I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Those kids that bitch about you in the corridor? In ten years’ time, they won’t be in your life. You may still casually hang out with a few people from your school when you’re in your twenties, but you won’t have to put up with the people you choose to leave behind every lunchtime like you would at school. I only kept in contact with one girl from my school who always showed me kindness – I still try to hang out with her as much as I can, and I love her to pieces. You can always decide to keep the friends you make in your life after school, but the ones you will leave behind are temporary. The people who are cruel to you aren’t going to be relevant to you when you become independent – so why worry about what they think of you now?
At school, I was so concerned with getting everyone to like me. That’s something I’ve battled with throughout my life. Despite being a short-tempered introvert, I always seek the approval of others. I dread the thought of anyone deciding that I’m a bad person, and at school, surrounded by over two hundred people exactly the same age as me, I was desperate to fit in at any cost. I flitted between friendship groups, changed my appearance and faked my music taste for five years – I flip-flopped between being someone who listened to pop and wore fake tan, and someone who had bright red hair, wore big, black baggy clothes and listened to metal. I answered back to teachers for a cheap laugh, getting myself in trouble to look cool. In trying to be someone I wasn’t, nobody truly knew who I actually was – including myself. I ended up not being close to anyone for any extended period of time. In trying to fit in, I isolated myself from the people I wanted to like me.
Eventually, I found my stride as the class clown. If you’ve watched my YouTube channel, this may not surprise you. At some point during my teens, I discovered that I was pretty good at making others laugh, and decided to use it to my advantage – disrespecting teachers with witty comebacks, defacing desks with crude drawings and being sent out of class at least once a week for being disruptive. When I was fifteen, one of my teachers (who I really disliked, and those feelings were definitely mutual) caught me talking in class and asked me to repeat what she’d just said. Now, being anti-authority to the point where it’s a problem (try telling me what to do. Let me know how that goes for you), I immediately snapped back, ‘Sorry. I don’t tend to listen to teachers like you.’
I got sent out of class, received a referral to our head of year and had to sit in detention for three lunchtimes for that.
Another example would be form time, when each morning and afternoon, we’d register our attendance with our form tutor and ‘study’ for twenty minutes. My form tutor, being a reasonable human, couldn’t stand my insolence. Unfortunately for him, I’d also become extremely close to another girl in my form class, and we got on like a house on fire. The last thing a disruptive student should have is a partner in crime. Each and every form time, our form tutor would order my new best friend and me to sit at opposite ends of the classroom from one another in order to stop us being disruptive, and each and every form time, we would walk into the classroom and sit next to each other in an act of defiance. It basically became a running joke with our entire form class, and the only person who didn’t find it funny was our form tutor. One afternoon, I walked through the door and immediately heard my form tutor bark, ‘Emma, go to the head of year’s office.’
I frowned.
‘What? Why?’ I asked.
‘Because you’re not going to be a prefect any more,’ my tutor replied.
Oh yeah, that’s the other thing that aggravated my teachers – despite being . . . well, a shit, I was smart. I was in the top class for every subject, and mostly got the highest grades for any homework or exam. For that reason, I was made a prefect, adorned with a burgundy tie as opposed to a regular blue one. Somehow, I was someone the school trusted to set an example to the younger pupils (in truth, I just taught them how to burn books with hairspray and a lighter. Even though I wasn’t popular with kids my own age, the younger kids liked me a lot).
I walked down the corridor towards our head of year’s office, heart pounding. As much as I enjoyed being rebellious and getting a few cheap laughs, being a prefect was something I could put on my CV when I went out to get my first job – and how would I explain to my parents why my burgundy tie was gone? Suddenly, I felt a pang of regret for always being so rude to my teachers – were the few short sniggers I got occasionally from my peers worth it? The kids who laughed with me never actually chose to hang out with me outside class. Being disrespectful, as it turned out, didn’t make me as many friends as I thought it did. Approaching the door to our head of year’s office, I knocked quietly before stepping inside.
‘Sir? You wanted to see me?’ I asked sheepishly as Mr E gestured for me to sit down opposite him at his desk.
‘Do you know why you’re here?’ he asked. I decided to feign ignorance.
‘No, sir,’ I replied. ‘My form tutor just said I needed to come and see you.’
‘I’ve had reports from him about your attitude,’ Mr E said. ‘And that made me go through your folder. Numerous detentions and referrals over the past year, all to do with your attitude and lateness . . . ’
(Oh yeah. My new best friend and I also deliberately turned up late to morning registration. One morning, our form tutor asked us why we were late. I defiantly held up a bag of sweets we’d bought from the corner shop instead of walking to school. ‘We got hungry,’ I replied coolly, strolling over to my seat with a cocky swagger. I was an actual dick.)
‘I don’t know if you think you’re being big, or clever . . .’ Mr E continued, looking over the pile of detention slips in front of him. ‘But it’s clear that you need to learn your lesson. I’m going to ask you to hand over your prefect tie.’
Now, whilst I did feel regret for how I’d acted, I’m . . . well, I’m dramatic, and I’m pretty good at getting things to swing my way. I turned on the waterworks.
‘No, please, sir,’ I sobbed. ‘Things have been hard at home, I know I haven’t been as well-behaved as I could have been . . . ’
To my surprise, it worked! Mr E relented and allowed me to keep my prefect tie, on the condition that I worked on my behaviour. The look on my form tutor’s face as he saw me waltz back into class still wearing my burgundy tie was one I’ll never forget. I can only imagine words were had between my form tutor and Mr E afterwards.
This very real threat of having my prefect status stripped from me was enough to make me buck up my ideas, however. I knew all too well that I had found the boundary I was looking for when pushing my teachers, and for the final few months of secondary school, I stopped acting up in class and – for the most part – buckled down and focused on my studies and revision. I left school with mostly A grades, but I know that if I’d spent more time taking notes in class instead of looking for a way to make my peers snigger and think I was cool for a few seconds, I would have done even better. Do those few kids who thought I was funny remember me now? Do they remember my jokes, or my oh-so-cool attitude? Of course not! They’re twenty-five, with jobs and kids. The only permanent reminder of school after you leave is the piece of paper telling you how well you did. That piece of paper helps you get on the career ladder, or into a good college or university. I’m speaking as someone who put the opinions of others ahead of my grades – in ten years’ time, the people around you won’t still be in your social circle. Perhaps one or two of them will, but the time you spend trying to impress your peers at school is a complete waste. You can’t write on a CV, ‘Yeah, but I made Jim in my biology class laugh once.’
As I’ve said, I spent a large amount of my time at school worrying about the opinions of my peers and trying to be liked. I was in and out of friendship groups as if they had a revolving door. I changed everything about myself a hundred times over, and out of those two hundred people in my school year, I only talk to one of them to this day. I also distinctly remember trying my hardest to follow the latest fashion trends with school uniform. In my
school year, it was cool to have a tailored shirt that went in at the waist, and it had to be a couple of sizes too small to give you bigger boobs. You had to have a certain type of tight elasticated navy-blue trousers that had a cute little silver buckle sewn on them. And you had to have a miniature backpack that was so small you had to fold your exercise books in half to squash them in. Oh! And you had to defy the school rules and wear black trainers that could pass as smart black shoes. If you didn’t do all these things, you were a nerd, a loser, you were poor, and you’d stick out like a sore thumb to the bullies.
I know this because I was a nerd, a loser, and I was poor, and I definitely stuck out like a sore thumb. I’ve spoken about bullies in previous chapters, but I was often mocked for my cheap blazer and stained tie because my family could only afford one of each; my long, baggy white shirt that had a chest pocket so big I could’ve snuck a hamster into school and no one would have known; my big, bulky black plastic shoes with huge rubber soles, and my big, oversized navy trousers that didn’t have any type of cute buckle attached. I was dirty, I smelled a little, my skin and hair were constantly greasy because I grew up without a shower in our house (that’s probably quite odd to many of you, but we only had a bathtub and couldn’t afford to get a shower installed), and I was sort of known as one of the least ‘well-off’ kids in my year. Each and every lunchtime, I strategically worked out which corridors I could go down and which ones I should avoid if I didn’t want to bump into the group of vicious girls that would make fun of me, and each and every night I begged my dad to buy me the tight-fitting clothes and trainers that would mean I would be left alone.
‘For the last time, we can’t afford it,’ my dad would groan, clearly annoyed at my lack of gratitude for the things he managed to buy for me through scrimping and saving. I remember being so angry – if only I had those trousers, the bullies would leave me alone, and people would stop sitting away from me in class, and people might think I was cool . . .
I don’t speak to any of those people I once tried to impress. Sometimes I look them up on Facebook just out of curiosity. They’re all adults, with jobs and babies, and wouldn’t remember my name if it was written on the front cover of a book and flung at their faces. My point is that for all the complaining I did about my social status at school, it is completely irrelevant to my life now. When you’re at school, being liked can feel like the be all and end all. Being popular – or at least, not having people tease you – can feel like priority numero uno, and can often overtake your desire to do well in your studies. I urge you to remember that friends come and go, but the grades you leave with are for ever. In ten years’ time, your souvenirs from school will consist only of your grades and the people you choose to keep around.
This goes for being bullied, too. I wish I’d had the attitude of, ‘In a few years, you’ll be out of my life, and you won’t matter to me,’ when I was being teased and desperate for approval, because then that crushing feeling of humiliation and rejection wouldn’t have felt anywhere near as bad. The second you step out of that school building on your final day, you’re no longer forced to be around the kids that make your life a misery – you are free to drop them, and suddenly, every opinion they had of you will be irrelevant. Spend your time and energy working hard, taking notes, doing your homework, and try to spend less time worrying about what people think of you. Work and act as though they are already out of your life. You’ll thank yourself in ten years’ time.
Best Friends, Bitching And Bullying
Here’s the life lesson I want to put across to you here, without any extra waffle: if you hear someone bitching and gossiping about someone, don’t join in. If you hear someone making up a lie about someone, be bold, correct them, and don’t join in. If someone is bitching about somebody else and asks you what you think about them, remain neutral, even if you do have a negative opinion. Do not start bitching. Do not start gossiping. Do not spread lies about people. Do not be mean about others online, even if you think you’re anonymous. Speak no evil, and your school life – no, your life in general – will be less dramatic, less complicated, and you’ll find yourself in a lot fewer confrontations, and in a lot less trouble.
My first story is pretty short, but I think it’s a good example of how things can very quickly get out of hand when you’re caught bitching about someone behind their back. It takes place during my second year of college. I was seventeen, and still trying to get over the relationship with Ben (remember him? First love? Shitty band?) that had ended a few months earlier. Ben was happy and in love with Jasmine (remember her? Cool, pretty indie kid who is now my friend because we bond over how much of a shithead Ben was?) and I still had to witness the two of them holding hands and kissing in the corridors, my heart breaking as I slowly began to accept that Ben and I wouldn’t be getting back together. I hated Jasmine. I hated her. In my mind, she’d stolen my first love. If she wasn’t around, Ben would have got back with me and we would’ve been happy. Of course, this would never have been the case, but ah, to be young and naive again.
During the summer holidays between my first and second year of college, I was sitting on Twitter having a conversation with a friend, when suddenly, he made a mean joke indirectly referencing Jasmine. We began to tweet back and forth something along the lines of:
Friend: Well, at least you’re not stuck up like some people . . .
Me: Look at me! I’m so indie! I love The Beach Boys! I’m so cool!!
The tweets went back and forth, indirectly mocking Jasmine. I was angry, and knew that despite her not following me on Twitter, she’d see the tweets. I wanted her to know how much I hated her. I wanted her to feel awful for dating the love of my life. I wanted her to be upset. She deserved it.
Needless to say (honestly, I hope it’s obvious) she didn’t deserve it. The tweets my friend and I sent were a pure example of cyberbullying, although my tweets were a lot worse than his. I sent the tweets with the intention of upsetting her, because they were obviously going to get back to her – and after a few minutes, the satisfaction of tweeting about Jasmine died away, and I deleted the tweets, thinking nothing more of it.
On my first day back at college, in my first ICT lesson of the year, a note was passed from the office to my teacher. I had been summoned to see the head of our college year. Confused, I did as I was told. I made my way to the head of year’s office, knocked on the door, just as I’d done in school over my prefect tie, and let myself in.
‘You wanted to see me?’ I asked politely, with no idea why I was being asked to take a seat. My head of year sat there, stonyfaced, and without saying a word, placed her hand on some printed sheets of paper and spun them round for me to read. There, in front of me, were screenshots of every tweet I’d sent to my friend about Jasmine. Every nasty, vicious word, staring me in the face, and the immediate shame I felt for what I’d written washed over me. My head of year pulled the sheets away from me and back towards her, before reading out each and every one, painstakingly slowly. My cheeks burned a furious red. The words being read back to me sounded as though they were from a completely different person – a nasty, horrible one who enjoyed making others upset – and then I realised that this was exactly what I’d become.
It turns out that Jasmine had seen the tweets, and had been in tears for an entire day before telling her mum, who then demanded that I be punished for what I’d said. I was threatened with expulsion from college, but fortunately I was told that, if I wrote a handwritten apology to Jasmine, I wouldn’t be expelled. I wrote my apology (and it was heartfelt, too – I genuinely felt awful for what I’d done) and was allowed to stay. After that, Jasmine and I kept a mutual, civil distance from each other for the rest of our time at college, only truly reconciling at a gig a year later, and, well, you know the rest. Jasmine and Ben broke up, Ben tried to win me back whilst he was still dating her, and we often bond over his shitty, desperate behaviour. As for the tweets? We don’t really ever talk about it, but she knows ho
w much I regret what I did, and chose to forgive me for it.
I refuse to sugarcoat it: I was a cyber-bully, plain and simple. I was immature and acting out of jealousy of her happiness with the ex I still cared for, and said nasty things with the intention of upsetting her in the public domain. I have absolutely no excuse for that, and I own it completely. To this day, ever since I realised the impact I’d had on Jasmine and on the future of my education, I have refused to participate in cyber-bullying – only ever calling out people when they have wronged a friend, but without spitting venom and using name-calling as a weapon.
As I’ve got older and (slightly) wiser, I’ve begun to read over any incensed online posts before publishing them, wondering if they’d hurt and upset someone in a way I didn’t intend. If I have a problem with a friend or colleague, I will do my best to talk to them in a calm manner in private looking to resolve our issues. Some people will do anything they can to ‘stir the pot’ – sometimes out of malice, sometimes just out of boredom. It never ends well. Getting caught up in the rumour mill and resorting to bitching and name-calling will only ever have a negative outcome that will outweigh the temporary feeling of satisfaction you’ll get from venting about someone, and the easiest way to avoid that negative outcome is to simply refuse to participate.
You may feel that, if you don’t join in with bitching and gossiping, your friends will think you’re standing up for the people they hate, and it’ll affect your friendship. If that’s how you feel about your friends, they’re not your friends. Nobody should encourage you to spread rumours or talk badly about someone. If a person has upset your friend and you hear them venting about how horrible and ugly they are, it may be best to keep quiet, nod and try to comfort your friend in a way that isn’t joining in on their rant. If someone has wronged you and you cannot calmly talk to them about it, write down your feelings, no matter how cruel, on a piece of paper, and tear it up into little pieces once you’re done so that no one can find it. I often find that after venting to a piece of paper, those angry feelings for that person I’m upset with fade away as I rip it up and throw it away. If I’d done that instead of doing what I decided to do to Jasmine on Twitter, I wouldn’t have cyber-bullied someone to the extent of almost being expelled from college.
Feel Good 101_The Outsiders' Guide to a Happier Life Page 15
