Popular to bully. I was curious about everything. I wanted to learn things. My favorite book was a science encyclopedia, and I was always eager to help others understand something.

My classmates always came to me with questions during class. I got trashed and bullied during break or after school. I basically had no friends.

Nope. In high school I was in the same class of all the popular kids (the popular kids of other classes would always come and hang out with our class) but I would not consider myself part of the popular kids of the class. I would have much better have fun with the kids of the “nerdier” classes😅. Anyways they were all super nice, friendly and would also often invite me to hang out with them, eventhough I was not part of the in group. I personally always enjoyed the most hanging out with my core friend group.

I guess

I mostly hung out with some of the “weird” kids. I think it was 5th or 6th grade when I decided that I wanted to hang out with the popular kids, and I guess I managed to succeed, because a year or two later, one of my classmates told me how popular I had been. I never felt popular though, and the time I spent trying to be popular was just constant stress because almost everyone else in that group is also worried about being accepted.

No. I was the weird gutter-goth kid who was either terrifying or called the f-slur depending on who you asked. I had friends but it was a small circle of people who shared my interests. I still talk to most of them 20+ years later.

I was popular within my niche, the nerds who were racking up all sorts of college credit and high standardized test scores while taking the most academically challenging classes offered by my school. Dated a bit, usually could get a group together in any given weekend night to hang out, could always find a group to watch rented movies or play pickup sports or play video games with (this was before home broadband so people had to lug their desktop computers to someone’s house for a LAN party).

There was some exposure to the athletes (most of the athletes at my high school were pretty good students), the arts and theater types, goth types, etc., but I never felt that there was a true hierarchy in popularity of the different groups, just people sorting into what they preferred. I hung out with my friends, and I was one of more popular kids within my particular group. I had a blast.

I sympathize a lot with the song “Mr. Popular” by Double A-Ron. I had almost no friends my first two years, then suddenly half the school knew me my last two years. I still didn’t get invited to anything very often, and when I did no one actually wanted to interact with me. But people knew/thought that I was popular because tons of people would stop to say hi or whatever to me.

Edit to add: Actually in my last year there, one of my teachers had taken note of my “popularity” particularly with girls. Referred to me as a “modern day Casanova” and asked for advice on what gift to get his wife. I had had girlfriends but buying anniversary gifts for a wife was a bit out of my wheelhouse lol

Popular people didn’t see themselves as popular, they just had a lot of friends from their perspective. Social structures are only really visible from the bottom-up.

I wasn’t popular, but I could easily drift from one clique/group to the next and was generally accepted by all. I didn’t get invited to hang out all the time, but enough times that I didn’t feel like I was being excluded entirely.

Most certainly not.

Just as the “new kid”…

My school was very divided, not only socially, but geographically within the school.

The Jocks hung out in hallway by the gym, the Freaks hung out in the smoking courtyard or the cafeteria, the Artists hung out in the Art rooms, the Straights were always in a class. I was a Bandfag, so I hung out in the band room. There wasn’t much cross-over, except in classes, and even then, differing groups didn’t interact much.

Among the Bandfags, I was definitely a leader, and was very popular. I doubt many people in the rest of the school knew who I was, though.

This was back in the late 70s, when annual class sizes were huge due to the post-war baby boom. I had over 800 kids in my class, and there were more than 2000 in my high school of only 3 grades (10, 11, 12). So nobody was popular in the whole school, just among their group.

I was part of a quartet that always hung out together. I don’t know if I would list myself as popular in high school but I had a good social scene.

One of the four of us went to a different school, so my groups social scene had a cross section from both schools.

Also two of 4 were one year ahead of me and one was a year behind me, so again we had a cross section of classes.

I wasn’t a big athlete or anything that is the stereotypical popular person but I never lacked for companionship and generally had invites to the major social events.

Also where I went to school there were pretty distinct groups, the PWT red neck crowd and the more well to do crowd. Again I transcended both major groups.

I think the best way I can describe it is, I had a social life when I was in high school but it was outside of high school.

Among nerds like me I guess, in that I had a lot of friends and we took over a hallway during lunch. I didn’t care about popularity or try to attain it however.

That and I was disillusioned at a young age, so I was more interested in exploiting their stupid credits system and only attended high school half the day by 2nd semester grade 11 and all of 12 making sure I had exactly the minimal amount of credits to graduate on purpose. I stuck around for lunch because it was fun/social.

Nope. It was the 60/70’s and I had untreated ADHD. I was the weird one pretty much to anyone. Family later in life called me uncle nutsy.

Was not medically diagnosed until very recently. I got tested to confirm for myself and self knowing. My paternal family all gone now but at least I know for myself.

Edit typo