To P (your name is long and I don't wanna type it out): I really hate the whole "normal teen" thing. I don't think that is changing anytime soon. How did you get screwed by "taking it too far?"
Let's see if I can summarize this without missing anything important and without making myself look TOO pathetic.
When I was in ninth grade, I was very much against the normal teen mindset. I saw the kids around me doing things that I thought were stupid or trivial or irresponsible. As a result, I didn't associate with them because I didn't want to become like them. Most of the friends I had during high school were friends I had from before high school.
What used to just be a distaste for what was considered normal became an active hatred. I began to resent the "normal" kids because they were actually enjoying themselves by being normal. Meanwhile, I was lonely and miserable. Fate and my darkening attitude separated me from the few friends that I had, and that made everything worse. I spent most of my junior and senior years in smoldering hatred for just about everyone around me.
So I graduated and went to college. And I thought, hey, this is a chance to reinvent myself. I decided to try and be more social. But since I'd spent the last four years by myself, I realized I had virtually no social skills. Any social events I attended became extremely awkward for me and usually pretty awkward for the people I went with. So after a while, I gave up on a social life in college, too.
I guess I've kind of made peace with my social lot in life at this point. I have about four friends left and the closest one is about fifty miles away. Our friendships consists of bitching about our miserable lives to each other about once a month over AIM. I've been a loner so long that even if I decided I was tired of being lonely and wanted to go out and do something, I wouldn't know how to do it.
I did all of this because I was so convinced that I didn't want to be normal. And now I'm not normal. I'm the weird, awkward guy with an occasional stutter who doesn't make eye contact and gets fidgety when face-to-face conversations last more than a few seconds.
Not that all this will happen to you, of course. Because I still think that high school's version of "normal" isn't really a good thing. Just don't let yourself get carried away. Because the opposite of normal can sometimes be just as bad.
How's that for preachy? 
Oh, and most people who don't feel like typing out my whole name just shorten it to Phant. 
Damn, I can't believe I missed this. Close for me, emphasis on the resentment thing. I still feel that way in some regards, but some of it is legitimate. Sitting next to kids and hearing shallow things about how they're going to get wasted every night, speaking about it every class gets a bit old.
It's where I get torn. Being self-aware is nice, and having a sense of what to do (I don't know, fashion, "attitude", situations where people may be laughing at someone) helps, but at the same time I love being naive and people that are. Not having to deal with high school/college bullshit is ideal.
Man, this has been great to talk about. Superdude and Phantasmatron need to start our own subforum or PM thing. Otherwise, to the lonely hearts club!
Topic: Starting High School (Read 21001 times)
