invisibles of the 6th form, whilst we were the confident, social butterflies who found everything easy and we had thought they were just nice people who weren’t interested in our silly parties or our involvement in school politics.

Life turned out ok all of us ( with the usual personal hiccups)

The last main impression that I have from school is that it really was survival of the fittest. Dog eat dog. Really ruthless time, which is a shame when you're a teen, changing into an adult etc. I think it's the wrong time to find your tribe I really do, but it seems like everyone is just desperate to survive so forms these little cliques.

I really, really wish I'd been sent to a grammar or fee paying school : I would have done so much better in life. Instead school was spent trying to look hard, look the part and get through. I went to a red brick afterwards, but if I'd have gone to a better school I would have actually reached my potential!