Remember high school? Some people loved it, some people tolerated it, and some people wanted nothing less than to get out. Regardless, one way or another you made it through! For better, or worse, high school happened and now it's a distant memory for a good portion of us. No matter what your feelings were during the experience, and probably even to this day, can we all agree that it was nothing like high school is in the movies?

I'm not sure if screenwriters skipped high school, went solely to the most expensive private high schools where money can buy you a degree, or if they have the memory of a goldfish and forgot the minute they left, but how they portray the puberty nightmare is very different than what the real world is like. All of the made up drama that goes away just so easily … where everyone is accepting of you and is willing to change overnight … where kids have no chores to do … and money is endless … what planet is this high school scenario on?

Let's take a journey down memory lane, but reimagine it as if we were movie stars and always had a happy ending. Starting, of course, with freshman year. Day one, specifically. New school year, new school, obviously, have to start with some circumstantial drama or else viewers wouldn't stay engaged. The most popular kid at school notices you and takes an interest in you. Ergo, overnight you become popular and have successfully quelled the 'will I get invited to parties' hurdle.

Your first year goes seamlessly and you enter the summer on top of the world. But alas, everything is about to go horribly, horribly wrong. You get caught in a romantic moment with someone other than your partner. That secret crush of yours that you've been eyeing since you first saw them, but was already taken so couldn't act on it. Instead of having an adult conversation about it, your current partner jumps to a conclusion and starts to act stand-off-ish. Out of revenge, or confusion, you do the same. Rumors start and by the time Sophomore year comes around you're the jerk who everyone hates. Everyone except your secret crush.

You spend most of year two repairing broken relationships, that, again, could have easily been avoided by not believing everything you hear. In a remarkable twist, by the end of the year you've grown into a more mature person and are once again back on top of the food chain. Until it comes out that despite having seemingly endless amounts of money based on your leisure activities, your family lives on the not as wealthy side of town.

Once again you enter the summer, but this time with a solid group of real friends around you. Despite having people in your life who don't care about how extravagant of a present you're going to get them, you feel sad. And start to ditch your actual friends to chase the elusive popularity once more. Annoyed, as they should be, your real friends get tired of your nonsense real quick and decide to stop inviting you to things. So you head towards Junior year angry and alone yet again.

If this is all starting to sound like a ridiculous cycle of unnecessary drama and unbelievable forgiveness you would be right! Can you believe that Junior year you eventually apologize to your real friends and start to finally be comfortable with who you are? You stop caring so much about what other people think and start to make decisions for yourself, and not because of how many likes it will get you. You cruise through your last two years like a freaking pro - end of story. You live happily ever after and become a tech entrepreneur, or highly successful author, or a professional chef, or something where you for sure make a lot of money and people want to be you. What possible discrepancies are there between that and how it actually went? 

Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don't forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!


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