The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [1]
The cafeteria had not been kind to Danielle in the past. She didn’t think much anymore about the flick flick of projectile Skittles that a handful of “friends” pelted at her after they ousted her from their lunch table in sixth grade. She was still haunted by seventh grade, however. Until that year, Danielle had dressed like the tomboy she was. In seventh grade, she decided to start shopping at the stores other girls chattered about—Hollister, American Eagle—in order to fit in.
Her strategy didn’t work. Classmates grew even more hostile toward her. Former friends started a note fight. One girl wrote a message so painful that when Danielle’s mother came home from work that day, Danielle was uncharacteristically curled up in a fetal position on her bed. The school summoned the girls’ mothers to meetings, and when administrators saw the notes that Danielle had written in retaliation, they penalized both girls by barring them from the middle school honor society.
Meanwhile, half of Danielle’s class had joined the “I Hate Dominoes Club,” which people discussed in front of her. In a last-ditch effort to conform to the crowd, Danielle let students in her gym class persuade her to join the club too. Only a few moments later, she discovered that “Dominoes” was a pseudonym (she never found out why). The club’s real name was the “I Hate Danielle Club.” Danielle had joined her own hate club. Her classmates thought this was hilarious. When Danielle underwent dermatological surgery later that semester, the club leader said she hoped Danielle would die from the anesthesia.
On the last day of school, Tabitha, Danielle’s supposedly closest friend, passed her a note that said she didn’t want to be friends anymore. Danielle told Tabitha it was dumb to end their friendship just because rejecting Danielle was the cool thing to do. That weekend, a group of girls called her from a party to which she hadn’t been invited. They crowded around the speakerphone, telling her to stop “threatening” Tabitha. Danielle never forgave her.
Danielle hated reflecting on that year, but not because of the cruelty. She was most chagrined now because she had “joined the group, unaware that it was my own hate club, because I thought that since everyone else was joining, I should too. I wish I hadn’t been so stupid in thinking that I needed other people’s approval, even when I didn’t even like most of them.”
Because of that incident, Danielle withdrew, unwilling to trust anyone at school. She stopped talking to most people her age. Outside of school, for the next few years, she hung out only with four other girls: Mona, Paige, Camille, and Nikki, none of whom had many friends besides each other. Danielle liked these girls about 50 percent of the time; they could be funny and they usually got along. But they tended to neglect her such that Danielle often felt like an outcast even within her own tiny group. She stuck with them because they had been friends since kindergarten, even if the only thing they had in common was their past.
Danielle had other acquaintances, but they were “just school friends,” because “I don’t know how to ask them to hang out, and I suck at doing one-on-one things with people I’ve never hung out with before,” she said.
Danielle turned away from the cafeteria window and meandered down another hallway, attempting to quash her anxiety. If I don’t find someone I know, I’m going to end up standing alone at the front of the cafeteria. She hid in the bathroom for a few minutes, washing her hands to kill time, then waited by the sink until she decided to go to the library. On the way, Danielle bumped into Paige’s freshman sister and followed her back to the lunchroom. They sat at the last of the underclassman tables at the far right side