"Not a Cool Kid in High School? Study Says You Should Probably Be Relieved."

In NA politics, it’s all about sitting with the Cool Kids at lunch.
-- attentive blog reader D

In high school, I would have liked to be considered one of the cool kids. It took quite a lot of effort trying to fit their standard, and I could never quite pull it off. I'd always land somewhere outside the in-crowd.

I'm a slow learner and a late bloomer. It took a while for the truth to sink in: I'm neither pretty nor pedigreed, and fashion is beyond me. For me, the objective had to be either abandoning ephemeral appearances and using my brain, or dooming myself to eternal annoyance.

It's a lesson I'm very thankful for having learned, although it has left me severely allergic to cliques and elites. I dearly love puncturing their pretentiousness.

After all, we all need hobbies.

Not a Cool Kid in High School? Study Says You Should Probably Be Relieved, By Jessica Stillman (Inc Dot Com)

Outcomes for the popular kids are not good.

High school can be brutal on kids that don't quite fit in. But if you think the bullying and social isolation of not being popular is bad, you should see what happens to the captain of the football team or chief Mean Girl after they graduate.

Science actually suggests that, as nasty as high school social competition can be, you should probably be relieved if you (or your kids) weren't exactly homecoming king or queen.

The dangers of chasing cool ...