Social Ladders? What madness is this?!

Over these somewhat 3 wonderful years at this school, I have lived under the impression that a social scale did not exist. I don't know if I just chose to ignore it, noticed but refused to believe it, or... maybe now I am just seeing things that don't exist. Ever since freshman year, I came to a conclusion that the school had too many different social groups to determine who held dominance. But whatever the case, my views on my school’s social community has been thrown into question and a reevaluation all because of one conversation with a friend.

I didn’t always go to this school believe it or not. Once upon a time I actually attended a school where a social scale existed, and let me tell you, it was quite brutal, do I dare say, scarring. Well, it really depended where you were placed. It’s a known trend that schools small in population size usually have a social ladder- small population means everyone knows each other which mean everyone judges each other which means you know what everyone thinks of you and others which means eventually you place yourselves accordingly. At a school that has a social ladder, everyone has a reputation, an invisible file, filled with memorable events that people pull up when discussing who you are.

“She went out with Philip in 8^th grade but they broke up.”

“In 2^nd grade he drew on all the desks and got detention.”

“Last year when we had prayer in morning homeroom, she would pray for her pet chickens.”

“I think he liked me in 7^th grade. He’s kind of weird…”

You get my point? If you do one little thing, stupid, smart, or whatever, it sticks with you till you leave the school. And probably even after at your reunions. But when you are judged and determined by your peers where you fall on the ladder, it’s difficult to fluctuate after that, unless you’re a rare case.

The school I went to had the kids at the top- the volleyball/basketball/paddling kids, (throughout high school, those are the “it” sports, not football,) the kids that went to the beach often, the cool rebels, and the some what rich kids. You know, the kids who roll their uniform skirts up because it’s “too long” or never tuck their shirts in. After that are the kids who have similar qualities to the kids at the top, but didn’t quite make it because of a flaw in their reputation or personality, or the cool FOB kids. After that the gamers, drama club, the paleweirdstringyhaired kids, artists, skateboarders, and quiet acne cursed kids fall onto the ladder respectively, judged on their history. If I still had gone there, rewind my personality back to freshman year, I would probably fall between the second and third group I had described. I was kind of weird, had a reputation, and was somewhat emotionally damaged from the eight previous years I had spent there. In fact, after looking at pictures, my hair looked kind of stringy back then.

So there’s the crash course to a local school with a social ladder. When I left that school to attend my present one, I had another chance to start over, and managed to grow a tremendous amount in the past 3 years. The pressure of being judged was lifted, 90% of the student drama gone, and changed significantly in character for the good. I did all of this living under the impression I wasn’t getting judged.

But last night, I had a talk with one of my girlfriends, helping her pick another boy from our school to like so she could get over her current infatuation. I suggested names of boys that hung out in different groups. She rejected some of the suggestions, claiming they were “out of her league socially.” That’s when I realized that our school too had some sort of social scale. But because of our large student body, it’s impossible to know everyone, so people judge you on the group you hang out with instead.

Maybe we don’t actually have a social scale, but arrange the groups in our heads, the least approachable, but normal kids being at the top, and least approachable, but your definition of weird, kids at the bottom. You will always place your group somewhere in the middle because everyone’s biased like that.

Maybe we in fact do have a scale, and everyone is aware of it but doesn’t feel it as much because there’s no pressure hanging over you to uphold your status. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to relate to is “The Breakfast Club,” because stereotypes in my school aren’t pressured to be maintained like that in the movie.

I end this wondering to myself how I myself am viewed in other people’s eyes. How do they see me? Do larger schools with groups necessarily mean less individual judging? Or more stereotypical assumptions?