In my many years of schooling, I have encountered much bullshit both in and outside of the classroom. One particular instance that can be found in any elementary, middle, and high school, was the whole idea of "labeling" and cliques. The idea of being judged by your peers without any say and placed into a certain group based on their impressions of you is a little ridiculous . My particular experience with this happened in middle school, when I was one of the unfortunate people to fall into the "dork" category, which in my school meant being a total outcast. Although I still had friends, those who I had become friends with back in elementary school, no one new would talk to me, ask me to sit with them at lunch or be study partners with, or, god forbid, ask me out on a date. It was true that I read more than the average person, I had braces, and was generally a shy and reserved person, but I didn't think I deserved that harsh a treatment.
One day I was in Language Arts class, and I was sitting behind one of the girls I knew to be one of the chief “labelers”. I plucked up the courage to talk to her, casual chit chat at first, and then decided to ask her why I deserved the label I had received. I asked her what the "qualifications" of being a dork were, and when she told me her general definition, I was shocked. None of the people, which included several of my friends, who were labeled as dorks came close to matching her description! Had anyone bothered to actually get to know us rather than judging us based on first impressions, we probably could have moved up a few notches in the food chain, but there we were, stuck at the bottom. I called her out on this, saying that I hardly fit the description she had just given me, but she just shrugged and turned back around, completely ignoring me once again. My attempt at refuting her assertion that I was a dork was unsuccessful, but simply knowing that I didn’t really fit the description helped me survive those 3 miserable middle school years. And I was pleased to find out that in my high school, labels didn’t really matter, and you could pretty much sit with or talk to anyone without being judged (to your face at least). To this day I am glad I stood up for myself and didn’t just accept my BS label for what it was.
