High school could have been a worse experience for me. It wasn’t the best but honestly, I’m thankful for it. I still had trouble, but I thank my parents for sending me to a magnet art high school from grade six through twelve where kids were a little more accepting, instead of the large high school that I was zoned for that had an obsession with football. However, there were still problems I faced and things I was still insecure about that I wish I had not wasted most of my teenage years worrying about. The school I went to was much smaller. My graduating class had about 80 people in it and most of us grew up with each other since sixth grade. The more the years passed, the more cliquey it got. If I had a falling out with a friend, or if my friend group split up, there was nowhere else I could really find myself to fit in since there were so few people and everyone else was already established in a tightly-knit social clique. There are a lot of things I wish I’d known back then, or had found out earlier in my time in high school.
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Your ‘friends’ who constantly talk shit about others, including their other friends, most likely do the same behind your back. It’s also not healthy to be hanging around someone who is always so negative.
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Don’t waste time worrying about what others think about you. Even though I spent seven years with a lot of the same people, they begin to know a lot about you, and will start having opinions about you. I was constantly worrying about something dumb or ignorant that I would have said when I was much younger.
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I won’t see some of these people ever again after graduating, and to keep close in touch with those who were closest to me.
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The girls who would subtly put me down by making negative comments aren’t my friends.
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The people who posed as the ‘popular’ group were probably peaking. And they are not worth being friends with from how they would put other people down. In fact, after I graduated, I found out that people who were friends with those particular people actually hated them but stuck around because they didn’t want to lose friends while they were in school. It wasn’t that shocking, but at the same time it was.
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Keep the friends around who have always had your back.
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Stop forcing yourself to be friends with people at your school when you don’t enjoy hanging out with them, or when they don’t make an effort to include you with them
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It’s okay to eat alone at lunch.
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I wish I didn’t worry about my class ranking so much. I made straight A’s, but I was determined to be in the top 10 percent, or even valedictorian. Then I found out by just .05 percent of my grade average, would have made it. It’s a cool thing to accomplish, but it doesn’t matter that much once you get into college or your career life after you graduate.
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Lastly, I wish I’d have known to stop crying over a mediocre boy that didn’t like me back. I wish I’d have known that I am worth more than hating myself over something that seems so little.