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When
I was in high school I was really overweight. I didn’t have
a lot of friends and gym class was especially awful for me. The one
sport I did enjoy playing and was somewhat good at was volleyball.
One day playing volleyball, I really got into it and started to enjoy
myself. I must have zoned out because I crashed right into a very
popular girl, as we both went for the ball. I was fine, but she ended
up passing out! I was mortified, especially when I heard all the comments
under people’s breath about how “’The Tank’
nearly killed Dixie.”
-R.J.
Here's an
example of naivete. 
My
freshman year at the big high school, I sat in my geophysical science
class behind a girl who was an upperclassman or at least a sophomore,
and she was a stoner or grit or whatever you called them. She seemed
kind of mean and sarcastic, so I didn't talk to her. But one day
I noticed she had a pin on her purse, you know, the round circular
ones with messages that were popular then. She had several, but
this one said, "Ask me if I care." I actually thought
it was sincere, and wondered if I had misjudged her, that beneath
the harsh exterior, she was just a nice person, who you could reach
out to if you were down. Thank god I never did, because it dawned
on me awhile later what it really meant, and that she probably would've
laughed in my face and publicly made fun of me. I am always relieved
I didn't open my big mouth.
-Jill E.
P.S. She
usually wore a roach clip in her hair, decorated by feathers and
beads hanging on leather strings. Do you know these? It was all
the rage in Arizona in the early 80s, and I had some myself as hair
clips without knowing what their real purpose was until years later.
God, I was dumb.
During
my freshman year of high school, I was casually buying a soda from
the school store, a hole cut into the main hallway. While I was at
the counter, Matt, one of the guys who thought he was too cool for
everyone else, but about the same size as a football player, yanked
my Umbros down around my ankles to reveal my glow-in-the-dark neon
green smiley faced boxer shorts. Red faced and shaking, I turned and
yelled "really? You like seeing guys underwear?" That was
when I realized that I was no match for the physical beating I was
about to ensue. I dropped my soda and ran for my dear life, avoiding
Matt in the hallways for the next year until he graduated.
-David
When
I was playing little league baseball, my team won a free trip to see
the Chicago Cubs play the Philadelphia Phillies. Since I would be
in the city, she was worried that something bad would happen. I might
get hit on the head with a baseball and not know who I was, in case
I needed a blood transfusion, my coach would not know my blood type,
etc. So to ensure I would receive appropriate medical attention, and
remember who I was, she took a permanent marker (black) and wrote
my name, address, phone number, blood type and social security number
on my stomach in big letters. Of course I was embarrassed, and when
one of my friends saw something through my shirt (it was summer) everyone,
including the coach, laughed at me and called me names. I know this
is a weird story, but usually when I'm at a party or drinking with
people it goes over as a good laugh story. A pretty sad, but definitely
geeky story.
-Ed
I
was so uncool in 8th grade that there were 7th and even some 6th graders
on my bus that were cooler than me. I sat pretty close to them though
because of assigned seating by our busdriver. One day, one of the
cool kids was handing out pixie sticks to the other cool kids. I gathered
some nerve and stood up, turned around said "hey man, can i have
one" trying to act like we were friends, or at least acquaintances.
he looked at me and yelled "bitch sit your ass down!" i
mumbled something incoherent and sat down. for the rest of middle
school and all of high school (untill i got a car) i listened to my
cd player and never talked to anyone on the bus again.
-J.B. (guy)
When
I was in 6th grade I was in the awkward stage to say the least: glasses,
zits, bad perm, lite blue cotton pants rolled. I was very aware of
my nerd state, but somehow I was pretty cocky sometimes too. I was
hanging out in the library with a few friends, joking around and whispering
jokes and feeling pretty cool. a 7th grader named Chris M. walked
in the library and came by my friends and I. I thought the older cool
guy was trying to hang out with me, until he looked me directly in
the eye and said loudly in front of everyone: I HATE YOU, DEANNA.
I was speechless
and returned to quiet, still nerd-dom.
-DeAnna
In high
school, I was a straight A student, definitely a geek, but perhaps
not quite pathetic.
Near
the end of Senior year, I attended a pre-graduation dinner with several
of my classmates. While standing in a group of relatively cool kids,
I stated in no uncertain terms that after the lame dinner I wanted
to get, and I quote, "Fucking Fried." To my surprise, they
all looked at me in shock. I then turned around to see that my high
school guidance counselor, who was so proud of me and my 4.0 GPA,
staring at me disapprovingly.
Thanks,
Eric
PS If you
do happen to choose this story, I had the classic 80's Mullet at
the time.
One
day in the eighth grade our class went on a field trip. On the bus,
I sat next to my friend Kevin, who was not as big a geek as me. He
and I shared cassettes on our Walkman radios. At one point, Kevin
went off the school bus to go to the restroom. One of the cooler kids,
who had his own rock band, picked up Kevin's Walkman and found my
mixed tape inside, which I had entitled "Oldies but Goodies".
He and his friends justifiably laughed. They just put the tape back,
and Kevin later returned, unaware that anything happened. The whole
time, I just sat by, quietly embarassed.
-Matt
R.
This
is my story about why standing up for yourself is just a bullshit
thing other tell geeks and nerds to do because they won't fucking
get involved themselves and don't want to feel guilty about it.
Since grade 2, for reasons unknown to myself, I had been the largest
child pariah the city of Vancouver has ever seen - people still talk
about it to this day and I am now over twenty. I was a very friendly,
very talkative, hyper kind of kid, etc., very smart, and all that,
and, naturally, became the worst piece of shit other kids could encounter.
The story is this: in grade 4, all the students from Kerrisdale School
Annex (K-3) started going to the main school a block away. Unfortunately,
I was still the most picked on kid in the entire school. I guess I
wanted to make a stand in this new enviroment. Since, grade 2, kids
always picked on me. And I cried, etc., but never stood up to them,
since they attacked in large packs and there was no one to help. Now,
this pack thing is important to remember - no one ever stood up for
me. Any insult about me suddenly became gospel truth - I am certain
you have heard all this before. Think Welcome to the Dollhouse.
Okay, so fast
forward to Mrs. Bradley's class in grade 4. One of the worst of my
enemies, a kid named Bruce - not a nice guy, btw - was again in my
class. Anyway, he was picking on me and I remembering very consciously
deciding to stand up to this jerk.
As a result, we came to blows in the cloakroom with everyone else
still in class and I ending up biting this guy in the head (no blood).
Well, there was no clear winner or anything. But, instead of respecting
me like all the television shows had advertised, as everybody has
always told me, etc., now all the kids kept saying I had rabies and
was even more miserable than before. I realized then that unless I
became a total psycho or moved away, I would never win alone and anyone
who tells you differently is full of bullshit (or if they do win,
are lucky).
Anyway, hope this story makes some sense.
Sincerely yours,
Matthew
When
I was around nine years old I had a huge crush on this guy, Cole.
I wrote him an anonymous love poem and made my dad put it in his mailbox
during the wee hours of the night. A few days later I found the love
poem torn up and thrown all over my front yard.
-Andrea
In
9th Grade, I was the "new kid" at my school. Because no
one knew me from the past, I was a novelty, even to the "cool"
kids, and I tried to be in their group. One of the cute girls in my
English class even seemed to kinda like me, and we would flirt during
class. About
two weeks into the school year, my the English teacher had us reading
"Romeo and Juliet" as a group. Not really a performance,
just sitting at our desks, but with each part read aloud by one of
the students. My teacher picked me to play Benvolio, a minor character
who appears at the beginning of the story. Maybe
I had seen too many Shakespeare plays on TV, but for whatever reason,
as the reading began, I spoke my lines in an obnixious, overly-done
fake English accent. I wasn't trying to be funny--I just assumed everyone
would be reading their lines that way. I
was mortified when the next kid read his lines in his everyday, normal
voice (as did everyone else). After
that, the cool kids labeled me a dork, and the cute girl acted like
I didn't exist.
-Marc W.
My
pathetic geek story isn't much of a story, but as I was a hopelessly
awkward and pathetic geek all during junior high school (and well
beyond), I think it qualifies. In
seventh or eighth grade, I took a speech class where each student
had to write a speech on a given subject and get up and present it
in front of the class. For me, being very shy and self-conscious,
public speaking was torture. On the day of my speech I was really
nervous. I had my notes on 3" x 5" note cards and was ready
to get up there and give my speech on pearl diving. When my turn came
to speak, I frantically searched through all my pockets and notebooks,
but I couldn't find my note cards. The teacher was watching me impatiently,
and everyone was staring at me. Humiliated and embarrassed, I told
the teacher I couldn't find my notes. She exasperatedly told me to
give my speech the following day. Right after the notes fiasco, I
noticed a couple of nogoodnik boys in the corner of the room laughing
themselves silly. I didn't know why they were laughing, but I suspected
they had been up to something. On the last day of school, about six
months later, one of the boys told me that they had picked my notes
up off my desk when I wasn't looking and thrown them out the third-story
window. I should have said something, but I just stood there and looked
at him like the geek that I was. Love
your stories and drawings--it's great to know I'm not the only one!!
-Susie M.
In sixth-grade,
my friend Mike and I were extremely unpopular and we'd often sit
by ourselves at lunchtime. It was there that we'd get in strange
conversions and drift off into our own little world, completely
ignoring all the other people in the cafeteria. One day, we got
on the topic of DANDRUFF. This led to a challenge between the two
of us -- Who had the most? So we cleared off the table and started
fluffing our hair, to see who could get up the highest pile of skin
flakes. We
played this game for several days until, Mr. Bradley, the bald-headed
vice principal, walked up to the table and said "Gentlemen,
what are you doing?"
We explained our game and he immediately led us to his office. After
a thorough chewing out and telling us how disgusting the whole idea
was, he sent us back to our class. (As an aside, he yelled at me
especially for laughing and snickering through the whole thing.
You see, Bradley was BALD! He couldn't have dandruff! Was he secretly
envious of our dandruff situation? I don't know for sure, but I
just had to laugh at him. I couldn't help it!) At the end of his
lecture, Bradley meted out our punishment ... We had to take a note
home to our parents explaining what we did and to write a multi-page
essay on hygiene.We
both did, of course, because in sixth-grade you're scared of everyone,
even bald-headed, dandruff-craving vice principals.
-John S.
When
I was a junior in high school I had this big time crush on this
girl in my algebra class. I was way too shy to actually talk to
her, let alone ask her out. One day in class I was flipping through
random pages in my math book. I thought to myself, "If the
page number on the right side of the book is an odd number, she
will say yes to me if I ask her out." I picked a random page
and looked at the number in the bottom right hand corner - it was
even - all of them were. Thats when I figured out I was a looser.
—R
When
I was in 6th grade, my friends and I got into this huge fight. It
was basically me against them, so I knew I had to pull out the big
guns if I was going to single-handedly beat them all in this war.
During one particularly heated exchange I blurted out smugly: "So?
Well my mom said that she doesn't like you guys!" I was sure
that would do the trick. Instead of getting upset though, they started
to laugh at me.
—A.S.
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