Surviving Middle School 101

There are so many basic rules that we learn throughout our middle school experience. Some of them are so cliche, stupid, and boring like you are dating a boy if you talk to him. Others are there for good reason, like never ever mentioning anything about another girl’s weight. I broke so many of the rules while in middle school including the weight one. You can get “cancelled” over the smallest thing so be prepared to possibly become isolated, most likely for less than a day, because of a mistake. 

This is a rule that I’m sure most girls know. Most girls will stick together in what we call “girl code.” It’s essentially an unspoken code amongst girls that they will behave a certain way towards someone who has annoyed them. In other instances, girl code can be another girl helping a girl in an unsafe situation. In my school, it was all about girl code and hating on whoever the majority of the girls didn’t like. It bounced around a lot but always seemed to find its way back to me. If you are disliked by the “popular” group of girls, you are more likely to be ignored by that entire group because of girl code. In order to become a popular girl, you have to follow girl code; which often results in being excluded (if you’re the odd one out, like me!). 

The lunch table might seem so simple but it is incredibly important. Where your “assigned” seat is at in the lunch table determines who you get to talk to. When I say assigned, I mean where everyone sits for the first time. Once someone sits there, they’ve claimed it. Luckily and unluckily, I claimed the seat at the edge of the table where there was a .5 foot space between the girls’ table and the boys’ table. Luckily because I could talk to the boys when I was ignored by the girls and unluckily because none of the girls would talk to me. You wouldn’t think that something as simple as sitting on the edge of the table would further add to the social isolation of you from the group. All in all, get a good seat on the first day at lunch!

I’m not sure about all schools, but all my classrooms had the “good” seats. You know, the comfortable ones that everyone always raced to get. Most of the good seats at my school were couches, meaning two people could sit there. Unfortunately, that leaves room for another person, besides yourself, to sit there as well. If you are sitting next to a boy, you could be accused of dating them. It’s the most basic rule of my middle school experience, if you sit next to a boy and have a conversation, you are automatically dating. I remember one day I was accused of dating a boy in the grade below me because we sat next to each other on a bus and became friends.