Greed of Popularity | Teen Ink

Greed of Popularity

January 31, 2020
By Anonymous

Never in my life did I think that I would have to be alone before. I was always a very outgoing person. Trying to make friends with everyone that I met. This was especially true in high school. As a kid I was like the normal kids. By this I watched High School Musical, and thought highschool would be a similar experience. I was wrong in this case, and thus walked into highschool with somewhat similar expectations. However, everything wasn’t as soaring or flying as i expected. As everything I worked for crumbled at my feet.


    As a freshman in highschool, I never everyone in my grade. Being friends or associated with others sometime or another. I believed I had the world wrapped around my hands at this time. “People won’t leave me”, “I have friends who support and care about me”. These were all things that I considered in the past. My freshman year was booming with people always being by my side. Especially since I knew a lot of people before hand going into the school. The next year after that was when a lot of things started changing for a lot of people. Not only for me, but the second semester was devastating for our grade.


Sophmore year of highschool was an ordinary year. Well half a year if you only include the first semester. The first semester was all good for everyone. People were still friends with each other and no problems happened to anyone. However the second semester is when everything changed. Tension started rising through the grade and I thought I would be fine, but that didn’t last. One of my friends told my best friend at the time false rumors that I said about them. I didn’t understand the situation or anything that happened. I tried everything I could to make them happy again to no aveil.


    I started hating myself and wondering why me. Why was I the target to be used as in this situation. No matter how much I tried, everything would be pushed back even further away. My best friend was no longer my friend anymore. I was devastated losing someone I was friends with since the beginning of middle school. However, that didn’t last. At this time you would think that everything went well, but it didn’t. The complete opposite happened and worsened my current condition during the second half of the year.


“I’m always at the top of my grade, I’m never gonna fall”.

“I’m never gonna lose people”

“Why would people ever leave me”


When I joined highschool I was still in the same building. My highschool being a middle school as well. So I already knew a lot of the teachers there and still had some of my closest friends. I used to always be considered as one of the popular kids. Since everyone in the school knew us. Usually having a group of around 10 people. We never fought or anything and thought would stay together. I never felt disappointed or depressed during these times.


You know, I never realized how much a person's status can hurt them so much in the future however. Freshman year finished and it was time for sophomore year. I thought this was going to be like the previous year. Everyone likes each other and are fine with each other. No beef or drama with each other. This is what it was like in the first semester of the year. However everything took a turn for the worse during the second half of the year. Especially for me.


The second semester I thought would be fine. I’ve even asked my friends, “We’re gonna stay together until the year ends right?”. Everyone I was friends with said yes. However one day I was the victim of ones sick plan. Telling my best friends rumors and false accusations that I apparently said. Saying how my best friend was:


    “An attention-seeking h*e”


Never once did I say that to anyone. I tried talking to them, but they shut me down. Like I was some stranger on the streets just passing by. I fell into despair and depression since I didn’t know why. This wasn’t the end though. I had another group that left me also. All because I was friends with someone they didn’t like.


    “Why did it have to be me. Am I not important to anyone in the school…”

    “WHY WAS I THE ONE TO BE THE TARGET OF YOUR SICK GAME!”


I was depressed going to school every day and having to see everyone again. People talking behind my back. The feeling of my feet being dragged through the hallways of the school, having knives being stabbed in my back. There were countless of sleepless nights where I would cry myself to sleep wondering about everything and thinking if I should be alive or not. Near the end of the school year, I became a hollow shell of who I used to be. I didn’t care about anyone or anything.


“Was… fame and popularity… worth it?”

Over the summer I thought about it, and how I didn’t care about popularity or not. If I liked and cared about you I keep you. Otherwise, I’ll block them out. Here's the thing, I didn’t expect junior year of my high school life to be so good. People who once hated me tried to talk to me again. Trying to become friends and saying how they were sorry for what they’ve done in the past.


I’ve done everything in my control to ignore everyone that wronged me in the past. I only had a few close friends and some friends from the sophomore grade at the time. Even though I tried to kick people away, some of them would always try and come back.


I started hanging out with my two close friends at the time, who are still to this very day my best friends. It was the three of us, and there were other groups. I had a trig class, in which I sat next to one of the people who left and hated me the most in my sophomore year. I never talked to him in that class and only talked to others in my table. But he tried talking to me saying things like:


    “Do you need help on the work”

    “I’ll send you the homework if you need”

    “Do you want to go to the gym sometimes”

 


I never understood why but other than the fact that he was trying to be friends. Let's say his name was Chris for convenience. Chris would try talking to me in class and even in the hallways at times, but I couldn’t care less. I found my two friends and I made a couple more. I was also blinded by love at the time that I couldn’t care about anything else.


Before this, though every time I would talk to Chris he would avoid my questions. His normal response became:

“I needa go” running to everyone else without a word.


I didn’t understand it at the time being though so I just left it alone. My old best friend let's say her name was Jessica. I had my US History class with her. I also sat at the same table as Jessica. Also since we used to tell each other everything the ambience most of the times became awkward. But she still always talked to me. I even tried to talk to her and indirectly said:


    “My mom asked why we don’t hang out anymore”


Trying to give a hint as to why we grew apart from each other and all the things that happened in the past. However Jessica just replied saying:


    “Stuff happened, that drove us away”


But what I thought happened before was different. As I always sit on her table she would usually give me glares or a cold attitude. The atmosphere was also cold and you can feel a chill running down your spine. I asked her one day however was:


“Do you feel any tension with me hear or anything from the past”


I asked this but the response I received was out of the ordinary. She didn’t talk normally or how she usually talked. She raised her eyebrows and smiled and said:

“No it’s nothing, don’t worry about it”

I knew she was lying and and I can feel it. We’ve been friends for years so I learned how to read her body language and how she talks properly or not.


Recalling to the best of my abilities on what she said. After that, we became just classmates, I never hung out with her after school or anything similar. Our friendship as I knew it ended. I never tried to do anything to get my old friends back. They kept coming back to me. Junior and Senior year of highschool people keep coming back saying that they were sorry. Remember Chris, he came back and is one of my friends again. Not a close one but, I hang out with him after school at times. As for Jessica something never changed.


Now did I take them in, some of them. I didn’t care about fame or popularity anymore as it was an enigma that would haunt me. I went through my junior year and first half of senior year chill. Becoming friends with everyone again naturally. People coming back to me and saying that they were sorry. Never again will I let the greed of being popular consume me again in the future.


Do I think I would fall for popularity no, never am I going to that route. People hated on me and they got what they deserved. Crawling back to me in the end and wanting to be friends again.

 


 


The author's comments:

I did this for school. I’m just doing this for a grade. I’m just being honest. 


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