Heart and Mind

But What Were You Like in High School?

When I meet new people, such as people in the work place or new friends, I often wonder about what they were like in high school.

I often have my own suspicions regarding what they were like in high school.

And sometimes I'll come right out and ask them: "So tell me, what were you like in high school?" Possibly surprisingly, most people seem to enjoy talking about it.

High school was a long time ago and we know it's a period tied in with youth that doesn't really matter much anymore. But it makes for interesting character study.

I once worked with a particular female, and we were friendly and stuff. I liked her and all. We got along fine and were kind of office friends. But I always was thinking to myself, "I bet if we went to high school together, you wouldn't even talk to me." Adulthood has a way of leveling the social playing field. If she was the type of person who would have thought she was too cool for me, she had to be at least a little humbled by the fact that we were working together and doing the same crappy job.There was something about her personality that just seemed to indicate that we would not have been friends in high school.

As we get older, I think we all (mostly) mellow and we become more tolerant and learn to enjoy the company of many different kinds of people, but there is this deeper appreciation you have or don't have for people based on the type of person they are deep down. And that kind of thing is often more visible in your high school years. It's like the essence of your personality was less censored in those days.

So I sometimes size people up by what I think they were like in high school. Were they stuck-up? We're they down-to-earth? We're they running with a crowd that were comprised of a bunch of assholes? Were they middle-of-the-road? Jocks? Artists? Conformists? Free-thinkers?

Suppose I meet two people. I might like them both. But if I get the sense that one of them was probably the kind of person I would have liked in high school, I probably will be more fond of them or feel a better connection. If we would have gotten along when we were teenagers, they're probably, at their core, pretty cool.

posted by Steve @ 10:01 PM