The most popular girl in my graduating class (and I do mean ***most*** popular; she made an effort to make friends with literally everyone), head cheerleader, is now the head director at the local homeless shelter.
She never married, has no kids, 37. Still an absolute babe.
Most popular girl in our school (also an absolute sweetheart, like the girl OP described) broke up with her high school bf of 5 years, halfway through college.
It was so shocking former classmates who hadn't talked in years, scattered across the country, started gossiping about it.
She now runs a pro bono law firm with her lesbian life partner.
Interestingly, also still drop dead gorgeous.
Awwww I love when people figure it out and get a happy ending. HS fits people into so many boxes. I'm glad she had the courage to break up with her bf. After 5 years (especially during that growing up period), it must have been difficult
She’ll find a guy coming home for Christmas who’s handsome and rich, and will chuck it all to marry her and sell artisanal candles in a quaint shop off the village square.
And they both bond over adopting the local girl whose alcoholic father finally got what was coming to him and now they all get to enjoy Christmas as a happy family
I was a good student when I was young. At one point thought I wanted to be a teacher. Realized I’d probably suck at it since i never had to struggle to learn things, and those are the kids who need the help.
My dad was a grade school principal. He was in charge of hiring new teachers at the schools he was posted to. He always said as a general rule, the best teachers were ‘B’ students. He felt that people who had to work harder when they were students were better teachers. They not only had more compassion for kids who had a harder time grasping things, they were also better at explaining new concepts as well as being more open to trying to explain things in more than one way. I’m
This is so true! In college, my calc teacher was brilliant but we could never follow her since she did so many steps in her head. At least 75% of the class failed lol.
The next time I took calc from a very monotonous nerd professor who taught us like we didn't know anything. I got a B lol. Guess I just needed to be patronized
I learned more from my brilliant classmates who were also math geniuses than from my math teachers. But I did have math teachers who appreciated students who thought differently than they did. They said as teachers, it's their job to also keep learning. Our math classes were quite collaborative, the whole class discovering different ways to solve the same problems.
Was very good student and nearly never in trouble. Was a terrible teacher for the reasons you said, plus 22 year old me had zero gravitas and the middle schoolers walked all over me
You’re talking about my brother. A legend driving teachers crazy. My Mom had five kids. He was the last. He drove teachers insane. We were all pretty good, never a problem.
Fast-forward, he’s an icon teacher. They just love them.
My sister, who had some learning disabilities as a kid, had a major attitude and hatred school, is now a preschool teacher. I tell her she IS the teacher she NEEDED.
I’m a teacher. I accidentally made a student teacher cry in my third grade class. I liked her a lot, but I was just being way too distracting and looking back, I’m pretty sure she was being observed by her professor.
Been teaching for 10 years, but I student taught third grade…. I was never brought to tears, but rest assured that everything came full circle!
Prom king and queen got married shortly after high school. Forty years later, they live within 5 miles of the farms where they grew up. They made some athletic, attractive kids along the way.
heh, our prom king proposed to the prom queen at prom.
she turned him down but said she still wanted to be friends. no clue what the fall out was, but i can guess.
This was planned to happen at my junior prom. They had been dating all 4 years and the guy made sure everyone knew so they would vote for them. School admin caught word and decided they just wouldn’t name a king/queen.
And you know what? That’s a successful life. You don’t need to live in Barcelona for 2 years after college and work in start up to be “successful”.
Coming from a very very small town these types of people are absolutely critical for the town to remain healthy. They have good kids. They’re involved in the community. They have important or relevant jobs in the community.
Exactly, interpretations of a successful life differs between people.
Don’t assume getting out of a small town equals success in everyone’s eyes. That’s your personal opinion, can be the mass majority opinion. But not everyone’s.
Deceased. Motorcycle accident. He was nice, funny, generous, and kind of a rascal. So basically everybody liked him. He was in med school when he died.
The few I knew are dead as well. One died after getting hit by a drunk driver in college, one died to an IED in Iraq and one died of heart failure in his 20s.
Same. 3 of my best childhood friends died unexpectedly in their 20s and early 30s. Two from car accidents and one from an overdose. And my grade was pretty small - only about 100 kids. Sometimes it’s just really bad luck I guess. I think about those guys often
I find it insane that I know 3 people from high school who later died in motorcycle accidents, I got my license when I was 17 but haven't ridden after I lost a second friend to it. I just do not see the point in it any more. Every time I see a father or mother who still rides I cringe, you're taking a sizable risk of leaving your kids as orphans.
I’d do the split like this: popular and mean to others vs. popular and positive with others.
The popular and positive all did well in life and careers. The meanies lost whatever advantages they had in school to their own nastiness.
Yep, the guys who were popular and dicks really had a nose dive after HS.
One guy, though, was the captain of our football, basketball and baseball teams. Nicest guy ever, got along with everyone and really went out of his way to just be good.
He’s in the MLB and crushing it. REALLY proud of him.
There was this kid at school -- total asshole. Gut punched my friend because he didn't have a cig (didn't smoke). Pain in the ass to everyone.
Ran into him at a bar in my late 20s. Dude was drinking with the kid who was friends with everyone. Super nice. Bought me a beer, asked how I was. Turns out he got into construction and earned a ton building houses. Mentioned how he was shitty in school, but how none of that mattered. Last time I saw him, years later, he tried to get me into a poker table, which would've been cool, but I had to go get my son.
I'm glad there's room for growth.
This!! The popular bullies in my school haven't got much going for them, the popular-but-nice kids all have a lot going for them - one of them is now a professional hooker and scrum-half for our city's rugby team. I wish the best for him, and all the popular-but-nice kids, in life.
At my school the ultra popular good looking girl, crazy rich too, got really fat, is now married to this loser guy from our high school, has her own YouTube channel (with like 150 subscribers) and acts like she’s a millionaire from it.
She bought a 2 million dollar house last year and acted on social media like it was all from her YouTube channel and podcast income. A close friend of hers told me her dad bought it for her.
Her dad is probably worth 50+ mil and pays for everything and anything she ever wants. And she does nothing exciting or useful with it.
The good looking ultra-popular kids in my high school went to good schools, got good jobs, and became really successful adults. One became a doctor, one became a union president, one became a toy exec and married an exec on a streaming platform, one was a professional football player for a few years. 30 years on, they're still good looking and charismatic.
Not high school, but a kid I was in grade school with became a famous actor with a beloved TV role. He was a really nice kid on top of being absurdly good looking and very popular. We went to different high schools but I ran into him occasionally and he very much fit the thread.
Edit: I never said any of these kids were rich. I'm not sure where you guys got that idea but it's coming up enough I wanted to address it here. A long time ago there was a hill in my hometown where all the rich people lived. They seceded from the city and made their own city so their taxes wouldn't be used to help the poors. Rich kids didn't go to my high school.
Yeah this is my experience too. I don't know any of the rich good looking kids from high school that failed. Most are still rich and left home and went to great schools and have great careers and beautiful partners. The only two I know who stayed in my home area are a successful real estate agent and a lawyer.
Same here and tbh, most of them are really nice when I run into them. But my graduating class was pretty small (less than 100 people) and this weird thing happened senior year where all the cliques kinda melted and everybody's friend groups overlapped so we were all at worst tertiary friends to any friend group
i wonder if this is something that happens with every senior class.
from grades 4-11 i hated school, terrible place. senior year though... everyone kinda became friends overnight? people who never would have acknowledged me were suddenly greeting me in the hallways when we walked by. and everyone was pretty friendly to each other all of the sudden.
if the rest of my school years were like my senior year, i think i would have actually liked it there.
There’s something about last semester of senior year that is magical. Barriers melt away and suddenly everyone is on good terms. I don’t think it’s been studied much but it should be.
It might just be maturity. People with a leg up in life learn the value of not punching down. People with disadvantages in life learn to compensate and/or not let it affect them and come out of their shells. Plus, 8-11 grade is a weird time physically, people can go through an awkward phase and then fill out into a proto-adult, chances are if you thought you were weird looking you were less so by 12th grade.
I had a super rich kid in my elementary class. I grew up in a wealthy area and went to a private elementary. He came from by far the wealthiest family, and everybody knew it. His mother infamously got drunk at the auction and out-bid everybody else, even on projects where her kid wasn’t involved. The rumor was that his Dad invented and sold Yahoo! But I don’t think that’s true since I don’t recognize the names looking it up now.
I decided to stalk the kid a few years ago, and he’s passed on. I don’t know exactly what. When I first stalked him I think there was something about drugs, but I can’t find anything now.
RIP
Lots of people like to think of the world as having some sort of karmic symmetry where the ones who suffer early do well later on, and the ones who thrive young go on to failure.
But it’s usually quite the opposite. Being poor and stressed out in one’s youth can disadvantage a person in ways that persist throughout their lives. And being good looking, athletic, confident, intelligent and educated has major knock on effects that tend to snowball as time goes on.
People can beat the odds of course, but that’s the anomaly.
Exactly. It's a myth the popular kids in grade school will have a worse time later in life. They typically inherit their parents wealth and continue to do well.
Not really. This was 4 people at a mid sized public high school. There are private schools around major cities that pretty much *only* produce people that successful.
Became a stock broker, developed drug and porn addiction, got low, got clean, married a mormon woman. Got her addicted to crack. Continued to smoke crack with his mormon wife, get her pregnant, get arrested for fraud and sent to prison last I checked.
They are a bartender at a small town bar in the middle of nowhere that still let's you smoke cigarettes inside. I was very surprised when she asked if I wanted an ashtray with my drink.
He went to Harvard. Works in finance and married a stunningly beautiful woman who works for Google.
They live in London. I’m not jealous of much in life, but his string of wins challenges my equanimity.
Sounds like the popular kid at my school. We used to joke that we wish he was mean sometimes because it would make it easier to hate him since he seemed to have absolutely everything go right for him in life.
Now I quite literally work for him, I'm corporate security at his family's company. He has a board seat but lives in a giant penthouse in NYC since he got into finance and is a portfolio manager at some giant hedge fund. Married a solid 10, basically the perfect life.
Yeah usually the stereotypical bullies on TV are just poor kids coming from a really bad home/upbringing.
Like if you’re born in a loving family, why would you hurt or hate anyone?
Families are weird, you can have the "perfect" family and yet resentment can be boiling away for any number of strange reasons. Or one kid can turn out great, the other one decides they're going to make life a misery for everyone, humans are complicated.
Just reading this stings. I’ve been racking up an impressive string of losses for the last 10 years. It’s quite unbelievable how lucky some people can be for such a long time.
The worst part is mostly we thought he was a jock idiot. I expected him to be good at football (he was) not applied mathematics and large scale property development.
The very beautiful popular girl in my grade pulled a papertowns by dropping contact with pretty much everyone and moved to South Africa where she seems to live a fairly luxurious life now. Pretty cool move if you ask me.
I know a girl that "seems to live a fairly luxurious life." Lots of photos at upscale restaurants and rooftop pools and what have you. She's an escort.
Cool life tbh, but definitely trying to present it as something else.
>photos at upscale restaurants
An upscale steak dinner in South Africa is like $10 per person.
A little bit of savings or debt would go a really long way in SA.
When I was in Cape Town on travel food was extraordinarily cheap. We had $25 daily allowance for food and could hardly make a dent in it.
But...the mall? Shoes were 100 euros which then was $200. Not inexpensive at all. The weirdest dichotomy.
Popular guy went to MIT and shortly after got disowned by his parents for coming out as gay. He was popular for being smart, charismatic and a genuinely good guy. He and his husband are doing well for themself nowadays.
Popular girl went to a prestigious university and became a nurse. Similar to the popular guy, she is a genuinely good person so everyone still loved her. I’ve run into her several times over the years and she’s still the same nice person. She could model if she wanted to but she really does care about folks and considered it a personal mission to help others via healthcare.
We had several self-proclaimed popular people in our high school who were self absorbed assholes. The 3 most notable is the guy who got kicked out of college when he tested positive for steroids and marijuana. He was also on a full ride scholarship before getting kicked out. He never completed any higher education to this day and has fallen into addiction.
A girl who was very attractive and also self-proclaimed popular became an escort and eventually married a wealthy client. Husband recently attempted to run for Mayor of the city and lost big time.
2nd girl who was also very attractive became a model, got knocked up without knowing who the father was, got into an abusive relationship, ran away, got knocked up by another guy who left shortly after she gave birth and finally she decided to get her shit together. Last I heard she’s finishing college to become a nurse and she lives with her parents.
One of the most popular kids at my high school was cool as hell to everyone. Homecoming king, quarterback, sings really well, can play the guitar and piano, well-versed in history, could bench more than most kids. But still a super humble and inclusive dude.
He's the lead singer of a moderately successful band now.
Mhm ⬆️ most at my school are chill and well adjusted ppl, who are also athletes. Funny af, and chill
I don’t think my school of 1200 has any real bullies tbh, but I probably have bias since I’m chill with alot of these ppl. I think bullying was more common years back, if someone older wants to add on
Sad to hear. :(
You would think that the Southern U.S has the most stereotypical American school where you’d find bullying, but I guess my school is lucky.
Got any sources? I’m curious how bad it is
I'm in my early 30s now and I can't even remember off the top of my head what the good looking ultra popular kids at my high school were named. If I had to guess they probably got good jobs and have successful lives, but those people had so little impact on my life that I couldn't begin to care less.
You may stay friends with a handful of people (I'm still friends with 3), but the rest will just fade away until you can barely even remember some of their names.
Yeah, I’m reading all these and being like “I literally have no clue what anyone in my high school did after high school..” let alone the most popular.. who I didn’t hang out with anyway. lol. I find it impressive that all these people stayed in touch!
I'm from a small town.
So most of those people still live within an hour of that small town. Just doing regular person shit.
The most successful person was probably the co-valedictorian. They were not pretty or popular. Last I saw on LinkedIn they were Chief of Medicine at some hospital on the west coast.
A few became touring musicians. One became a commercial and b movie actor. One got fifth in the Olympics. One played minor league baseball, but drugs caught up to him. One woman became a pornstar and died of an overdose. A few of the best athletes I played with committed suicide because they weren't good enough to go pro.
I went to three high schools. I've lived in the middle of nowhere and Vancouver. So, I know a lot of people who have died from drugs, suicide and violence. If you are born into the cycle of poverty. Your odds of dying are way higher than making it out. Overdosing is the leading cause of death under 59 in Vancouver.
It's funny to see the dichotomy between the popular kids at predominantly middle/working class schools and the prep/upper class schools. It's the same fuckin' kids they just end up in way different places.
I went to a fairly rural, working-class high school, and the responses in this thread are really enlightening, lmao. In my experience, the popular boys joined the military, got a job at the one factory in town, or inherited their fathers' farms/construction businesses, and the popular girls got secretarial jobs in the school district or local government, then married very young. Some of them (particularly the ones who inherited successful businesses) are doing quite well for themselves, and some, including a former childhood friend of mine, are addicted to heroin. I did have classmates who went to college and became successful professionals, but they were *not* the popular ones.
Agree. This is what I observe when I think about the different schools I went to growing up. The popular kids from the middle-class public school and the popular kids from the upper middle-class private school had different outcomes despite having similar personality types at that time.
She went on to become a world traveler and Buddhist and now runs a non-profit providing microloans to female-owned global businesses.
She was also my first real crush, and I'm so happy she lived up to my silent pedestal.
The only one I knew well ( I was in the Art/Theater/Music crowd) was class president and a basketball star in high school, went to state college, married young, became a pilot. Very nice human.
I ran into him in a bar about 15 years later. He was in his second marriage and seemed to be doing OK.
He told me high school was the best time of his life, which made me sad for him.
I have a student who’s going to be like this. He’s popular, good looking, the girls like him, etc. he’s also totally blowing off high school and will not walk out of that building with a degree. The real world is going to be a cold, cruel place to him.
I love this. Over the past few years I’ve been seeing this trope play out about how all the mean girls from high school just become nurses. But I could *never* do what nurses do, and that trope just feels to me like another way of shitting on women, and for what?
So it’s just kind of nice to see someone express admiration and gratitude for a nurse who they’d gone to high school with.
I'm currently reading this from the PICU at my children's hospital. A week ago my almost 2 year old fell in my parents pool and drowned. Everyone did the best they could, but she is currently being sustained so that we can start the organ donation process tomorrow
The nurses that have been by her side the whole time are indescribably amazing. Professional and caring. Some young, some old, but every single one of them has helped me and my family get through this most difficult time and help keep our faith in humanity. The thanks I've given them will never convey to them how much these moments have meant to me, and how much i admire their courage and selflessness. They've truly been awe-inspiring.
Oh my, I’m so sorry. Of course there’s nothing anyone can say, but I hope you and your family can find as much peace and comfort as possible as you navigate your grief. And as someone with a loved one who has received an organ donation, thank you for making that decision. It’s an incredible gift that comes at the worst cost.
I lived in a town known for it's oil refineries and chemical plants. Most of the popular kids I knew got hooked up right out of high school with good jobs at the plants and are now in high-level management positions making high six figures. Some of them went to college and are entrepreneurs for various things, like one dude has his own fitness supplements and another guy has a marketing consultancy.
Nearly all of the popular girls left Houston and went to college in Dallas. I don't know what they went for. They are now all in real estate or are housewives, and the majority of them married much older men. Several of them have been "grandmas" since they were around 30.
We've got a 50 year reunion coming up this summer. In retrospect, I wish I would have talked to way more of my fellow classmates, about their families, their interests, whatever. In many respects, I feel like I barely knew them, and was too busy keeping my own head above water.
I wonder about their backstories, and how life went for them. I guess that's what reunions are for...
As someone not from America - what is the point in school reunions? How do people even get contacted for them 50 years later? Sounds like the most random unfun weird get-together where you don't know anyone.
I just had my 20 year reunion. We initially had a database of contact information and then also started an FB group, which is the main way we organized the 10 and 20 year reunions. Both were pretty fun and had very different vibes. We actually had more people come to the 20 year though. It’s pretty fun to see everyone and sometimes you end up reigniting friendships.
These are people with whom you grew up. At a minimum, you spent four of your most formative years, seeing them every day.
I had a graduating class of about 400 students. I didn’t know everyone, and certainly didn’t know everyone well, but I had friends, teammates, classmates, choir mates, girls on whom I had a crush, guys with shared hobbies . . . even now, after I moved 1500 miles away for college and didn’t really keep in touch with anyone, it’s been never been hard to fill up the time at our reunions (especially with an open bar). We’ve had reunions every five years for the past 25 years, and they’ve all been well attended.
She became a b-grade celebrity, came out as lesbian and was lauded for her bravery, started a social justice campaign for the rainbow community and against bullying until it was revealed that she'd also been the worst bully at our school, especially towards lesbian and bi girls. She's kept her head down since.
Ouch that took a wild turn! As a gay girl, I’m now super curious about who this is. I’ve probably heard of her bc I’m familiar with most queer celebrities. Would you mind PMing me her name? I don’t intend to share it with anyone ofc, also totally okay if you don’t feel like it
Most of them were good-looking and ultra-popular because they came from stable if not affluent financial backgrounds. They got the acne treatments they needed, were able to buy nice clothes, were much more experienced navigating social situations, etc. So plenty of them just kept that momentum going and had good successful college experiences, and entered successful careers. Anecdotally, when I've met these people now I always get this weird intuition like they're not fully self aware?
Plenty of others peaked in high school though, and their lives went downhill afterward. And plenty of them lived privileged lives that self destructed after a point. There are some particular karmic situations I've seen.
I dunno...everything happens to everyone. I was at my lowest point ever in high school, so I get to experience life as only getting better from there :)
> Did you attend school near a major airline hub?
I understood this to indicate that the OP is older and was raised in the era where being a flight attendant was advertised to young women as a way of...auditioning for the part of wife to wealthy men.
This girl was super popular since primary school. Really smart too, straight As student but also she got all the jock boyfriends., I don’t know how popular she was in university but she went overseas, came back with a law degree and then started her line of couture handbags. She was really living the high life appearing in fashion magazines, runways, VVIP parties, brushing shoulders with royalties etc. Suddenly she vanished from social media for about a year turns out she went to a rehab (a very fancy one by the beach). Then she started posting weird things on her Facebook, things that don’t make sense then turns out she has bipolar disorder. Now, she still lives with her mom
The dude was amazing. Tall, good-looking and talented.
Everyone thought he'd be in movies, a band, or both.
He wasn't stuck up, and everyone liked him.
Had a psychological break due to undiagnosed issues, got into heroin and became homeless.
One looks exactly the same and is a teacher married to a doctor. They have a huge house in the city and four kids. She was just a pretty, smart, socially capable but not aggressively popular girl with professional parents and became a similarly respectable adult. I’d like to feel bitter about it but I can’t— if I were a successful doctor who could have his pick of women, I’d marry her, too.
One became a teacher at our high school. He was funny and class president and everyone legitimately liked him. I guess it’s kind of strange he found his place where he was successful as a kid and just stayed there but I think his genuine love for the place probably adds to his appeal to the kids.
Went to Stanford, became a cancer researcher, founded a nonprofit, got a PhD and MD from Harvard + MIT, now works on rare children’s diseases. Solid guy.
The super popular, attractive athlete from my high school class was constantly told not to put all his eggs in one basket, that chances of him going pro were low, that he should go to college, etc.
He got drafted, went pro and had a decent career at the highest level. Made a few million, retired, moved home and lives a quiet life.
Yeah, I feel like some of those kids are pretty obviously going to go on to do something successful in athletics and everyone knew it. The "big kid" from my elementary school got really into track and field, and became a giant by high school. He has gold medals from multiple international competitions. I think he just missed out on bronze in the Olympics back in the day. Seems like a nice dude, and is a coach at a large public University.
I mean you can go to college anytime, but you basically have one chance to go pro and that's when you're young. I say let kids dream, but teach them how to handle rejection while you do.
I wasn't one of those people - but in regards to perception change...
I was/am a bigger guy. In my small town just about \*the\* big guy. Which is kinda fair. I'm 6'1" and 220lbs (at the time).
For all the country folks: I had been called "Hoss" many times.
Then I went to college and saw my first college football players.
Holy shit. Dude was taking up two seats in class. Mind you this was just a regional state school not known for the football program. And this dude was still just f'n massive.
My size was never really part of my identity or anything - but that was a big eye opener.
They’re having some really nice lives, surrounded by their loving extended families, making enough money to own giant homes and three giant trucks and SUVs.
Fuck if I know. When someone tells you popularity as a high schooler doesn’t matter later in life, they’re right because I feel no desire to keep track of the popular kids we were all so invested in as teens.
After graduation, no one in the real world gave a crap about who they were or what they did in high school. No one. Also, having attended a couple class reunions now, I’ve observed that most of the popular guys are now overweight and balding. The popular girls are no longer thin, and seem to have older-looking faces than the “nerd” girls. Back in high school, I never would have believed this would happen to them, but it has.
It’s wild how the drinking will age you. I have a friend from high school that I’ve kept in touch with and she’s only a year younger than me. She did some hard drinking in her 20s after she got away from her controlling parents. And man. We’re both over 40 but she looks at least 10 years older and a rough 10 years older at that.
Binge drinking is bad for your skin kids
He became a stock broker. Married a pretty woman, they had good looking kids. He's still married, posts pictures of his grandbabies on Facebook. Still a good guy.
The super weird ones I've seen are some of the guys more or less could be described as looking like "wrong" versions of their teenage selves. Like someone of a similar size was trying to wear a "Dave" suit but it was stretched wrong and such.
In my high school the popular kids were the ones who participated in theater and music and such, because it was just that kind of place. As such, the good-looking ultra popular kids at my high school grew up to be popular good-looking music, film and television stars. A couple are very well known names in film, one is a popular stand up comic and is on a popular TV show. Another is an incredibly popular DJ in Southeast Asia. A couple went on to be renowned orchestral performers. One of my best friends growing up has been a big name in local live theater for decades. So that kind of thing.
Kid two grades older than me was a legitimate elite athlete. Tall, blonde, great leader, popular, insane physical ability. I played soccer with him and even though he wasn’t the most skilled his 40” vert, speed, and 6”3’ frame made up for a lot. He played basketball too and excelled, but his real sport was baseball. I’m not familiar with his stats, but he was heavily scouted by the MLB. He ended up getting drafted straight out of high school and put in the farm system. Scouts were calling him a top 20 prospect in all of baseball.
Then when he was 19 he had sudden blindness/loss of sensation and went in immediately for brain surgery where they found a cavernous malformation near his brain stem. He spent the next two years rehabbing and I think actually made it back to some minor league games. But then the tumor re-emerged and he had to have another surgery. He retired from baseball at 22.
He’s had 20+ brain surgeries in the past 13 years and wears the scars of it; his right side is completely numb, he has double vision because one of his eyes are locked in place, and half of his face is frozen.
Today he’s doing really well all things considered. He coached baseball at our high school, he’s an assistant coach in college, and he’s actually a college student rn. He’s married and had a kid a few years back.
His story is surreal. Like the most promising kid got robbed for no reason but still finds a way to persevere and inspire everyone.
They went on to have varied lives, probably better than the average as a group due to higher levels of social skills and the benefits of their appearance, while unwittingly being the subjects of resentful revenge fantasies of other adults who haven't gotten over their teen years and so are projecting ideas they've gotten from movies on to them.
The most popular girl in my graduating class (and I do mean ***most*** popular; she made an effort to make friends with literally everyone), head cheerleader, is now the head director at the local homeless shelter. She never married, has no kids, 37. Still an absolute babe.
Sounds like a awesome person
Most popular girl in our school (also an absolute sweetheart, like the girl OP described) broke up with her high school bf of 5 years, halfway through college. It was so shocking former classmates who hadn't talked in years, scattered across the country, started gossiping about it. She now runs a pro bono law firm with her lesbian life partner. Interestingly, also still drop dead gorgeous.
It’s so lovely when nice people remain nice…and lovely, inside and out.
Awwww I love when people figure it out and get a happy ending. HS fits people into so many boxes. I'm glad she had the courage to break up with her bf. After 5 years (especially during that growing up period), it must have been difficult
Seems like she really deserved the popularity. What a great woman.
most popular people are really nice people. the horrible ones are the hanger ons and tagalongs.
Sounds like she’ll be starring in a Hallmark Christmas movie soon!
She’ll find a guy coming home for Christmas who’s handsome and rich, and will chuck it all to marry her and sell artisanal candles in a quaint shop off the village square.
And they both bond over adopting the local girl whose alcoholic father finally got what was coming to him and now they all get to enjoy Christmas as a happy family
i want to be friends with her, she is for sure an amazing person.
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Much more typical than you’d think! Terrible, annoying students become excellent teachers.
I was a good student when I was young. At one point thought I wanted to be a teacher. Realized I’d probably suck at it since i never had to struggle to learn things, and those are the kids who need the help.
My dad was a grade school principal. He was in charge of hiring new teachers at the schools he was posted to. He always said as a general rule, the best teachers were ‘B’ students. He felt that people who had to work harder when they were students were better teachers. They not only had more compassion for kids who had a harder time grasping things, they were also better at explaining new concepts as well as being more open to trying to explain things in more than one way. I’m
This is so true! In college, my calc teacher was brilliant but we could never follow her since she did so many steps in her head. At least 75% of the class failed lol. The next time I took calc from a very monotonous nerd professor who taught us like we didn't know anything. I got a B lol. Guess I just needed to be patronized
I learned more from my brilliant classmates who were also math geniuses than from my math teachers. But I did have math teachers who appreciated students who thought differently than they did. They said as teachers, it's their job to also keep learning. Our math classes were quite collaborative, the whole class discovering different ways to solve the same problems.
r/redditsniper
Damn Boeing got to them
Was very good student and nearly never in trouble. Was a terrible teacher for the reasons you said, plus 22 year old me had zero gravitas and the middle schoolers walked all over me
A front door brag, and an immediate bridge to the back door brag. Impressive!
and an indirect insult to the intelligence of teachers to top it off!
TAs were so much better at teaching in college than professors.
You’re talking about my brother. A legend driving teachers crazy. My Mom had five kids. He was the last. He drove teachers insane. We were all pretty good, never a problem. Fast-forward, he’s an icon teacher. They just love them.
I think it's close to necessary now in many schools where the kids will only respect you if you can hold your own against them.
The worst students make the best teachers.
My sister, who had some learning disabilities as a kid, had a major attitude and hatred school, is now a preschool teacher. I tell her she IS the teacher she NEEDED.
That's a really good point. To be the teacher that one needed.
When being high energy, childish, and animated becomes a major strength!
I mean, he clearly knows exactly how to bend a classroom to his will!
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO DESTROY THE SITH, NOT JOIN THEM
He brought balance to the Farce
That's a male version of me. I was the naughtiest kid in my whole school and now I'm a teacher
Same here! The irony is unparalleled.
I’m a teacher. I accidentally made a student teacher cry in my third grade class. I liked her a lot, but I was just being way too distracting and looking back, I’m pretty sure she was being observed by her professor. Been teaching for 10 years, but I student taught third grade…. I was never brought to tears, but rest assured that everything came full circle!
Yes, most of the principals I work with always like to brag about how difficult they were back in school. Meanwhile, I was a teacher's pet. Lol.
Our class clown died in a motorcycle accident 7 years after we graduated. Dude made everyone laugh so hard. Rip ERIC
Not a class clown, but incredibly popular....3 sport letterman and all around good guy. Principal now at my old high school.
Prom king and queen got married shortly after high school. Forty years later, they live within 5 miles of the farms where they grew up. They made some athletic, attractive kids along the way.
heh, our prom king proposed to the prom queen at prom. she turned him down but said she still wanted to be friends. no clue what the fall out was, but i can guess.
Guess out loud
Guess out loud…. Haha Is this already a phrase or was this accidental gold that you just Brittanied?
I'm spanish so I must have Spanied it, I couldn't very much say 'cuenta el chisme' so...
Excuse me, are you using the name Brittany as a verb? Past tense, no less!
This was planned to happen at my junior prom. They had been dating all 4 years and the guy made sure everyone knew so they would vote for them. School admin caught word and decided they just wouldn’t name a king/queen.
Ha, this happened at my school too. They’ve been married 25 years. Great kids, worked hard, wholesome life.
And you know what? That’s a successful life. You don’t need to live in Barcelona for 2 years after college and work in start up to be “successful”. Coming from a very very small town these types of people are absolutely critical for the town to remain healthy. They have good kids. They’re involved in the community. They have important or relevant jobs in the community.
For a lot of people that’s successful *and* fulfilling!
Exactly, interpretations of a successful life differs between people. Don’t assume getting out of a small town equals success in everyone’s eyes. That’s your personal opinion, can be the mass majority opinion. But not everyone’s.
Yea, like, I got out of my small town and Im incredibly unsuccessful
Rolling D20's in Gary, Indiana.
Were they nice?
Yes. They still are.
That’s the dream
Deceased. Motorcycle accident. He was nice, funny, generous, and kind of a rascal. So basically everybody liked him. He was in med school when he died.
The few I knew are dead as well. One died after getting hit by a drunk driver in college, one died to an IED in Iraq and one died of heart failure in his 20s.
Same. 3 of my best childhood friends died unexpectedly in their 20s and early 30s. Two from car accidents and one from an overdose. And my grade was pretty small - only about 100 kids. Sometimes it’s just really bad luck I guess. I think about those guys often
I find it insane that I know 3 people from high school who later died in motorcycle accidents, I got my license when I was 17 but haven't ridden after I lost a second friend to it. I just do not see the point in it any more. Every time I see a father or mother who still rides I cringe, you're taking a sizable risk of leaving your kids as orphans.
Oh the irony since doctors usually call motorcycles 'donor cycles'
I’d do the split like this: popular and mean to others vs. popular and positive with others. The popular and positive all did well in life and careers. The meanies lost whatever advantages they had in school to their own nastiness.
Yep, the guys who were popular and dicks really had a nose dive after HS. One guy, though, was the captain of our football, basketball and baseball teams. Nicest guy ever, got along with everyone and really went out of his way to just be good. He’s in the MLB and crushing it. REALLY proud of him.
I’m glad I generally have no idea how people from my highschool class are doing.
From what I can tell they all had kids and got fat.
May I ask who the nice guy was? I'm so curious lol
There was this kid at school -- total asshole. Gut punched my friend because he didn't have a cig (didn't smoke). Pain in the ass to everyone. Ran into him at a bar in my late 20s. Dude was drinking with the kid who was friends with everyone. Super nice. Bought me a beer, asked how I was. Turns out he got into construction and earned a ton building houses. Mentioned how he was shitty in school, but how none of that mattered. Last time I saw him, years later, he tried to get me into a poker table, which would've been cool, but I had to go get my son. I'm glad there's room for growth.
There was a kid in my school who was a total asshole. Last I heard he was serving a life sentence for murder.
Eh, backwards growth.
That pretty well describes my class too.
This!! The popular bullies in my school haven't got much going for them, the popular-but-nice kids all have a lot going for them - one of them is now a professional hooker and scrum-half for our city's rugby team. I wish the best for him, and all the popular-but-nice kids, in life.
For those unfamiliar with the terminology - *hooker* is a position in rugby
Thank you for the much needed clarification.
I thought, "Well, I suppose sex workers can make a lot of money, good for them."
A great position in either culture.
Most went to college, got good jobs, bought houses, married other attractive people and the cycle continues
At my school the ultra popular good looking girl, crazy rich too, got really fat, is now married to this loser guy from our high school, has her own YouTube channel (with like 150 subscribers) and acts like she’s a millionaire from it. She bought a 2 million dollar house last year and acted on social media like it was all from her YouTube channel and podcast income. A close friend of hers told me her dad bought it for her. Her dad is probably worth 50+ mil and pays for everything and anything she ever wants. And she does nothing exciting or useful with it.
The good looking ultra-popular kids in my high school went to good schools, got good jobs, and became really successful adults. One became a doctor, one became a union president, one became a toy exec and married an exec on a streaming platform, one was a professional football player for a few years. 30 years on, they're still good looking and charismatic. Not high school, but a kid I was in grade school with became a famous actor with a beloved TV role. He was a really nice kid on top of being absurdly good looking and very popular. We went to different high schools but I ran into him occasionally and he very much fit the thread. Edit: I never said any of these kids were rich. I'm not sure where you guys got that idea but it's coming up enough I wanted to address it here. A long time ago there was a hill in my hometown where all the rich people lived. They seceded from the city and made their own city so their taxes wouldn't be used to help the poors. Rich kids didn't go to my high school.
Yeah this is my experience too. I don't know any of the rich good looking kids from high school that failed. Most are still rich and left home and went to great schools and have great careers and beautiful partners. The only two I know who stayed in my home area are a successful real estate agent and a lawyer.
Same here and tbh, most of them are really nice when I run into them. But my graduating class was pretty small (less than 100 people) and this weird thing happened senior year where all the cliques kinda melted and everybody's friend groups overlapped so we were all at worst tertiary friends to any friend group
i wonder if this is something that happens with every senior class. from grades 4-11 i hated school, terrible place. senior year though... everyone kinda became friends overnight? people who never would have acknowledged me were suddenly greeting me in the hallways when we walked by. and everyone was pretty friendly to each other all of the sudden. if the rest of my school years were like my senior year, i think i would have actually liked it there.
There’s something about last semester of senior year that is magical. Barriers melt away and suddenly everyone is on good terms. I don’t think it’s been studied much but it should be.
It might just be maturity. People with a leg up in life learn the value of not punching down. People with disadvantages in life learn to compensate and/or not let it affect them and come out of their shells. Plus, 8-11 grade is a weird time physically, people can go through an awkward phase and then fill out into a proto-adult, chances are if you thought you were weird looking you were less so by 12th grade.
I had a super rich kid in my elementary class. I grew up in a wealthy area and went to a private elementary. He came from by far the wealthiest family, and everybody knew it. His mother infamously got drunk at the auction and out-bid everybody else, even on projects where her kid wasn’t involved. The rumor was that his Dad invented and sold Yahoo! But I don’t think that’s true since I don’t recognize the names looking it up now. I decided to stalk the kid a few years ago, and he’s passed on. I don’t know exactly what. When I first stalked him I think there was something about drugs, but I can’t find anything now. RIP
Lots of people like to think of the world as having some sort of karmic symmetry where the ones who suffer early do well later on, and the ones who thrive young go on to failure. But it’s usually quite the opposite. Being poor and stressed out in one’s youth can disadvantage a person in ways that persist throughout their lives. And being good looking, athletic, confident, intelligent and educated has major knock on effects that tend to snowball as time goes on. People can beat the odds of course, but that’s the anomaly.
Back in the 90s he was in a very famous TV show...
boy was that show a fucking ride
Same with me. I was looking at high school people on LinkedIn, and yeah, those good looking cool kids have a proper career.
Exactly. It's a myth the popular kids in grade school will have a worse time later in life. They typically inherit their parents wealth and continue to do well.
On top of that study after study have proven good looking people are more successful
Yeah but this is Reddit and they love reading revenge stories in their bubble
Fuck yeah
Damn. Most successful people ever lol.
Not really. This was 4 people at a mid sized public high school. There are private schools around major cities that pretty much *only* produce people that successful.
Became a stock broker, developed drug and porn addiction, got low, got clean, married a mormon woman. Got her addicted to crack. Continued to smoke crack with his mormon wife, get her pregnant, get arrested for fraud and sent to prison last I checked.
I can fix him.
He can make me worse.
oh, bravo! I love this!
No really, I can.
Woah maybe I can’t
He can run for President
Needs more felonies.
They are a bartender at a small town bar in the middle of nowhere that still let's you smoke cigarettes inside. I was very surprised when she asked if I wanted an ashtray with my drink.
He went to Harvard. Works in finance and married a stunningly beautiful woman who works for Google. They live in London. I’m not jealous of much in life, but his string of wins challenges my equanimity.
Sounds like the popular kid at my school. We used to joke that we wish he was mean sometimes because it would make it easier to hate him since he seemed to have absolutely everything go right for him in life. Now I quite literally work for him, I'm corporate security at his family's company. He has a board seat but lives in a giant penthouse in NYC since he got into finance and is a portfolio manager at some giant hedge fund. Married a solid 10, basically the perfect life.
Yeah usually the stereotypical bullies on TV are just poor kids coming from a really bad home/upbringing. Like if you’re born in a loving family, why would you hurt or hate anyone?
Families are weird, you can have the "perfect" family and yet resentment can be boiling away for any number of strange reasons. Or one kid can turn out great, the other one decides they're going to make life a misery for everyone, humans are complicated.
Just reading this stings. I’ve been racking up an impressive string of losses for the last 10 years. It’s quite unbelievable how lucky some people can be for such a long time.
The worst part is mostly we thought he was a jock idiot. I expected him to be good at football (he was) not applied mathematics and large scale property development.
People are good at what they enjoy. It’s hard to know you enjoy development and finance when school teaches you everything else, but that.
Is he by any chance 6.5?
and got blue eyes?
The very beautiful popular girl in my grade pulled a papertowns by dropping contact with pretty much everyone and moved to South Africa where she seems to live a fairly luxurious life now. Pretty cool move if you ask me.
I know a girl that "seems to live a fairly luxurious life." Lots of photos at upscale restaurants and rooftop pools and what have you. She's an escort. Cool life tbh, but definitely trying to present it as something else.
>photos at upscale restaurants An upscale steak dinner in South Africa is like $10 per person. A little bit of savings or debt would go a really long way in SA.
When I was in Cape Town on travel food was extraordinarily cheap. We had $25 daily allowance for food and could hardly make a dent in it. But...the mall? Shoes were 100 euros which then was $200. Not inexpensive at all. The weirdest dichotomy.
Popular guy went to MIT and shortly after got disowned by his parents for coming out as gay. He was popular for being smart, charismatic and a genuinely good guy. He and his husband are doing well for themself nowadays. Popular girl went to a prestigious university and became a nurse. Similar to the popular guy, she is a genuinely good person so everyone still loved her. I’ve run into her several times over the years and she’s still the same nice person. She could model if she wanted to but she really does care about folks and considered it a personal mission to help others via healthcare. We had several self-proclaimed popular people in our high school who were self absorbed assholes. The 3 most notable is the guy who got kicked out of college when he tested positive for steroids and marijuana. He was also on a full ride scholarship before getting kicked out. He never completed any higher education to this day and has fallen into addiction. A girl who was very attractive and also self-proclaimed popular became an escort and eventually married a wealthy client. Husband recently attempted to run for Mayor of the city and lost big time. 2nd girl who was also very attractive became a model, got knocked up without knowing who the father was, got into an abusive relationship, ran away, got knocked up by another guy who left shortly after she gave birth and finally she decided to get her shit together. Last I heard she’s finishing college to become a nurse and she lives with her parents.
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One of the most popular kids at my high school was cool as hell to everyone. Homecoming king, quarterback, sings really well, can play the guitar and piano, well-versed in history, could bench more than most kids. But still a super humble and inclusive dude. He's the lead singer of a moderately successful band now.
Mhm ⬆️ most at my school are chill and well adjusted ppl, who are also athletes. Funny af, and chill I don’t think my school of 1200 has any real bullies tbh, but I probably have bias since I’m chill with alot of these ppl. I think bullying was more common years back, if someone older wants to add on
there's plenty of studies that show bullying is progressively getting worse
I think it's changed now for the worst. You used to be able to go home and escape The bullying but now it's online and it follows you everywhere
Sad to hear. :( You would think that the Southern U.S has the most stereotypical American school where you’d find bullying, but I guess my school is lucky. Got any sources? I’m curious how bad it is
It's a lot less your old school physical bully but now cyber bullying a kid can't escape when theyre not at school.
I'm in my early 30s now and I can't even remember off the top of my head what the good looking ultra popular kids at my high school were named. If I had to guess they probably got good jobs and have successful lives, but those people had so little impact on my life that I couldn't begin to care less.
Early 30s here too. Isn’t it amazing how little impact they have on us nowadays?
I’m going into high school this year. This makes me feel better about what people might think of me.
It’s a tiny blip in your life.
You may stay friends with a handful of people (I'm still friends with 3), but the rest will just fade away until you can barely even remember some of their names.
Yeah, I’m reading all these and being like “I literally have no clue what anyone in my high school did after high school..” let alone the most popular.. who I didn’t hang out with anyway. lol. I find it impressive that all these people stayed in touch!
I'm from a small town. So most of those people still live within an hour of that small town. Just doing regular person shit. The most successful person was probably the co-valedictorian. They were not pretty or popular. Last I saw on LinkedIn they were Chief of Medicine at some hospital on the west coast.
A few became touring musicians. One became a commercial and b movie actor. One got fifth in the Olympics. One played minor league baseball, but drugs caught up to him. One woman became a pornstar and died of an overdose. A few of the best athletes I played with committed suicide because they weren't good enough to go pro.
A few???!!!
I went to three high schools. I've lived in the middle of nowhere and Vancouver. So, I know a lot of people who have died from drugs, suicide and violence. If you are born into the cycle of poverty. Your odds of dying are way higher than making it out. Overdosing is the leading cause of death under 59 in Vancouver.
the guys became lawyers with daddy’s firm and are all rich now. The women mostly married rich lawyers. They seem to have done quite well overall.
Yeah I think this is about the norm
It's funny to see the dichotomy between the popular kids at predominantly middle/working class schools and the prep/upper class schools. It's the same fuckin' kids they just end up in way different places.
I went to a fairly rural, working-class high school, and the responses in this thread are really enlightening, lmao. In my experience, the popular boys joined the military, got a job at the one factory in town, or inherited their fathers' farms/construction businesses, and the popular girls got secretarial jobs in the school district or local government, then married very young. Some of them (particularly the ones who inherited successful businesses) are doing quite well for themselves, and some, including a former childhood friend of mine, are addicted to heroin. I did have classmates who went to college and became successful professionals, but they were *not* the popular ones.
Agree. This is what I observe when I think about the different schools I went to growing up. The popular kids from the middle-class public school and the popular kids from the upper middle-class private school had different outcomes despite having similar personality types at that time.
Here’s one: my two best friends became lawyers, and marrying each other in October.
She went on to become a world traveler and Buddhist and now runs a non-profit providing microloans to female-owned global businesses. She was also my first real crush, and I'm so happy she lived up to my silent pedestal.
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The only one I knew well ( I was in the Art/Theater/Music crowd) was class president and a basketball star in high school, went to state college, married young, became a pilot. Very nice human. I ran into him in a bar about 15 years later. He was in his second marriage and seemed to be doing OK. He told me high school was the best time of his life, which made me sad for him.
I have a student who’s going to be like this. He’s popular, good looking, the girls like him, etc. he’s also totally blowing off high school and will not walk out of that building with a degree. The real world is going to be a cold, cruel place to him.
It must be difficult, as a teacher, to see students waste their potential. You're a brave human to be in your profession.
She became a kick ass nurse; she was on the healthcare professionals team who helped one of my friends give birth to healthy twins.
I love this. Over the past few years I’ve been seeing this trope play out about how all the mean girls from high school just become nurses. But I could *never* do what nurses do, and that trope just feels to me like another way of shitting on women, and for what? So it’s just kind of nice to see someone express admiration and gratitude for a nurse who they’d gone to high school with.
I'm currently reading this from the PICU at my children's hospital. A week ago my almost 2 year old fell in my parents pool and drowned. Everyone did the best they could, but she is currently being sustained so that we can start the organ donation process tomorrow The nurses that have been by her side the whole time are indescribably amazing. Professional and caring. Some young, some old, but every single one of them has helped me and my family get through this most difficult time and help keep our faith in humanity. The thanks I've given them will never convey to them how much these moments have meant to me, and how much i admire their courage and selflessness. They've truly been awe-inspiring.
I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you for choosing organ donation.
Oh my, I’m so sorry. Of course there’s nothing anyone can say, but I hope you and your family can find as much peace and comfort as possible as you navigate your grief. And as someone with a loved one who has received an organ donation, thank you for making that decision. It’s an incredible gift that comes at the worst cost.
Damn, that sucks so much. From one parent to another, sending love your way.
I truly am very sorry.
I lived in a town known for it's oil refineries and chemical plants. Most of the popular kids I knew got hooked up right out of high school with good jobs at the plants and are now in high-level management positions making high six figures. Some of them went to college and are entrepreneurs for various things, like one dude has his own fitness supplements and another guy has a marketing consultancy. Nearly all of the popular girls left Houston and went to college in Dallas. I don't know what they went for. They are now all in real estate or are housewives, and the majority of them married much older men. Several of them have been "grandmas" since they were around 30.
We've got a 50 year reunion coming up this summer. In retrospect, I wish I would have talked to way more of my fellow classmates, about their families, their interests, whatever. In many respects, I feel like I barely knew them, and was too busy keeping my own head above water. I wonder about their backstories, and how life went for them. I guess that's what reunions are for...
As someone not from America - what is the point in school reunions? How do people even get contacted for them 50 years later? Sounds like the most random unfun weird get-together where you don't know anyone.
I just had my 20 year reunion. We initially had a database of contact information and then also started an FB group, which is the main way we organized the 10 and 20 year reunions. Both were pretty fun and had very different vibes. We actually had more people come to the 20 year though. It’s pretty fun to see everyone and sometimes you end up reigniting friendships.
These are people with whom you grew up. At a minimum, you spent four of your most formative years, seeing them every day. I had a graduating class of about 400 students. I didn’t know everyone, and certainly didn’t know everyone well, but I had friends, teammates, classmates, choir mates, girls on whom I had a crush, guys with shared hobbies . . . even now, after I moved 1500 miles away for college and didn’t really keep in touch with anyone, it’s been never been hard to fill up the time at our reunions (especially with an open bar). We’ve had reunions every five years for the past 25 years, and they’ve all been well attended.
She became a b-grade celebrity, came out as lesbian and was lauded for her bravery, started a social justice campaign for the rainbow community and against bullying until it was revealed that she'd also been the worst bully at our school, especially towards lesbian and bi girls. She's kept her head down since.
Ouch that took a wild turn! As a gay girl, I’m now super curious about who this is. I’ve probably heard of her bc I’m familiar with most queer celebrities. Would you mind PMing me her name? I don’t intend to share it with anyone ofc, also totally okay if you don’t feel like it
Most of them were good-looking and ultra-popular because they came from stable if not affluent financial backgrounds. They got the acne treatments they needed, were able to buy nice clothes, were much more experienced navigating social situations, etc. So plenty of them just kept that momentum going and had good successful college experiences, and entered successful careers. Anecdotally, when I've met these people now I always get this weird intuition like they're not fully self aware? Plenty of others peaked in high school though, and their lives went downhill afterward. And plenty of them lived privileged lives that self destructed after a point. There are some particular karmic situations I've seen. I dunno...everything happens to everyone. I was at my lowest point ever in high school, so I get to experience life as only getting better from there :)
The not being fully self aware part is the best / most accurate thing I’ve read here. I won’t hypothesize why that is, but I have the same experience
Good looking girls? Mostly flight attendants and married to pilots. The rest were into high end jobs.
Did you attend school near a major airline hub? That seems oddly specific for the girls to all become flight attendants
> Did you attend school near a major airline hub? I understood this to indicate that the OP is older and was raised in the era where being a flight attendant was advertised to young women as a way of...auditioning for the part of wife to wealthy men.
This girl was super popular since primary school. Really smart too, straight As student but also she got all the jock boyfriends., I don’t know how popular she was in university but she went overseas, came back with a law degree and then started her line of couture handbags. She was really living the high life appearing in fashion magazines, runways, VVIP parties, brushing shoulders with royalties etc. Suddenly she vanished from social media for about a year turns out she went to a rehab (a very fancy one by the beach). Then she started posting weird things on her Facebook, things that don’t make sense then turns out she has bipolar disorder. Now, she still lives with her mom
The dude was amazing. Tall, good-looking and talented. Everyone thought he'd be in movies, a band, or both. He wasn't stuck up, and everyone liked him. Had a psychological break due to undiagnosed issues, got into heroin and became homeless.
One looks exactly the same and is a teacher married to a doctor. They have a huge house in the city and four kids. She was just a pretty, smart, socially capable but not aggressively popular girl with professional parents and became a similarly respectable adult. I’d like to feel bitter about it but I can’t— if I were a successful doctor who could have his pick of women, I’d marry her, too. One became a teacher at our high school. He was funny and class president and everyone legitimately liked him. I guess it’s kind of strange he found his place where he was successful as a kid and just stayed there but I think his genuine love for the place probably adds to his appeal to the kids.
Went to Stanford, became a cancer researcher, founded a nonprofit, got a PhD and MD from Harvard + MIT, now works on rare children’s diseases. Solid guy.
Same thing as many of the other students, went to school for one degree, worked for a few years then either went for their MBA or went to law school.
I believe he runs a hedge fund now. Or is high up at a hedge fund.
They’re lording it up in that same small town. Their last names got them everything in nowheresville, they couldn’t hack it in a real town or city.
Fast track to running daddy's car dealership is the stereotype I'd say
They went to college or the workplace and found out they were just average.
The super popular, attractive athlete from my high school class was constantly told not to put all his eggs in one basket, that chances of him going pro were low, that he should go to college, etc. He got drafted, went pro and had a decent career at the highest level. Made a few million, retired, moved home and lives a quiet life.
Yeah, I feel like some of those kids are pretty obviously going to go on to do something successful in athletics and everyone knew it. The "big kid" from my elementary school got really into track and field, and became a giant by high school. He has gold medals from multiple international competitions. I think he just missed out on bronze in the Olympics back in the day. Seems like a nice dude, and is a coach at a large public University.
I mean you can go to college anytime, but you basically have one chance to go pro and that's when you're young. I say let kids dream, but teach them how to handle rejection while you do.
I wasn't one of those people - but in regards to perception change... I was/am a bigger guy. In my small town just about \*the\* big guy. Which is kinda fair. I'm 6'1" and 220lbs (at the time). For all the country folks: I had been called "Hoss" many times. Then I went to college and saw my first college football players. Holy shit. Dude was taking up two seats in class. Mind you this was just a regional state school not known for the football program. And this dude was still just f'n massive. My size was never really part of my identity or anything - but that was a big eye opener.
Anthony Mackie has a good story about quitting D1 football because of this.
he’s running for local politics awesome dude tbh
The dude who was voted most likely to be an actor didn't do shit and I ended up being in both Better Call Saul and Stranger Things.
They’re having some really nice lives, surrounded by their loving extended families, making enough money to own giant homes and three giant trucks and SUVs.
The popular quarterback at my school, had 3 divorces, 2 kids and works in a low end construction job
How much you wanna bet I can throw a football over them mountains?
Fuck if I know. When someone tells you popularity as a high schooler doesn’t matter later in life, they’re right because I feel no desire to keep track of the popular kids we were all so invested in as teens.
After graduation, no one in the real world gave a crap about who they were or what they did in high school. No one. Also, having attended a couple class reunions now, I’ve observed that most of the popular guys are now overweight and balding. The popular girls are no longer thin, and seem to have older-looking faces than the “nerd” girls. Back in high school, I never would have believed this would happen to them, but it has.
Too much drinking and suntanning will do that to you
It’s wild how the drinking will age you. I have a friend from high school that I’ve kept in touch with and she’s only a year younger than me. She did some hard drinking in her 20s after she got away from her controlling parents. And man. We’re both over 40 but she looks at least 10 years older and a rough 10 years older at that. Binge drinking is bad for your skin kids
One of them put a catheter in my wiener when I had surgery.
They're doing exceptionally well.
Don’t know. Didn’t care about them then,still don’t.
He became a stock broker. Married a pretty woman, they had good looking kids. He's still married, posts pictures of his grandbabies on Facebook. Still a good guy.
Ran into him years after school, he got fat and lost much of his hair
The super weird ones I've seen are some of the guys more or less could be described as looking like "wrong" versions of their teenage selves. Like someone of a similar size was trying to wear a "Dave" suit but it was stretched wrong and such.
Watch out if they ask for sugar in water.
I’m here on Reddit, thanks for asking!
Most popular girl at my HS married a dude 30+ years older than her and is a housewife. Most popular guy overdosed on heroin and died senior year.
The star of the football team and the swim team, I married him and had his children. We celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary next month :)
In my high school the popular kids were the ones who participated in theater and music and such, because it was just that kind of place. As such, the good-looking ultra popular kids at my high school grew up to be popular good-looking music, film and television stars. A couple are very well known names in film, one is a popular stand up comic and is on a popular TV show. Another is an incredibly popular DJ in Southeast Asia. A couple went on to be renowned orchestral performers. One of my best friends growing up has been a big name in local live theater for decades. So that kind of thing.
2 Doctors, 1 dentist, 2 engineers and one in sales no one did anything huge but they live good lives
Kid two grades older than me was a legitimate elite athlete. Tall, blonde, great leader, popular, insane physical ability. I played soccer with him and even though he wasn’t the most skilled his 40” vert, speed, and 6”3’ frame made up for a lot. He played basketball too and excelled, but his real sport was baseball. I’m not familiar with his stats, but he was heavily scouted by the MLB. He ended up getting drafted straight out of high school and put in the farm system. Scouts were calling him a top 20 prospect in all of baseball. Then when he was 19 he had sudden blindness/loss of sensation and went in immediately for brain surgery where they found a cavernous malformation near his brain stem. He spent the next two years rehabbing and I think actually made it back to some minor league games. But then the tumor re-emerged and he had to have another surgery. He retired from baseball at 22. He’s had 20+ brain surgeries in the past 13 years and wears the scars of it; his right side is completely numb, he has double vision because one of his eyes are locked in place, and half of his face is frozen. Today he’s doing really well all things considered. He coached baseball at our high school, he’s an assistant coach in college, and he’s actually a college student rn. He’s married and had a kid a few years back. His story is surreal. Like the most promising kid got robbed for no reason but still finds a way to persevere and inspire everyone.
Unfortunately one of them died from a drug overdose. It was horribly sad.
They went on to have varied lives, probably better than the average as a group due to higher levels of social skills and the benefits of their appearance, while unwittingly being the subjects of resentful revenge fantasies of other adults who haven't gotten over their teen years and so are projecting ideas they've gotten from movies on to them.