This was asked somewhat in another question. So here is what I said there, copied and pasted:
I knew someone who changed a lot. Becky. I was a high school senior, she was an eighth grader. As part of community service, I had to tutor her after school for an hour at this church. She was shy and mousy, and I was just on the dawn of entering the beginning of my 12 year battle with depression.
Long story short, we had similar sh*tty childhoods, but I was a fighter, and she was meek. Even had a girl bullying her. I told her not to take sh*t from anyone, whether it be her widowed stepparent or her bully. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it turns out, I ended up inspiring hope and resilience in her. I was just thinking, she should stop being such a pussy, because life will wreck her if she's always cowering in fear.
One day, she comes in, breathing heavily, and tells me how she got into a fight with her bully and knocked her teeth out (figuratively). On a bravery high, she then reveals she's in love with me. She's an 8th grader and I was a senior. I turned her down, and broke her heart, apparently. This was in late May, so two weeks before graduation. I didn't see her again after that for a while.
Years pass by and I get a notification from someone on Facebook. It's her, Rebecca, all grown up. Quite literally. She was now 5'9", grown 34DD's, and had who-knows how many followers on Instagram (like six-figures of followers or something; they don't show you exact numbers on there). She was legit what most guys would consider a "9" in looks. On her Instagram, among modeling pics, it also shows her more dressed up, posing with children outdoors and other things, implying she does a lot of charity work, or volunteers with sick children, or something. A good 25% of all of her photos were her fully dressed, working with children, suggesting she does this often.
She writes to me, saying how she tracked me down on Facebook and went on to develop confidence in herself after I apparently helped her with that. Furthermore, the real kicker was, she was single and STILL had feelings for me, seven years later. My theory is, I had grown into some kind of legend in her mind, with her memory embellishing and exaggerating what I truly was. She must've came to see me as some kind of "Alpha Male," which blows my mind and makes me uncomfortable just thinking about that.
I didn't know what to say, or wanted to tell her how wrong she was about me, so I just said something like, "Nice to see you again, glad I could help." This woman, Rebecca, had blossomed into a tall, busty Instagram success, brimming with confidence and altruism, and furthermore, directly credits me for turning her life around.
Considering 2012 me was still very much depressed, I kinda wanted to cry in despair for my own life being bad, but also cry for being proud of her. I did neither, but the turnaround of Rebecca still freaks me out to this day. I'm pretty sure I Marty McFly ruined her life... She just hasn't hit the downfall and cocaine addiction, yet.
The popular ones in high school, that I've met at reunions and stuff... tend to have issues. I don't know why or what happened to them as I was not in that group. I was in the ultra shy and a very small group of close friends.
I have also met people who were athletic and skinny in high school and made fun of me cause I was slightly over weight, who are now 350+ pounds. Who back then if I managed to ask her out (which was extremely rare) turned me down and now like oh hey your looking good and NOW they want to be friendly to me when back then they wouldn't give me the time of day. Men in my family have a family history of not aging as fast as others. Men who are in their 80's look 60's and those at 60 look 40.
Being in my 40's myself, people often think I'm only in my early 30's.
Vain people seem to always be vain, others realize your stable and find you interesting... but its all too late.
Popularity means little after school.
Yes. I used to work for a event company and we had a inturn coming in for the summer. This happened to be a really popular girl from my old school. I didn't really know much about her but all my friends said she was a massive bitch so I didn't trust her and I made it known. I was pretty cold towards her at first especially after learning she was friends with a lot of the people who used to bully me at school but then I could see she was trying she was struggling to do her job and it was like the easiest job in the whole company all she had to do was manage the social media side of things she'd asked me for advice and it was painful listening to her bad ideas. I took pity on her as I'd been I same place before and I didn't want her getting fired as I know how that feels and I wouldn't way that for anyone.
After that she seemed really grateful towards me and she actually seemed super sweet and kind. She told me she doesn't like her old school friends and but she always wished she could have been like me in school and been her own person. We started to become really good friends and before lock down she even asked me out for drinks.
I only stayed in touch with 5-6 people that I still have as a contact and what surprised me is how successful they became and also that their success was determined by their work ethic and personality and not their intelligence or beauty.
Opinion
7Opinion
Yes, not to shame any of my mother friends but most of the popular girls in my high school had multiple kids with multiple fathers. I don't know why but no shade.
There’s this one douchey guy who was really popular in middle school and high school and a few weeks ago I saw on social media that he got this ugly chick pregnant and he’s got a couple kids already and he’s trying to make money by streaming video games on Twitch. I don’t think it’s gonna work out...
Yesss. Yikes.
An acquaintance gained a lot of weight and I ignored her because I had no idea who she was 😬
The person who I think was genuinely popular is happily married to her highschool sweetheart. The ones who were popular because they were manipulative are now teachers.
Yes, the popular kids become unpopular after high school. They seem lonely to me.
Yes, most of them are kinda bad, or uglier or depressive, and some already have kids and are married.
Quite a few are ok now but the one girl who used to bully me all the time is a complete mess. I was so glad to see her like that, as they say karma is a bitch
It's been 23 years since I was in school.
A few of the guys are exactly the same, but most of my old classmates are weird now.
I was a pretty popular kid in highschool and yeah changed my entire lifestyle since then
Almost all the “cool guys” in my class are now drunk bums.
I never cut ties with my high school kids, we still contact each other.
Nah they turned out how I expected
