What I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was Thirteen and Nerdy

[paxpinnae]

A friend of mine has a cousin - young, dresses oddly, likes Doctor Who - who's going through a bit of a rough patch. We're trying to collect advice for her - other than the generic "it'll be better in college" - here.

If you could take a moment to tell someone what you wish someone had told you when you were thirteen, it'd be appreciated.

ETA: A number of people have expressed an interest in seeing other people's responses, so I've set up a Tumblr here. The anonymity of all responses will be preserved.

Comments

[tei]

Done! I wish I had more to say, but honestly "it gets better" is the truest thing I can think of, and it's probably what I would have told my thirteen-year-old self. But then, maybe that's only because nobody did tell me that, and I didn't realize that there are periods of life that are generally reputed to be more fun than the eighth grade.

[paxpinnae]

Oh god. I can't imagine anything more horrible than not realizing that middle school isn't like the rest of life. I was miserable, but at least I was aware that, you know, it would probably suck less once I got boobs and stopped having hormones.

[jamethiel]

I left a reply. The trouble is, dealing with situations like bullying requires SO MUCH more adulthood than we can reasonably expect people to possess at her age.

I DID put in a bit about listening to people, because the trouble is about "weird" kids (of which I was/am one) is that quite often they bulldoze over everyone else's contributions, and only want to talk about Doctor Who or whatever, and then wonder why no one else wants to be friends with them.

Also a bit about getting involved, because after school clubs were the SAVING of me in high school.

I wish there were better solutions than this.

[paxpinnae]

Thanks for the "listening to people" advice; I actually put that in my answer, too. It's important for everyone, but especially for bright kids, who often have a slight tendency to arrogance.

[trialia]

Well... I'd quote LMB, since this is one of the best scenes I've seen that epitomised my dealing strategies at that age. And after. You grit your teeth and get on with it because life may be hard right now, and it may keep on being hard, but you can do it. What else is there?

"You go on. You just go on. There's nothing more to it, and there's no trick to make it easier. You just go on."
"What do you find on the other side? When you go on?"
"Your life again. What else?"
"Is that a promise?"
"It's an inevitability. No trick. No choice. You just go on."

And the other one: "If you can't do what you want, do what you can."

Life isn't easy. It's never going to be easy. That doesn't mean it's not worth living, even if things are hard, because maybe you can use that experience to help later on.

LMB?

[erika]

Lois McMaster Bujold?

Re: LMB?

[trialia]

Yup.

[paxpinnae]

That's a really awesome quote. Thank you. *hugs*

[jadey]

Here via copperbadge. I left my thoughts - I really hope things work out for her!

[paxpinnae]

Thank you! It's been really astonishing, seeing the number of people who've taken the time to leave a note; the form went from having about 10 responses to about 50 in three or four hours.

[braidedmane.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I really wish someone had told me that there were other people like me. And maybe some tips on how to spot them. I had no idea there was anyone like me in the whole world except my best friend, who went to a different school and lived 30 minutes away. I made unsatisfying friendships with people I had nothing in common with, simply because I didn't know that people existed with the same interests and hobbies as me.

Is this a 13 year old who has access to the internet? I might suggest pointing her towards some minor-friendly fan groups or discussion boards, although obviously with a reminder of some internet safety guidelines. I wish the internet was what it is today when I was 13, but nonetheless, it helped me a lot as a lonely 20 year old.

[braidedmane.livejournal.com]

Oh sorry, I can't read! I'll drop my thoughts over there where they're supposed to go.

[paxpinnae]

That's all right! Thank you for taking the time.

Things I would tell 13-me:

[flamingsword]

Pay less attention to what your friends might think of your bravado and more attention to whether they think you're a jerk. Pay less attention to where you are in the school hierarchy and more attention to what the popular kids must think of themselves to try so hard all the time to stay on top. Do both of those things together and you'll piss off fewer people, there will be less drama, and you'll resent the differences less. Those will save time you'd have spent fixing things that got messed up which you can then invest in doing something productive like learning a programming language or watching every episode of Buffy (still more productive than worrying about your appearance).

Don't assume that anybody is going to make sense, not even yourself. Forgive people for not understanding you, and realize that if you can't figure yourself out, maybe nobody else knows themselves that well, either. Realize that you have more things in common with people (even people you don't like) than you have differences, and that if you ask people to help you understand them, they will because people love to talk about themselves.

Not only does LIFE get better, YOU get better. You will not always be awkward because these events are teaching you how to understand people so that you can have smoother friendships and working relationships. This pain will be useful someday.

[khloidanikos]

Right up until I went to the actual page and it said she was in Austin, I half-believed this might be about MY cousin, because she is exactly the same. 13, nerdy, dresses differently from everyone else, and constantly getting bullied at school for it, even getting ignored by our own cousin because she's different. I call her my mini-me and make sure she knows that there's nothing wrong with how she is, because she really is going to turn out like me--only COOLER. So I just wanted to let you know this kind of made me cry and now I have to get my thoughts together before I can add anything.

Also, is there a way to get some of the submissions? I would love to send it to my OWN geekling cousin as well.

[paxpinnae]

I set it up as a Google form because this was originally sent to a RL friend group and the form keeps things reasonably anonymous, but there have been so many wonderful responses that we're thinking about setting up something that would let people see the responses. Barring that, I'll be posting a "greatest hits" version sometime in the next few days.

[paxpinnae]

Ask and you shall recieve: we're putting the submissions up, anonymously, here.

[surexit]

I made a post in response to this - the reasons I didn't feel entirely comfortable contributing my thoughts are outlined over there. (Nothing bad about this, it's a lovely thing to do! It's just my thoughts which aren't that great.)

[liviconnor]

I don't think I wrote anything as well as the previous posters did, but I did my best. Reading back over other people's writing is so... warming. As someone who is still a nerd (but a happy, accepted one), it's still good to have that reminder that the other nerds made it out too. Middle school and high school are the skeletons in everyone's emotional closet- we don't want to take them out, they're not nice to see or think about, but it's so reassuring to know that we all have them. My people are here.