Marcus's Model of High School Social Classes

As I type today in computer class, I watch as the other students chat and hang around before the tardy bell; I think a bit about my life and how much I long to be accepted socially into one of the many "groups" that form the school's student body...

As announced in the previous week and yesterday, us seniors needn't have gone to school before 11:30 AM. I took advantage of that to sleep in and listen to Stephanie Miller live. While on the bus ride here to Paschal, I continued thinking about my social life, and actually hatched a theory.

I have noticed over the years, since the first day of walking into kindergarten, that there are distinct "classes" of students. Only today, however, did I realize that there are pretty much five main, distinct ones:

* Class A - The Elite Minority
* Class B - The Semi-Elites
* Class C - The Middle Grounders
* Class D - The ER Class
* Class E - The Silent Minority

Before I continue, I shall provide short summaries for you.

Class A, The Elite Minority, is the very top rung of the social ladder, consisting of the top jocks, cheerleaders, and their close friends. They are, in general, either rich or upper middle-class, but there are a lot of instances of lower economic classes being included here. They generally do not even have the word "loneliness" in their vocabulary, since they are always going to parties, going all around their respective regions (the entire Metroplex in this case) and generally being very busy socially and having fun.

Class B is the Under-Elite Class. This class consists of the students that have very healthy social lives, but do not quite fit in with Class A. These students also have no idea what loneliness is, since they, like the Elites, have their social calendars booked up. This tends to be the class of the rest of the jocks and cheerleaders.

Class C, The Middle Grounders, is the biggest group, consisting of the students that, while not being 'popular', have their groups to hang with and do not really have social acceptance struggles. The name comes from them being in the "middle" of the class scale. These students sometimes spend more time alone than the top two classes, but still have friends at school and, most of the time, in their neighborhoods. This is the class I really desire to be in, though it's not very likely, despite my efforts.

Class D is named the ER Class for one reason - people in this class, which includes me, have "social lives", but they are in the emergency room on life support. We generally have a few "talk to" friends at school, and maybe even a consistent group to eat lunch with (most of the time, we do not fit in with them anyway, we're just straggling), but we fail to really fit in with the group in which we try to fit. Our home lives tend to be lonelier, though a lot of us take advantage of the internet for friendship (I have developed great friendships on the net myself).

Class E, The Silent Minority, is the very bottom rung of the ladder. These students have no friends at all, except maybe for a few internet ones, and tend to be very lonely people.

Immeadiately after developing this theory, I found I am pretty much in Class D. I have a few "talk to at school only" friends, but outside of school I have no social life here in Fort Worth (thank God for my awesome Internet friends!) and even at school, I find myself lonely at lunch a lot of the time, and my classes tend to be lonely for me too.

People always say that you should talk to people and open up and all that jazz, but what they do not realize is that many of us Class D'ers do that, and it just does not work. I have been trying for years to achieve my dream of having a little group of true friends (here in person, that is--I have awesome net friends) to stick around, but so far, it has worked about as well as trying to herd cats, or maybe trying to pee on a high rise fire to put it out.

I talk to people in my classes, talk during lunch, and more. It has helped me make a few of the "at school" variety, but I have had no luck at all with making friends to hang around with out of school and finding a little "crew" to stick in. Currently, I am approaching a few of my "at school" friends and trying to enlist their help; I'll see where that leads me.

Now don't get me wrong, I have some great internet friends, and they are awesome people, and will probably stay my best friends forever. I am not trying to make them seem less valuable, nor am I diminishing them in any other way, but it would be nice to meet a little "crew" of friends to hang out with here in Fort Worth - people to play console games with, ride bikes, and just plain hang out. I do have a consistent group I eat lunch with, but they're kind of sporadic and some of them don't give a flying rat's ass about me--I'm willing to bet a couple of them are not even aware of my existence! I have been trying my best, but it seems my best won't do...