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Friendship, Cliques & Belonging

The book icon denotes material you will find in the book. Some shorter quotes are not marked.

Finding a place where you fit in socially can be one of the biggest challenges in high school, especially when your placement depends on luck, looks or labels. Where do you fit in? How do people in your school judge you? How do you judge others?

NEW! The Greatest Pain in Life

The greatest pain in life
is not to die, but to be ignored.
To lose the person you love so
much to another who doesn’t care at all.
To have someone you care so about so much throw a party...
and not tell you about it.
When your favorite person on earth
neglects to invite you to his graduation.
To have people think that you don’t care.
The greatest pain in life,
is not to die,
but to be forgotten.
To be left in the dust after another’s great achievement.
To never get a call from a friend,
just saying “hi”.
When you show someone your innermost thoughts and they laugh in your face.
For friends to always be too busy to console you when you need someone to lift your spirits.
When it seems like the only person who cares about you,
is you.
Life is full of pain,
but does it ever get better?
Will people ever care about each other,
and make time for those who are in need?
Each of us has a part to play
in this great show we call life.
Each of us has a duty to mankind
to tell our friends we love them.
If you do not care about your friends
you will not be punished.
You will simply be ignored...
forgotten...
as you have done to others.

This poem was written by a young girl who committed suicide some years ago. Please show someone you care for them today. It takes so little of your time to smile, give a hug, a word of encouragement or just to say “I care” You will be rewarded for sure. (With thanks to Ruth Keniston for sharing this poem.)

I recently moved here from a small town and a much smaller school. There, I actually got up and wanted to go to school, but now I sit in class, do my work, and at lunch, when I normally would be with friends, I am without. My list of things I like and things I dislike about this school is going to be different cause the other kids here are happy. I spend all my time alone with my mom or dog. The kids here are the most obnoxious kids I ever met. I feel nothing in common with any of these kids. I guess I was just made for a down-home, small school.
–Bryan, 16

You can be popular. You just have to be yourself in a whole new way.
—Marge Simpson

We have this one group of girls who are really into hair and jewelry and certain clothing labels. The only people who get to hang out with them are the ones who wear the “right” stuff, and wear it well. Even then, you can’t be too tall or too fat or too anything. If you don’t look like them, they ignore you, unless they’re making fun of how you look. If you’re lucky, they don’t even know you exist.
—Vicki, 16

The cruelty and cliqueishness of the high school girls I knew made me realize how limiting popularity really is. Those painful experiences in high school have made me more compassionate. It is no accident I spent most of my career in human services helping people.
—Nancy

Personally, I’m a lone wolf. I’ve never liked these things and all. I couldn’t find my place, so I made one. I created the Creative Writing club at my school and now we’re eight members strong! This is what I mean by making your place if you can’t find it. You may find more like-minded people.
—James, 17

When my friends were there for me, they were amazing, but when we would hit a rift in our friendship I never had felt so lonely.
—Jena, 23

At times, it seems high school has been no different than any other part of my life. I grew up in a military family, which meant I could be living somewhere as long as three years or as short as six months. My entire life has been spent leaving friends and making new ones. This high school has been the sixth school in my years of education and, like years before, has been spent losing friends and making new ones.
Friendship is an awkward word when it comes to high school. It seems everyone grows in and out of relationships with friends. It seems so fragile and yet when high school drama hits the best of us, friendship can be the strongest force that keeps you glued together. Being as how I’ve moved in and out of places so quickly, making friends is a skill I mastered. But high school made me realize keeping friends was a task all in itself. I never realized how much it took, the giving and taking, the pushing and pulling, the compassion and understanding that it takes to keep a friendship going.
—Celia-Ann, 17

I was kind of scared to come to this school. Who wouldn’t be? I came from a whole different state to a place that had a lot more people and higher educational standards. Tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have made it this year if it weren’t for my cousin and my best friend. Coming to school would have been a drag.
—Enrique, 14

I don’t like that people changed in a bad way. It’s natural to become different. But when you changed big time, something is wrong. They’re not even the same people or friends I used to hang out with and my life couldn’t suck more.
—Flora, 14

When I first started high school I felt like I didn’t have any close friends. It took me almost the entire school year to start making close friends.
—Lynsey

I knew I enjoyed interacting with people, and I love conversation. I believe I just really wanted to come out and express myself like everyone else does. I was always the social type I just did not show it before due to fear.
–Paul, 19

Being a freshman has been difficult for me because all my life I’ve been going to small schools and now I am in a big school. It’s so different. I have lost so many friends, not just through moving, but through differences. See, being from a small school, you kind of have to like everybody or nobody likes you.
—Stacie, 15

Sometimes I don’t want to go to school because of the students in my classes. If I had friends in my classes, I would like it more.*

I know now that people who told me that high school was the best time of my life were lying, completely and utterly full of shit. Now I have personal skills—and friendship skills—that I wish I’d had in high school, stuff I wasn’t ready to learn until a few years later. I wish I’d had a better attitude about the school, the town, the people. I’m sure I only made things harder for myself. I wish I’d picked more worthy friends, and that I hadn’t needed the ones I had as badly as I did.
—Beverly

*indicates material that was submitted anonymously

Tips for Being a Supportive Friend.

Tips on dealing with friends, cliques and betrayal.

Resources for dealing with friends, cliques and betrayal.

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