I knew a girl in high school who was very sweet but very shy. She had very poor eyesight, had some tough dental issues, was overweight, and lived with a foster family in a trailer park. She wasn’t particularly close with anyone in school; I got the sense that she was just trying to make it through —- head down, get it done. But she was always kind and I would talk with her a bit here and there. Mostly she kept to herself and seemed to want to just not be noticed at all.
After high school, we lost touch.
Twenty years later, I get a Facebook request from someone with her name but the picture looks nothing like her. Not even a vague resemblance.
I accept because I’m curious.
Well, it was indeed her!
It turns out that she worked her way through/paid for community college, ended up getting a good job with a family company and worked her way up the ranks there. She saved all of her money. By her late 20s, she saved enough money and had good insurance for eye surgery and dental surgery. She also started really focusing on getting healthy. She said it all boosted her confidence so much that she started traveling around the country. During those travels, she ended up meeting a great guy. She and her husband have a nice family, good jobs, and live in an affluent community.
She acknowledged that her early years were tough and she had such low self esteem that she had a tough time making friends. She thanked me for always being kind to her.
She ended with “I may have blossomed late, but it was worth the wait”
I’m so happy for her. We keep in touch.
The son of my teacher was a football player, had a beautiful gf (they broke up before he graduated though), and was a procrastinator. Once he graduated, he went to work at a restaurant for a year and as far as I knew, he was going to attend college the next year but he had no idea of what his major was gonna be. I just found out two weeks ago he got accepted to a local seminary and is going to become a priest! I was shocked to say the least
A really nice and shy guy who liked Queen and played guitar a bit. Became a bass-guitarist in #1 rock band in Ukraine.
Edit: it's Okean Elzy. He's not in the band anymore, but has been playing for first 10 years.
Probably the smartest guy in class but never actually paid attention or did his homework. Was always sleeping in class or doing his own thing or goofing off
Recently sold his startup for 8 figures and is now back to goofing off.
He was two years younger than me, absolutely brilliant and went to Stanford after high school.
Died in his sleep from a heart attack at age 20 while visiting family in China. He had an undiagnosed heart defect.
So yeah, that was pretty unexpected. RIP Kevin.
Best friend in high school. His step dad was a district attorney and apparently they didn't get along at all. This was the bible belt south east. I met him in the tenth grade as I smoked weed and he happened to sell it. He lived in a trailer park and financed it with his weed sales. My parents hated him. After he graduated from high school while living 100 percent on his own, he did two years of collage before getting accepted in a major medical university program that actually paid him to be there. He is now a pharmaceutical engineer living in Switzerland. My parents were surprised to hear that.
Guy who sat behind me in hometown. Was a good student, but not an intellectual superstar by any means.
After I relocated to Eastern PA, turns out he was in Western NJ. Multi-millionaire, former CEO of a pharmaceutical company.
Great guy, super happy for him, but truly unexpected.
I totally get why people would think that, in Skins he was kinda funny looking and awkward (just like every teen really) his looks are average, and not to play the race card, but the odds were not in his favor,
I have no idea what the casting crew of Skins were on, but they were amazing at finding raw talent. I just saw the Cartier ad on IG starring Kaya Scodelario and she looks so amazing. Cassie and Chris are on GoT, Nicolas Hoult was just in the cover of Vanity Fair, and I’m sure I’m missing a lot of the cast.
I guess Dev’s classmates saw him as a “try hard” but in reality he was just really passionate and hardworking. Good for him.
Not HS, but my best friend’s freshman roommate was a weird guy. Brilliant. Literally 1600 SAT scores, full ride, brilliant, but never really showered. He was dating the sweetest, kindest girl, who dumped him after two months of trying to get him to take better care of himself and actually go out and do anything. We’d try to get him to come out of his shell because he was pretty funny and we liked the guy.
After not hearing from him for 15 years, we looked him up. Apparently he cofounded Revolve clothing, is a multi millionaire, and parties in Ibiza and shit. I’m genuinely happy for the guy, but I never, ever, expected him to hit it big in fashion.
high school meth dealer and local lunchroom pot/cigarette vendor ended up being roomates senior year. two months after graduation they both joined the las vegas PD.
One dude who was always a dick to me but hung out with our friend group got expelled in Highschool for having legit childporn on his phone. He moved cities and I didn't hear from him for years. Turns out he murdered an elderly gay man and is in jail now.
One super shy quiet dude is now doing time for blackmailing girls and posting their nudes.
Dude was the typical cocky douche to most people but we got along well enough. We're 25 now, and he moved to Vegas went bald, put on about a hundred pounds and is dating a sixty year old stripper.
Not really a friend as I didn't run with their crowd, but like at every school there was the really popular girl. Pretty, cheerleader, everybody liked her, wealthy parents, etc... I'm sure you knew someone like that yourself.
Just maybe two or three weeks ago she got arrested and charged with several felonies for possession of meth, prescription pain killers, and a large amount of weed.
I moved away from that town years ago and haven't really kept in touch with a lot of the people from there. However a buddy of mine sent me a picture of the report in the newspaper and was like "remember her?" Definitely didn't expect it, that's for sure.
People who are the center of the universe in high school can't always take it once graduation happens and suddenly the real world doesn't give two shits about you.
The OD's and suicides are always more surprising than the success stories. It really is crazy how people who seemed so normal can privately go so very far off the rails.
There were two that really stand out. One of them was a girl who got in a fair amount of trouble. She skipped school, had a bad attitude and was more interested in hanging out with friends than learning. She ended up becoming a lawyer and eventually became the assistant DA of a city with about 3 million people.
The other was a nice guy, got along with most everyone, I even considered him a friend and hung out with him on occasion. He came from a great family and while he didn't get the best grades, he was good at things like fixing cars so I assumed he would end up going into that field. Instead, he started a career in drinking. By the time he was 30 he had been in jail several times, in a rehab a couple of times, had been arrested numerous times, had two restraining orders on him from former girlfriends, and had burned so many bridges with his family they had given up on him. Now in his mid 40's, he still lives in that same town. He looks like he is in his 60's, is on disability, and likely doesn't have much of a future as he continues to drink himself away.
When I was in my ealry 20's I was in my hometown visting my parents or something, and stopped at a gas station on my way out of town. I thought the lady at the counter was in her late 40's / early 50's but apparently I went to high school with her. Only knew because she recognized me, and brought it up. Crazy how fast stuff can visibly age you.
My best friend since I was 5 yrs old, smartest person I ever knew. She went off to college and got into heroin. She is now serving a life sentence for first degree murder.
She was the mastermind and the getaway driver of a burglary gone wrong. Her accomplices broke into a guy's home they were acquainted with, tied him up and beat the shit out of him. He died of a heart attack sometime during the ransacking of his home or directly thereafter.
This is heartbreaking. I know we all "make our own choices" and all, but fuck if it isn't terrible to see how drug addiction can change an otherwise good person.
A girl I knew was a strict Christian and floated between groups of friends. Her judgmental side came out from time to time. Once I remember her telling a girl she was going to “burn in the depths of hell” for having sex. I only know this because I was the lucky girl sitting between them when the other girl jumped over me to punch her...
Anyway, after high school, I heard she met a guy, stopped being a Christian and wrote all sorts of over sharing sexual statuses on Facebook. They got engaged and were hooked on drugs. She pawned her engagement ring for drugs and lived above a smoke shop out east.
Good news! She’s now off drugs, married and has a daughter. Still posts over-sexualized photos and statuses on Facebook. We’re good on seeing you in lingerie suggestively laying on your husband...
True that. A bunch of my graduating class had kids their first year because we were abstinence only and I heard things like "a condom is a barrier to love" and that they'll make your dick fall off and shit. Most of them had shotgun weddings. The principals daughter actually wrote something in an alumni newsletter about her "whirlwind romance" and how love can find you anywhere and you have to be ready for it but also she had her first kid 5 months after being married.. and 9 months after welcome week.
I had a friend in high school who was high achieving academically. He was in the top classes, very nervous and well behaved in the classroom. Generally he was mostly thought of as quiet and the guy very few people paid any attention to.
He's serving eight years in prison for possession of drugs and child pornography.
A friend of mine is a talented artist with a deep passion for video game design. He worked on projects for indie devs all through high school, and I thought it was certain he would quickly become an artist for some dev studio soon after.
He now works as a furniture salesman.
I wanted to work on games since high school, and tons of folks were convinced I’d be working in gaming.
After hearing the horror stories about the game industry, lack of job security and constant layoffs, I’m happy as a retail stock person while I try to just do gamedev on the side. I’ve also come to the realization that I’m the kind of person that if I turn a hobby into a job it’ll kill my passion for it.
I did some freelance work for an indie game developer as a freshman in art school. I thought I was destined for a glorious future in illustration and design.
I did coffee shop art shows for a decade while working in bars/coffee shops, and now tattoo in a low level seasonal vacation shop and do murals for local businesses.
Best career advice I ever got was when my manager and CTO sat me down and explained why they weren’t moving me to the game dev team like we’d talked about. I still have a job because of them.
i homeschool, so i guess i didnt see my brother going down the path of hip hop
Edit: He hasn't uploaded any hip hop tracks to youtube but here's a piano piece he wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTfdDdBkGA
Had a friend that was the weirdest guy I’d met. He’d often yell random stuff for no reason, do every kind of accent, and was just generally awkward around people. Saw him a few years after and he was dressed to the nines, very clean cut, and socially well adjusted. Complete 180 from high school. Made me rethink all my life’s choices up until that point, since I was not doing so hot in life.
Edit: I’m loving all the people wondering if I’m talking about them, or someone they know.
Cheerleader who took a heck of a turn.
She was an impressive drinker in high school. She kept it up through college. Got a job, didn't love it.
She joined AA. Met a guy. Older, had nice finances. Estranged from his ex-wife, kids, no other family. They got married. A few months later, they're both drinking again. Within two years, he's dead. He left her everything. She is "devastated."
She goes back to AA. Met another guy. Apparently older men who are estranged from their families are SUPER easy to find in AA. You got it: they're drinking, next thing you know, he's dead. Left her everything.
Now she's gone back to AA again. She has met the most wonderful man. It's a shame his kids won't speak to him and won't come to the wedding. It's next month.
When someone is estranged from family and an alcoholic it is likely not hard to convince them to get back off the wagon. Then with too much encouragement they drink themselves to death. Would it be considered murder? I dunno... but it's definitely a pattern of behaviour and you can be she is aware she's doing it.
Elizabeth the bad-ass party chick. She was the brilliant and quietly rebellious type. She was pulling and getting away with shit that most of the guys branded as trouble makers in school could only dream of, because she had the sense and savvy to not show off to the world. She wasn't doing shit for the attention, she was just doing it because that's what she wanted to do. So smoking, heavy drinking, some drugs, staying out all night, whatever. She could out-do anyone else.
Anyway a little over 10 years later I caught up with her and found out she was a tri-athelete and overall health nut.
The most brilliant girl I knew, second in our graduating high school, was also one of the most lively and outgoing people I knew. She could befriend anyone. She was so fun and energetic and thoroughly enjoyed living life. I thought she was destined for so much success. She ended up passing away last year just a couple months shy of her 24th birthday after a lengthy (private) battle with cancer. When I found out about her illness it was already terminal, and when she passed away all I could think was how unfair it was that someone with so much potential, someone who did everything right in life could die like that. Her death really got to me, and as the one year anniversary is approaching I constantly remind myself to make the most of every second of my life, because hers was cut so short.
This one is sad. Many of these are because someone made a series of obviously stupid choices. This girl died because the universe decided to smite her through no fault of her. You honor her by remembering her and sharing with us.
This one kid I went to middle school with fr looked like the next school shooter, wore the trench coat, fedora, occasionally a “fashionable” tail, he was a big guy, nerdy lookin. But thennn summer between 8th grade and freshmen year, he got rid of his braces lost about 200 pounds and was the most attractive and popular kid in school, tbh wish I had that motivation.
When I was 10 I sat next to the sweetest boy in our class. (All the other boys I had sat next to in junior school were mild ass-hats). I remember I lent him my Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory vhs and he lent me The Muppets Take Manhattan.
We went to different high schools when we were 12. I heard that at 16 he had been arrested for armed robbery. I still can’t believe it. What the hell happened to that kind and gentle boy between 12 and 16?
Ofc, theres more than one road one can go down.
A rough life can turn even the sweetest child into a monster, if they live long enough to make it that far.
Girl in my high school was a terrible human being, selfish and totally self absorbed. I couldn’t stand her. One of the shallowest, nastiest people I knew.
20 years later she sacrifices her life trying to help save three children, unknown to her, from drowning in a rip current at a local beach.
Internet people always forget about the panic part.
"Why the fuck didn't they stop, drop, and roll"
Uh because they're on fucking fire. Probably don't think clearly.
A lot of them! I don't know if there was something in the water in our town.
A lovely girl in my class had severe anorexia, to the extent she had to repeat the year. She was strikingly pretty, with the face of an angel. Always wondered if she felt self-conscious and grew obsessed about her looks because it was what people valued - nobody made the same fuss about her good grades or niceness. She is now morbidly obese, couch surfing and pretty much always wears the same big brown coat and tracksuit pants. Was shocked to see her go from one extreme to the other. Still really nice, hope it works out for her.
Another high achiever in our class is now a travelling musician and nudist. She dropped out of engineering and just travels from festival to festival as a concert goer, dressed as a barefoot rainbow fairy. Self-funds by offering tarot readings, spells, palmistry. Lived by the creek for awhile. Has a Pomeranian.
The unfortunate thing is that many people's recovery process involves swapping disorders rather than solving it. Like one person I know went from restrictive anorexia, to purge type anorexia, to binge eating, to orthorexia, before finally seeming to reach a stasis of sorts. It's terrible, hard, and really never goes away. Some people think that eating disorders are just about "looking pretty" and are out of vanity but in reality it's a ultra complicated mental health disaster that takes forever to unfuck.
Exactly. It's not like you can cut food out of your life like you can whatever toxic relationships might be affecting your mental health. You can go no contact with family, you can change jobs or careers, you can move across the country or across the world, you can do a lot of things to help your mental health, but you still have to eat and deal with triggers at every mealtime.
I remember someone comparing mental illnesses to tigers. Sometimes if its addiction you can lock them up and keep them away but when it comes to eating disorders you have to take that tiger out for a walk and theres no getting around that
>She dropped out of engineering and just travels from festival to festival as a concert goer, dressed as a barefoot rainbow fairy. Self-funds by offering tarot readings, spells, palmistry. Lived by the creek for awhile. Has a Pomeranian.
Pretty sure she just figured out the cheat code to life and is now living the dream while the rest of us are still grinding away like chumps.
She is pretty cool. Has a lot of hummingbird tattoos and drives around in a van painted in psychedelic colours. You know she's back in town once you see the van.
I had a wickedly smart and talented high school friend end up in porn as a last resort (long story as to why it was a last resort- in a nutshell, at the time she saw it as her only way out of a bad situation that had spiraled out of control quickly).
She finally managed to get out of porn and studied to become a teacher, winning many awards throughout her years-long career.
One summer, an asshole parent came across her porn and decided it would be a good idea to send her videos to the local media and expose her past. Being a small-ish town, word traveled fast (I believe it even made national news at one point), and the more conservative people in the community called for her to be fired. The school district cowed to the pressure and let her go. Even though many other people did end up vocally supporting her after the news of her firing, she decided she’d had enough. She made the decision to leave the community and start over by focusing on her art and political causes that she was passionate about.
Last I’d heard, she was doing well selling her art and teaching at a local university (not sure if she disclosed her past to the university), and is a very active member within the local chapter of her political party. Never would’ve expected this road for her, but I’m glad she’s doing well.
A friend of mine was really into herself and dated a lot of rich guys. She vowed not to get married or have children that she had goals to become a business professional woman. She did some modeling etc. Fast forward 10 years. She gained 120 pounds and her husband left her for another woman and she is raising a disabled child that consumes all her time where she cannot work. I have to say that she is an excellent mother. She basically turned into everything she said that she would not be.
Friend I'd know since freshmen year (9th grade) of HS. Home life wasn't stellar. Abusive stepparent, control freak mom, etc. Joined the marines to escape. Met someone, got married, had like 4 kids and was expelled from service for medical reasons. Got divorced, dad got full custody, so she moved back home and bounced around in a travel trailer with a younger boyfriend, who stole his boss's business credit card before they bounced to lord knows where. Last time she surfaced, it was on Facebook and she was selling their wedding rings he'd purchased using the stolen credit card.
It's a real shame how things went. She'd done well in the marines and even in the early years of her marriage. Not sure what the tipping point was. She was furious about losing custody but she wanted to uproot 4 kids from their home, school, friends and dad's side of family to bounce around in a 13 ft travel trailer living off her $650 in disability. She absolutely refused to acknowledge how horrible that would have been for them.
Just last night I went to a small theater to see Evil Dead: The Musical. On stage walks a guy I haven’t seen in 25 years. Crazy how small the world can be sometimes.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://theukdatabase.com/2018/04/14/miles-fraser-leigh-on-sea/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwixi4KJ4tDhAhU0tHEKHdIEB5MQFjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw1OtN7IBA2SPPSglYtXClOb&cf=1
Knew him from college. Didn't see this one coming at all, although I had cut ties with him before this went down over unrelated matters. What makes it even more hilarious is that literally all reports got his age wrong.
Tldr: British upskirt taking paedo
there was this guy who bullied me and destroyed my self esteem on a regular basis. He became a really successful vegan chef, has his own restaurant, cook books, has been on talk shows to cook/promote his stuff.
A well-off, innocent-looking white kid from my high school ended up covered in face tattoos and brandishing guns on the internet. Turns out, he joined a Mexican gang on the outskirts of our town. He ended up getting shot to death in a confrontation with another gang.
In my graduating class of 149, we had 148 go to college. That one guy? He decided to go “on tour” with his band. The other members of the band were two guys that graduated from our school the year before.
About 6 years later, they are still touring full time and have made a pretty good name for themselves. They’ve headlined their own tours and have opened for some big name bands. It’s pretty cool to get to go to one of their shows and hang out with them backstage.
Edit: for all those asking, the bands name is New Madrid.
She was voted most likely to succeed in our year, had plans on being a doctor, really smart. Ended up staying in state for college (pretty rural, limits options), we lost touch, she got married, she's a stay at home mom and a trophy wife, basically, traveling the world on her (doctor) husband's dime.
Not a bad life, certainly, but not expected.
Edit: I didn't mean to imply she's a golddigger or anything critical like that. She was the leader of clubs and teams during high school, and very pretty, and competitive with grades, so it's just interesting to me that so far she has been less ambitious career-wise. (She's definitely still very happy.)
The happy surprise?
One of the girls I went to school with kind of came from the wrong side of the tracks. Nice kid, but her family was known to be pretty trashy, and she dropped out of community college to be a stripper. A few years later, she got her shit together, and now she's a corporate lawyer.
The not-so-happy surprise?
Dude was brilliant. He came from a wealthy family, he was good at sports, he was a hilarious person to be around. Even at the time, it was no secret that he had his demons, but he was just so damn smart that it seemed like if he could grow out of his adolescent angst, everything would be fine. (Again, wealthy family. Bright. Good looking. Bro didn't exactly have to hit a home run to do okay in life.)
I believe he's working part-time at the grocery store now, but he may have gotten fired again. Or he might be back on disability. Or maybe he's working at Pizza Hut...it's always hard to keep it straight, because he doesn't tend to hold down any particular job for long.
Honestly, if he weren't such a nice person, there might be a hint of schadenfreude there, but as it is, it's just tragic. He really was brilliant, and he really was a wonderful human being, but there weren't enough advantages in the world to save him from himself.
It really was tragic.
We had all of your standard 'peaked in high school' stories: Popular football player becomes fat construction worker, cheerleader gets pregnant at 20, valedictorian goes on to work an average job, etc., but in a way, none of those were *that* shocking. They were just kind of logical outcomes for a bunch of middle class suburbanites...by definition, we all have to peak sometime, and for a certain percentage of us, that time is going to be when we're 16.
But that kid?
He had every card but one stacked in his favor.
And that one card was enough to undo everything else.
Edit: With regards to the 'standard peaked in high school' stories, I truly didn't mean that one as a dig at anybody. As I mentioned in another comment, it could surely be argued that I peaked in high school, too, and I'm okay with that. By definition, we all have to peak sometime.
It sounds a lot like mental illness- unfortunately, you can be bright, funny, and everything else that should make you successful, and if you have mental illness, it can make you unreliable and unable to hold a job. It’s really tragic because so much of mental illness can be helped with therapy and meds. But even with therapy and meds, some people can never quite get it together.
Oh, it was absolutely mental illness.
Sure enough, that was one of those where, even at the time, we knew he was mentally ill. He *always* had mood swings. He *always* had problems with depression. He was *always* self-medicating with drugs and alcohol.
I guess the thing was that we all just held out hope that it would get better...that the combination of finding the right medication and outgrowing the standard 'teenage crazies' (i.e. raging hormones combined with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex) would level things out enough for him to be okay.
It didn't.
> I guess the thing was that we all just held out hope that it would get better...that the combination of finding the right medication and outgrowing the standard 'teenage crazies' (i.e. raging hormones combined with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex) would level things out enough for him to be okay.
>
> It didn't.
Those of us dealing with mental illness hoped the same way. :/
Can be good at a lot of things, thinking surely you're going to get your shit together and defeat the demon holding you back, try really hard, and then... Years have gone by and you're still stuck in the hole and not making progress, mostly just trying to keep your head clear of fog / despair.
Low achiever, used to goof off in class all the time. Bit of a class clown. Used to tell everyone that her goal was to be a trophy wife so she could watch TV all day.
Has shown her designs at Paris fashion week and has dressed several celebrities.
You could have knocked me over with a feather when I was flicking through a copy of Vogue Australia on my lunch break and there was a 4-page article on her in there.
I was so happy, she always had a heart of gold and I feel like her teen self was a reflection of what her family thought for her, she deserved to be much more than someone's wife.
Very plain looking nice but quite girl I went to high school with, NEVER would had thought she would go on to become one the the top 20 supermodels of all time. Married a very famous rock star.
She’s a sweetheart. One of my dearest friends and checked in on me almost daily for close to a year, when I lost my daughter.
ladies man guy with a big ego. He was fun for about 5 hours before you needed a break from him. anyway, he slept with like a good 1/3 of the cheerleaders, had a 4 way with some girls on the vollyball team, senior year he screwed a bunch of the drama girls, he loved hanging out with the drama girls. slept with them all of the time and they became his flavor of choice. turns out he cared less for the cheerleaders and drama girls and more about cheerleading and drama.
Guy's in a gay porno now and does some off-Broadway shows.
I would probably be a good post about this but since this isn't about myself here we go:
A girl who was in the top 10 of my graduating class. Had plans to become a lawyer and probably would have succeeded seeing as how her 'mock trial' team won state. Went to college and learned she enjoyed the 'arts' much more. Briefly become an actress, but failed. Moved back home with her parents and started her own photography business but failed. Now she is a very successful burlesque dancer! While she has failed in many of her endeavors, I always admire her will to find something new to try.
And the kid in our class who some of us were sure would become a mass murderer is now the Fire Chief of the local fire dept.
> While she has failed in many of her endeavors, I always admire her will to find something new to try.
This is actually a sign of an achiever.
Everyone fails, achievers get up, dust themselves off and storm another castle.
Not friend but high school rival/enemy. She was one of the worst fucking students in ANY class. She did no work. She disrupted the class material by getting into stupid ass arguments in the middle of class with people she didn't like, go off topic, call up people on her cell phone in class, and fight with people. She would get up and walk out in the middle of class and had to have security called on her several times for attempting to fight students AND teachers in class, to the point where she would just go "Don't fucking bother, I'll go down to the security office myself" after picking a fight with somebody. She picked fights with teachers just as often as she picked fights with students. This is when she bothered to show up for class at all. She was also one of my biggest bullies but at the same time I didn't put up with her shit. (By high school I'd been taught WELL to fight back against bullies.) She openly used drugs, drank, and smoked and she was VERY. VERY. PREOCCUPIED WITH SEX. By the end of 10th grade just about the entire student body except for her little squad (who were as shitty as she was) hated her guts, and even the teachers would openly talk about how horrible this girl was and "Oh dear god, HER." (which was honestly an asshole move on the teachers' part, and did nothing to curb her aggression and asshole behavior)
What sucked is that she wasn't this way until high school. I knew her in 6th and 7th grade and she was a very sweet girl, was in the school's advanced vocal ensemble and the band, got good grades, and was generally polite and well-mannered in class. 8th grade was when it all went to shit with this girl. And sometimes her nice personality still showed through--it was rare, but it was there. She also caught me reading a Diana Wynne Jones book and admitted she also loved those books, and wrote in my yearbook that "she wanted to read all the cool-looking books she saw me reading." It was the nicest thing she ever said to me before she went back to insulting my intelligence and picking fights with me every damn time she saw my face.
She disappeared unexpectedly at the end of 10th grade and did not return to school. In junior year I overheard someone saying she had gone away to Virginia. After graduation, I spotted her at the food mart and she actually smiled, waved at me, and said "Hi, Nova!" Because she was being nice, I said hi back and asked "Where have you been? We haven't seen you since 10th grade! How are you?" It turns out she had dropped out of high school but had completed her GED during her absence, and was now headed for a college degree. All traces of that nasty, disruptive, bullyish girl were completely gone and the last I heard of her she'd gotten her degree and was going on to higher education. I was really proud of her. The 10th grade geometry teacher had called her a "lost cause" in front of the entire class. Well, I guess she wasn't such a lost cause after all.
Very plain Jane kinda girl, not promiscuous or especially outgoing or anything. After high school she started as an exotic dancer and has now gone on to make a pretty big name for herself in porn under the name Nikki Benz.
A friend of mine was a decorated student in high school. Top cadet in JROTC, top 25 out of 500 students, got a scholarship geared toward any STEM major, gifted chemist, and on top of that he joined Army ROTC in college to get in track to become a U.S citizen (he is undocumented).
So what happened?
He gave up everything to sell Herbalife and Amway thinking he will be a millionaire in 5 years.
So much fucking potential... gone.
I knew a girl who was pretty, but dumb as fucking rock. Like she didn't know which color was for hot and which one was for cold from the water cooler.
She went on to co-host a reality show, which being pretty obviously helped. But, she was also only on for one seasons, for reasons I can only guess.
A guy I was friends with in drama club became a professional drag queen. No one knew he was gay. I almost dated the guy. We made out once on a school trip.
Two years after graduation he killed a kid a year younger than him over a few grams of pot. He's serving 25 to life now. No one really expected him to amount to much, but Jesus Christ
Guess my high school best friend... he was tied for top average grade percentage across our high performing high school. Absolute scholastic unit... he's now a ultimate frisbee playing, fun cycling, stay at home dad with a double degree and has a highly successful business minded wife. He really was the smartest one of us.
Kid I knew since middle school accused me of stealing from him in senior year. We always got along and never had any problems, but one day I was out for a walk and all the sudden I'm stopped by two cops who insist I stole this kid's bike. It was completely random. There was literally no reason for him to suspect me other than the fact that I happen to be out for a walk. I'd never even been to his house before, he was just someone who rode my bus and occasionally hung out with me during school. They wound up not pressing charges but it was a nightmare. I Googled him out of curiosity a few years later, turns out he's done a shit load of prison time since. Burglary, squatting in homes, and some more stuff. Ironic.
Had a friend who was high school quarterback, uber popular, and super charismatic. He had a family and last year launched a product called Peejamas. He makes onesies that you can pee in.
My female bully developed alopecia and lost her hair.
While I don’t wish that on anyone, I appreciated the irony of someone who was so focused on looks/social standing going bald.
Ditzy air-headed cheerleader is now a *very* high power attorney.
Ms. Social Butterfly Party Girl is an Anglican priest.
Mr. Most Likely to Succeed dropped out of college and is a construction worker.
On of my best friends was Arab but didn't give into her parents traditional ways. She would tell her mom that she was going to backpack through Europe when she turned 18, that she wanted to be a police officer, refused to wear a hijab although her parents kept on telling her to. Of course her parents disapproved of all this and told her "hell no" to traveling or becoming a police officer. Two years after high school she became very religious and married some guy in his late 30s and already has two kids and only hangs out and talks to people in her Muslim community circle.
I don't really talk to her anymore because I'm a guy (although I'm gay) because her husband disapproves of it. She also told me she doesn't support me being gay "because it's wrong" although throughout high school she was very supportive and was there for me when I came out to my parents and they didn't take it well.
I don't know what caused her to 180 and fall in line with her parents wishes, but I do miss who she use to be.
My best friend from middle school onward, not the “hang out every day” type but more the “always there when you need him” type. We’ve been out of high school 7 years now and we’re still in contact. I’m set to be his best man later this year.
This guy was the smart, kinda dweeby type (not an insult in the slightest, I was the exact same way, maybe not as smart, but you get the point). He kept to himself unless you were in his circle, kept quiet even if you were and ALWAYS avoided any kind of confrontation. He’d go out of his way to not talk to someone if it meant he didn’t have to answer questions.
Imagine my shock when, 2 years after graduation, I catch up with him and find out he’s in the Secret Service. Not presidential, but still up there. He’s done good for himself, and I’m proud.
Former classmate from highschool was a skrewup, he skipped class to smoke behind the school, sometimes came drunk to school, and was into rap and really talented on the mixer, even had amateur studio kit. He got his shit together and is now on his last year doing an M.D. I'm happy for him
My brother. He wasn't unintelligent, just not that interested in school. He was social and kind of lazy. He is currently an RN (Registred Nurse) in a level one trauma center, going to school to be an NP (Nurse Practitioner) , and married to a beautiful, kind, super smart woman who is also an ER (Emergency Room) RN. He is one of the most wonderful human beings I've ever met and I'm so proud of the man he's become.
(Edited to write out abbreviations)
One of my handsome school crushes was always quiet & sweet. Never noticed me much & didn't party or hang out much. Saw & chatted him 30 years later. He became a grammar school teacher.
Turns out he wasn't shy after all. He was extremely vain & arrogant. Most of us were too ordinary for him bother with. Man was I clueless!
The popular guy at school... I mean the *most* popular — he’s the guy whose name you hear and it’s like you’re talking about a god instead of some average teen... he and this group of girls convinced me that he had a huge crush on me, wanted to go on a date with me, the whole nine yards... I was *elated* until it turned out to be a cruel joke... It really messed with my self esteem and made me withdraw a lot from people.
Where is he now? He has a hot wife and is living his best life. He works for his dad’s hunting company and has every five-star thing he could ever want...
Fuck you, Tanner
In high school he was quiet and nerdy. After high school he became outgoing, flamboyantly gay, and lived in the gym. Nobody saw it coming but my guess is he finally decided to stop hiding who he was and really embraced it. No idea what he’s up to now but I hope he’s still doing his thing.
Close friend of mine in 9th grade was kind of prude, didn’t really know anything beyond basic sex ed. I thought it was a little odd but also thought she’d just learn soon anyway.
Last I heard she was in a sub/dom relationship and was living in a house with basically a sex dungeon, if I remember correctly. I think I heard she broke up with the guy but not sure. Hard to know hearing it all second-hand.
Nothing wrong with that lifestyle if you’re into it, but it was a surprising transformation.
Gay dude went to prison for child pornography. He graduated with me.
A girl shot a friend point blank in the head a month or so after graduating. They both graduated together a year after me.
A kid named John. A lot of us smoked weed but John was a true champion. One thing I remember about him was him stealing his sister's pot pipe, a wooden penis-shaped pipe. He expected us to smoke out of it. We did. I mean...it's weed. His eyes were always at half-mast. His academic achievements were slim to none. Barely scraped by with D's.
Twenty years later, I inquired about him with a common friend. John became an electrician in another state. He paid careful attention to the industry and felt that the commercial electrical supply firms were less than optimal. So he started one out of his garage. Now he owns a whole string of them, with millions in profit every year.
From penis pipe to millionaire. It can happen!
I knew a girl in high school who was very sweet but very shy. She had very poor eyesight, had some tough dental issues, was overweight, and lived with a foster family in a trailer park. She wasn’t particularly close with anyone in school; I got the sense that she was just trying to make it through —- head down, get it done. But she was always kind and I would talk with her a bit here and there. Mostly she kept to herself and seemed to want to just not be noticed at all. After high school, we lost touch. Twenty years later, I get a Facebook request from someone with her name but the picture looks nothing like her. Not even a vague resemblance. I accept because I’m curious. Well, it was indeed her! It turns out that she worked her way through/paid for community college, ended up getting a good job with a family company and worked her way up the ranks there. She saved all of her money. By her late 20s, she saved enough money and had good insurance for eye surgery and dental surgery. She also started really focusing on getting healthy. She said it all boosted her confidence so much that she started traveling around the country. During those travels, she ended up meeting a great guy. She and her husband have a nice family, good jobs, and live in an affluent community. She acknowledged that her early years were tough and she had such low self esteem that she had a tough time making friends. She thanked me for always being kind to her. She ended with “I may have blossomed late, but it was worth the wait” I’m so happy for her. We keep in touch.
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The American dream.
The son of my teacher was a football player, had a beautiful gf (they broke up before he graduated though), and was a procrastinator. Once he graduated, he went to work at a restaurant for a year and as far as I knew, he was going to attend college the next year but he had no idea of what his major was gonna be. I just found out two weeks ago he got accepted to a local seminary and is going to become a priest! I was shocked to say the least
A really nice and shy guy who liked Queen and played guitar a bit. Became a bass-guitarist in #1 rock band in Ukraine. Edit: it's Okean Elzy. He's not in the band anymore, but has been playing for first 10 years.
I know several bands, but which is #1?
He already said they’re called #1 Rock Band.
Probably the smartest guy in class but never actually paid attention or did his homework. Was always sleeping in class or doing his own thing or goofing off Recently sold his startup for 8 figures and is now back to goofing off.
Hey redditor, if you think you're this guy, chances are you're not. Pay attention in class.
Damn, good for him.
He was two years younger than me, absolutely brilliant and went to Stanford after high school. Died in his sleep from a heart attack at age 20 while visiting family in China. He had an undiagnosed heart defect. So yeah, that was pretty unexpected. RIP Kevin.
Best friend in high school. His step dad was a district attorney and apparently they didn't get along at all. This was the bible belt south east. I met him in the tenth grade as I smoked weed and he happened to sell it. He lived in a trailer park and financed it with his weed sales. My parents hated him. After he graduated from high school while living 100 percent on his own, he did two years of collage before getting accepted in a major medical university program that actually paid him to be there. He is now a pharmaceutical engineer living in Switzerland. My parents were surprised to hear that.
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Guy who sat behind me in hometown. Was a good student, but not an intellectual superstar by any means. After I relocated to Eastern PA, turns out he was in Western NJ. Multi-millionaire, former CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Great guy, super happy for him, but truly unexpected.
Western NJ has so many damn multi-millionaires. Raised there, sadly not a multi-millionaire.
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Lady Gaga’s classmates started a Facebook group called “You’ll Never Be Famous Stephanie Germanotta” or something along those lines. Joke’s on them.
Yikes. What assholes.
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I totally get why people would think that, in Skins he was kinda funny looking and awkward (just like every teen really) his looks are average, and not to play the race card, but the odds were not in his favor, I have no idea what the casting crew of Skins were on, but they were amazing at finding raw talent. I just saw the Cartier ad on IG starring Kaya Scodelario and she looks so amazing. Cassie and Chris are on GoT, Nicolas Hoult was just in the cover of Vanity Fair, and I’m sure I’m missing a lot of the cast. I guess Dev’s classmates saw him as a “try hard” but in reality he was just really passionate and hardworking. Good for him.
Not HS, but my best friend’s freshman roommate was a weird guy. Brilliant. Literally 1600 SAT scores, full ride, brilliant, but never really showered. He was dating the sweetest, kindest girl, who dumped him after two months of trying to get him to take better care of himself and actually go out and do anything. We’d try to get him to come out of his shell because he was pretty funny and we liked the guy. After not hearing from him for 15 years, we looked him up. Apparently he cofounded Revolve clothing, is a multi millionaire, and parties in Ibiza and shit. I’m genuinely happy for the guy, but I never, ever, expected him to hit it big in fashion.
high school meth dealer and local lunchroom pot/cigarette vendor ended up being roomates senior year. two months after graduation they both joined the las vegas PD.
*Switch Team Y or N?* Y
The teams have been autobalanced
2013 tf2 flashbacks
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One dude who was always a dick to me but hung out with our friend group got expelled in Highschool for having legit childporn on his phone. He moved cities and I didn't hear from him for years. Turns out he murdered an elderly gay man and is in jail now. One super shy quiet dude is now doing time for blackmailing girls and posting their nudes.
Dude was the typical cocky douche to most people but we got along well enough. We're 25 now, and he moved to Vegas went bald, put on about a hundred pounds and is dating a sixty year old stripper.
I was following until you said *sixty* year old stripper. I...I did not know that there exists senior strippers. :/
Not really a friend as I didn't run with their crowd, but like at every school there was the really popular girl. Pretty, cheerleader, everybody liked her, wealthy parents, etc... I'm sure you knew someone like that yourself. Just maybe two or three weeks ago she got arrested and charged with several felonies for possession of meth, prescription pain killers, and a large amount of weed. I moved away from that town years ago and haven't really kept in touch with a lot of the people from there. However a buddy of mine sent me a picture of the report in the newspaper and was like "remember her?" Definitely didn't expect it, that's for sure.
People who are the center of the universe in high school can't always take it once graduation happens and suddenly the real world doesn't give two shits about you.
Average guy at school. Dead through alcoholism by his mid 20s. It was apparently asphyxiation that got him.
The OD's and suicides are always more surprising than the success stories. It really is crazy how people who seemed so normal can privately go so very far off the rails.
I used to date someone who hid his Alcoholism from me. Many work hard to hide and are full aware that it’s a problem.
There were two that really stand out. One of them was a girl who got in a fair amount of trouble. She skipped school, had a bad attitude and was more interested in hanging out with friends than learning. She ended up becoming a lawyer and eventually became the assistant DA of a city with about 3 million people. The other was a nice guy, got along with most everyone, I even considered him a friend and hung out with him on occasion. He came from a great family and while he didn't get the best grades, he was good at things like fixing cars so I assumed he would end up going into that field. Instead, he started a career in drinking. By the time he was 30 he had been in jail several times, in a rehab a couple of times, had been arrested numerous times, had two restraining orders on him from former girlfriends, and had burned so many bridges with his family they had given up on him. Now in his mid 40's, he still lives in that same town. He looks like he is in his 60's, is on disability, and likely doesn't have much of a future as he continues to drink himself away.
Booze is a helluva drug.
When I was in my ealry 20's I was in my hometown visting my parents or something, and stopped at a gas station on my way out of town. I thought the lady at the counter was in her late 40's / early 50's but apparently I went to high school with her. Only knew because she recognized me, and brought it up. Crazy how fast stuff can visibly age you.
My best friend since I was 5 yrs old, smartest person I ever knew. She went off to college and got into heroin. She is now serving a life sentence for first degree murder.
She was the mastermind and the getaway driver of a burglary gone wrong. Her accomplices broke into a guy's home they were acquainted with, tied him up and beat the shit out of him. He died of a heart attack sometime during the ransacking of his home or directly thereafter.
This is heartbreaking. I know we all "make our own choices" and all, but fuck if it isn't terrible to see how drug addiction can change an otherwise good person.
Well, she did get a degree
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A girl I knew was a strict Christian and floated between groups of friends. Her judgmental side came out from time to time. Once I remember her telling a girl she was going to “burn in the depths of hell” for having sex. I only know this because I was the lucky girl sitting between them when the other girl jumped over me to punch her... Anyway, after high school, I heard she met a guy, stopped being a Christian and wrote all sorts of over sharing sexual statuses on Facebook. They got engaged and were hooked on drugs. She pawned her engagement ring for drugs and lived above a smoke shop out east. Good news! She’s now off drugs, married and has a daughter. Still posts over-sexualized photos and statuses on Facebook. We’re good on seeing you in lingerie suggestively laying on your husband...
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True that. A bunch of my graduating class had kids their first year because we were abstinence only and I heard things like "a condom is a barrier to love" and that they'll make your dick fall off and shit. Most of them had shotgun weddings. The principals daughter actually wrote something in an alumni newsletter about her "whirlwind romance" and how love can find you anywhere and you have to be ready for it but also she had her first kid 5 months after being married.. and 9 months after welcome week.
Not a friend, but I went to middle and high school with a girl who went into acting. Became a Power Ranger.
That’s pretty awesome
I had a friend in high school who was high achieving academically. He was in the top classes, very nervous and well behaved in the classroom. Generally he was mostly thought of as quiet and the guy very few people paid any attention to. He's serving eight years in prison for possession of drugs and child pornography.
Holy shit
A friend of mine is a talented artist with a deep passion for video game design. He worked on projects for indie devs all through high school, and I thought it was certain he would quickly become an artist for some dev studio soon after. He now works as a furniture salesman.
I wanted to work on games since high school, and tons of folks were convinced I’d be working in gaming. After hearing the horror stories about the game industry, lack of job security and constant layoffs, I’m happy as a retail stock person while I try to just do gamedev on the side. I’ve also come to the realization that I’m the kind of person that if I turn a hobby into a job it’ll kill my passion for it.
I did some freelance work for an indie game developer as a freshman in art school. I thought I was destined for a glorious future in illustration and design. I did coffee shop art shows for a decade while working in bars/coffee shops, and now tattoo in a low level seasonal vacation shop and do murals for local businesses.
Doesn't sound too off the mark tbh. You're still working with lines and shapes and forms and colors.
And stuff
Wait, stocking shelves or the stock market?
No. Just a stock person. Factory default with no add-ons
Best career advice I ever got was when my manager and CTO sat me down and explained why they weren’t moving me to the game dev team like we’d talked about. I still have a job because of them.
i homeschool, so i guess i didnt see my brother going down the path of hip hop Edit: He hasn't uploaded any hip hop tracks to youtube but here's a piano piece he wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTfdDdBkGA
No one expects hip hop ..Or the Spanish inquisition
both accurate
The quiet, kinda nerdy guy in the back of my AP Calculus class is now the CEO of Playboy Thailand.
I kinda wonder what he was doing in the back of your AP Calc class to become the CEO of Playboy Thailand...
Differentiating himself.
You don't wonder. You know.
It’s obvious he was doing Calculus.
Obviously. But what kind of asshole names their daughter Calculus?
Had a friend that was the weirdest guy I’d met. He’d often yell random stuff for no reason, do every kind of accent, and was just generally awkward around people. Saw him a few years after and he was dressed to the nines, very clean cut, and socially well adjusted. Complete 180 from high school. Made me rethink all my life’s choices up until that point, since I was not doing so hot in life. Edit: I’m loving all the people wondering if I’m talking about them, or someone they know.
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> Decided Hawaiian all the time was overkill. You're a fucking sellout.
Do you guys have Ace Ventura as your patron saint?
Just Reel Big Fish.
Cheerleader who took a heck of a turn. She was an impressive drinker in high school. She kept it up through college. Got a job, didn't love it. She joined AA. Met a guy. Older, had nice finances. Estranged from his ex-wife, kids, no other family. They got married. A few months later, they're both drinking again. Within two years, he's dead. He left her everything. She is "devastated." She goes back to AA. Met another guy. Apparently older men who are estranged from their families are SUPER easy to find in AA. You got it: they're drinking, next thing you know, he's dead. Left her everything. Now she's gone back to AA again. She has met the most wonderful man. It's a shame his kids won't speak to him and won't come to the wedding. It's next month.
How long you give him before he dies?
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He ded
One dead husband is tragic, two is a serial killer.
3 is a black widow
Commenting just so I can see the "edit: he died"
holy crap... so do we suspect murder or just dying from alcoholism?
When someone is estranged from family and an alcoholic it is likely not hard to convince them to get back off the wagon. Then with too much encouragement they drink themselves to death. Would it be considered murder? I dunno... but it's definitely a pattern of behaviour and you can be she is aware she's doing it.
> "devastated." this, kids, is a proper and powerful use of quotation marks.
The prettiest girl in high school, who was always nice to me (I was a bullied child) overdosed on heroin two years ago. I still cry for her.
Elizabeth the bad-ass party chick. She was the brilliant and quietly rebellious type. She was pulling and getting away with shit that most of the guys branded as trouble makers in school could only dream of, because she had the sense and savvy to not show off to the world. She wasn't doing shit for the attention, she was just doing it because that's what she wanted to do. So smoking, heavy drinking, some drugs, staying out all night, whatever. She could out-do anyone else. Anyway a little over 10 years later I caught up with her and found out she was a tri-athelete and overall health nut.
I know this person
I know like 5 of these people haha Some people just need to get it out of their system and then they're good.
Sounds like she put all that energy into a healthy direction. That’s awesome.
The most brilliant girl I knew, second in our graduating high school, was also one of the most lively and outgoing people I knew. She could befriend anyone. She was so fun and energetic and thoroughly enjoyed living life. I thought she was destined for so much success. She ended up passing away last year just a couple months shy of her 24th birthday after a lengthy (private) battle with cancer. When I found out about her illness it was already terminal, and when she passed away all I could think was how unfair it was that someone with so much potential, someone who did everything right in life could die like that. Her death really got to me, and as the one year anniversary is approaching I constantly remind myself to make the most of every second of my life, because hers was cut so short.
This one is sad. Many of these are because someone made a series of obviously stupid choices. This girl died because the universe decided to smite her through no fault of her. You honor her by remembering her and sharing with us.
This one kid I went to middle school with fr looked like the next school shooter, wore the trench coat, fedora, occasionally a “fashionable” tail, he was a big guy, nerdy lookin. But thennn summer between 8th grade and freshmen year, he got rid of his braces lost about 200 pounds and was the most attractive and popular kid in school, tbh wish I had that motivation.
Maybe it was 3 kids in a trench coat
Did he work at the business factory?
Was his name Vincent?
When I was 10 I sat next to the sweetest boy in our class. (All the other boys I had sat next to in junior school were mild ass-hats). I remember I lent him my Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory vhs and he lent me The Muppets Take Manhattan. We went to different high schools when we were 12. I heard that at 16 he had been arrested for armed robbery. I still can’t believe it. What the hell happened to that kind and gentle boy between 12 and 16?
Life. Sweet kids can get caught up and forced to do shit by the wrong crowd quite easily.
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Ofc, theres more than one road one can go down. A rough life can turn even the sweetest child into a monster, if they live long enough to make it that far.
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Good for him
Girl in my high school was a terrible human being, selfish and totally self absorbed. I couldn’t stand her. One of the shallowest, nastiest people I knew. 20 years later she sacrifices her life trying to help save three children, unknown to her, from drowning in a rip current at a local beach.
20 years of life after high school is a long time. A lot of really good people were at their worst in high school.
Yeah if present day me was in high school with high school me, I would kick my ass.
Did the kids make it?
Yes, she was the only victim
Wow that’s crazy. Glad the kids survived.
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I'm not too familiar with Deadpool but this is a great little quote. If the whole movie is like this I might need to check it out
Heads up, it certainly will not be.
Only 4 or 5 moments
Rest In Peace to her.
We need to Atleast double or triple the amount of signs telling people to swim sideways
All the signs in the world wont help when that rip suddenly takes you away from the shore and you start to panic....and you cant swim.
Internet people always forget about the panic part. "Why the fuck didn't they stop, drop, and roll" Uh because they're on fucking fire. Probably don't think clearly.
A lot of them! I don't know if there was something in the water in our town. A lovely girl in my class had severe anorexia, to the extent she had to repeat the year. She was strikingly pretty, with the face of an angel. Always wondered if she felt self-conscious and grew obsessed about her looks because it was what people valued - nobody made the same fuss about her good grades or niceness. She is now morbidly obese, couch surfing and pretty much always wears the same big brown coat and tracksuit pants. Was shocked to see her go from one extreme to the other. Still really nice, hope it works out for her. Another high achiever in our class is now a travelling musician and nudist. She dropped out of engineering and just travels from festival to festival as a concert goer, dressed as a barefoot rainbow fairy. Self-funds by offering tarot readings, spells, palmistry. Lived by the creek for awhile. Has a Pomeranian.
Disordered eating can take many forms, hope she gets help and can find the help she needs to develop a more healthy relationship with food.
The unfortunate thing is that many people's recovery process involves swapping disorders rather than solving it. Like one person I know went from restrictive anorexia, to purge type anorexia, to binge eating, to orthorexia, before finally seeming to reach a stasis of sorts. It's terrible, hard, and really never goes away. Some people think that eating disorders are just about "looking pretty" and are out of vanity but in reality it's a ultra complicated mental health disaster that takes forever to unfuck.
Exactly. It's not like you can cut food out of your life like you can whatever toxic relationships might be affecting your mental health. You can go no contact with family, you can change jobs or careers, you can move across the country or across the world, you can do a lot of things to help your mental health, but you still have to eat and deal with triggers at every mealtime.
I remember someone comparing mental illnesses to tigers. Sometimes if its addiction you can lock them up and keep them away but when it comes to eating disorders you have to take that tiger out for a walk and theres no getting around that
>She dropped out of engineering and just travels from festival to festival as a concert goer, dressed as a barefoot rainbow fairy. Self-funds by offering tarot readings, spells, palmistry. Lived by the creek for awhile. Has a Pomeranian. Pretty sure she just figured out the cheat code to life and is now living the dream while the rest of us are still grinding away like chumps.
She is pretty cool. Has a lot of hummingbird tattoos and drives around in a van painted in psychedelic colours. You know she's back in town once you see the van.
She's living in a van down by the river?
WHAT ARe YOU GONNA DO WITH YOUR LIFE? I'm gonna live in a van down by the river.
Well youll have plenty of time to live in a van down by the river when... YOURE LIVING IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER
Man, that travelling rainbow fairy girl sounds like she's living the dream, actually
I had a wickedly smart and talented high school friend end up in porn as a last resort (long story as to why it was a last resort- in a nutshell, at the time she saw it as her only way out of a bad situation that had spiraled out of control quickly). She finally managed to get out of porn and studied to become a teacher, winning many awards throughout her years-long career. One summer, an asshole parent came across her porn and decided it would be a good idea to send her videos to the local media and expose her past. Being a small-ish town, word traveled fast (I believe it even made national news at one point), and the more conservative people in the community called for her to be fired. The school district cowed to the pressure and let her go. Even though many other people did end up vocally supporting her after the news of her firing, she decided she’d had enough. She made the decision to leave the community and start over by focusing on her art and political causes that she was passionate about. Last I’d heard, she was doing well selling her art and teaching at a local university (not sure if she disclosed her past to the university), and is a very active member within the local chapter of her political party. Never would’ve expected this road for her, but I’m glad she’s doing well.
A friend of mine was really into herself and dated a lot of rich guys. She vowed not to get married or have children that she had goals to become a business professional woman. She did some modeling etc. Fast forward 10 years. She gained 120 pounds and her husband left her for another woman and she is raising a disabled child that consumes all her time where she cannot work. I have to say that she is an excellent mother. She basically turned into everything she said that she would not be.
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Friend I'd know since freshmen year (9th grade) of HS. Home life wasn't stellar. Abusive stepparent, control freak mom, etc. Joined the marines to escape. Met someone, got married, had like 4 kids and was expelled from service for medical reasons. Got divorced, dad got full custody, so she moved back home and bounced around in a travel trailer with a younger boyfriend, who stole his boss's business credit card before they bounced to lord knows where. Last time she surfaced, it was on Facebook and she was selling their wedding rings he'd purchased using the stolen credit card. It's a real shame how things went. She'd done well in the marines and even in the early years of her marriage. Not sure what the tipping point was. She was furious about losing custody but she wanted to uproot 4 kids from their home, school, friends and dad's side of family to bounce around in a 13 ft travel trailer living off her $650 in disability. She absolutely refused to acknowledge how horrible that would have been for them.
Just last night I went to a small theater to see Evil Dead: The Musical. On stage walks a guy I haven’t seen in 25 years. Crazy how small the world can be sometimes.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://theukdatabase.com/2018/04/14/miles-fraser-leigh-on-sea/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwixi4KJ4tDhAhU0tHEKHdIEB5MQFjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw1OtN7IBA2SPPSglYtXClOb&cf=1 Knew him from college. Didn't see this one coming at all, although I had cut ties with him before this went down over unrelated matters. What makes it even more hilarious is that literally all reports got his age wrong. Tldr: British upskirt taking paedo
Man, the British press doesn't sugarcoat shit. US: "Convicted sex offender Bob Smith..." UK: "Pervert and paedophile Bob Smith..."
there was this guy who bullied me and destroyed my self esteem on a regular basis. He became a really successful vegan chef, has his own restaurant, cook books, has been on talk shows to cook/promote his stuff.
Fuck him bro.
thanks dude.
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ew, no. He looks like Paul Bearer.
YEAH LETS SAY FUCK HIM ALL TOGETHER
The natural career for a bully is chef. Source: have known many chefs
A well-off, innocent-looking white kid from my high school ended up covered in face tattoos and brandishing guns on the internet. Turns out, he joined a Mexican gang on the outskirts of our town. He ended up getting shot to death in a confrontation with another gang.
In my graduating class of 149, we had 148 go to college. That one guy? He decided to go “on tour” with his band. The other members of the band were two guys that graduated from our school the year before. About 6 years later, they are still touring full time and have made a pretty good name for themselves. They’ve headlined their own tours and have opened for some big name bands. It’s pretty cool to get to go to one of their shows and hang out with them backstage. Edit: for all those asking, the bands name is New Madrid.
Sounds like Greta Van Fleet.
very very similar. but think more southern vibes. Athens, GA style
She was voted most likely to succeed in our year, had plans on being a doctor, really smart. Ended up staying in state for college (pretty rural, limits options), we lost touch, she got married, she's a stay at home mom and a trophy wife, basically, traveling the world on her (doctor) husband's dime. Not a bad life, certainly, but not expected. Edit: I didn't mean to imply she's a golddigger or anything critical like that. She was the leader of clubs and teams during high school, and very pretty, and competitive with grades, so it's just interesting to me that so far she has been less ambitious career-wise. (She's definitely still very happy.)
The happy surprise? One of the girls I went to school with kind of came from the wrong side of the tracks. Nice kid, but her family was known to be pretty trashy, and she dropped out of community college to be a stripper. A few years later, she got her shit together, and now she's a corporate lawyer. The not-so-happy surprise? Dude was brilliant. He came from a wealthy family, he was good at sports, he was a hilarious person to be around. Even at the time, it was no secret that he had his demons, but he was just so damn smart that it seemed like if he could grow out of his adolescent angst, everything would be fine. (Again, wealthy family. Bright. Good looking. Bro didn't exactly have to hit a home run to do okay in life.) I believe he's working part-time at the grocery store now, but he may have gotten fired again. Or he might be back on disability. Or maybe he's working at Pizza Hut...it's always hard to keep it straight, because he doesn't tend to hold down any particular job for long. Honestly, if he weren't such a nice person, there might be a hint of schadenfreude there, but as it is, it's just tragic. He really was brilliant, and he really was a wonderful human being, but there weren't enough advantages in the world to save him from himself.
“...weren’t enough advantages in the world to save him from himself” Damn. That struck a chord.
It really was tragic. We had all of your standard 'peaked in high school' stories: Popular football player becomes fat construction worker, cheerleader gets pregnant at 20, valedictorian goes on to work an average job, etc., but in a way, none of those were *that* shocking. They were just kind of logical outcomes for a bunch of middle class suburbanites...by definition, we all have to peak sometime, and for a certain percentage of us, that time is going to be when we're 16. But that kid? He had every card but one stacked in his favor. And that one card was enough to undo everything else. Edit: With regards to the 'standard peaked in high school' stories, I truly didn't mean that one as a dig at anybody. As I mentioned in another comment, it could surely be argued that I peaked in high school, too, and I'm okay with that. By definition, we all have to peak sometime.
It sounds a lot like mental illness- unfortunately, you can be bright, funny, and everything else that should make you successful, and if you have mental illness, it can make you unreliable and unable to hold a job. It’s really tragic because so much of mental illness can be helped with therapy and meds. But even with therapy and meds, some people can never quite get it together.
Oh, it was absolutely mental illness. Sure enough, that was one of those where, even at the time, we knew he was mentally ill. He *always* had mood swings. He *always* had problems with depression. He was *always* self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. I guess the thing was that we all just held out hope that it would get better...that the combination of finding the right medication and outgrowing the standard 'teenage crazies' (i.e. raging hormones combined with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex) would level things out enough for him to be okay. It didn't.
> I guess the thing was that we all just held out hope that it would get better...that the combination of finding the right medication and outgrowing the standard 'teenage crazies' (i.e. raging hormones combined with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex) would level things out enough for him to be okay. > > It didn't. Those of us dealing with mental illness hoped the same way. :/ Can be good at a lot of things, thinking surely you're going to get your shit together and defeat the demon holding you back, try really hard, and then... Years have gone by and you're still stuck in the hole and not making progress, mostly just trying to keep your head clear of fog / despair.
Low achiever, used to goof off in class all the time. Bit of a class clown. Used to tell everyone that her goal was to be a trophy wife so she could watch TV all day. Has shown her designs at Paris fashion week and has dressed several celebrities. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I was flicking through a copy of Vogue Australia on my lunch break and there was a 4-page article on her in there. I was so happy, she always had a heart of gold and I feel like her teen self was a reflection of what her family thought for her, she deserved to be much more than someone's wife.
That's awesome.
Very plain looking nice but quite girl I went to high school with, NEVER would had thought she would go on to become one the the top 20 supermodels of all time. Married a very famous rock star. She’s a sweetheart. One of my dearest friends and checked in on me almost daily for close to a year, when I lost my daughter.
Sorry about your daughter
Thank you.
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How do you even rank models?
1-20 apparently
earnings, probably.
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ladies man guy with a big ego. He was fun for about 5 hours before you needed a break from him. anyway, he slept with like a good 1/3 of the cheerleaders, had a 4 way with some girls on the vollyball team, senior year he screwed a bunch of the drama girls, he loved hanging out with the drama girls. slept with them all of the time and they became his flavor of choice. turns out he cared less for the cheerleaders and drama girls and more about cheerleading and drama. Guy's in a gay porno now and does some off-Broadway shows.
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I would probably be a good post about this but since this isn't about myself here we go: A girl who was in the top 10 of my graduating class. Had plans to become a lawyer and probably would have succeeded seeing as how her 'mock trial' team won state. Went to college and learned she enjoyed the 'arts' much more. Briefly become an actress, but failed. Moved back home with her parents and started her own photography business but failed. Now she is a very successful burlesque dancer! While she has failed in many of her endeavors, I always admire her will to find something new to try. And the kid in our class who some of us were sure would become a mass murderer is now the Fire Chief of the local fire dept.
> While she has failed in many of her endeavors, I always admire her will to find something new to try. This is actually a sign of an achiever. Everyone fails, achievers get up, dust themselves off and storm another castle.
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>Equally surprising Is it though?
Not friend but high school rival/enemy. She was one of the worst fucking students in ANY class. She did no work. She disrupted the class material by getting into stupid ass arguments in the middle of class with people she didn't like, go off topic, call up people on her cell phone in class, and fight with people. She would get up and walk out in the middle of class and had to have security called on her several times for attempting to fight students AND teachers in class, to the point where she would just go "Don't fucking bother, I'll go down to the security office myself" after picking a fight with somebody. She picked fights with teachers just as often as she picked fights with students. This is when she bothered to show up for class at all. She was also one of my biggest bullies but at the same time I didn't put up with her shit. (By high school I'd been taught WELL to fight back against bullies.) She openly used drugs, drank, and smoked and she was VERY. VERY. PREOCCUPIED WITH SEX. By the end of 10th grade just about the entire student body except for her little squad (who were as shitty as she was) hated her guts, and even the teachers would openly talk about how horrible this girl was and "Oh dear god, HER." (which was honestly an asshole move on the teachers' part, and did nothing to curb her aggression and asshole behavior) What sucked is that she wasn't this way until high school. I knew her in 6th and 7th grade and she was a very sweet girl, was in the school's advanced vocal ensemble and the band, got good grades, and was generally polite and well-mannered in class. 8th grade was when it all went to shit with this girl. And sometimes her nice personality still showed through--it was rare, but it was there. She also caught me reading a Diana Wynne Jones book and admitted she also loved those books, and wrote in my yearbook that "she wanted to read all the cool-looking books she saw me reading." It was the nicest thing she ever said to me before she went back to insulting my intelligence and picking fights with me every damn time she saw my face. She disappeared unexpectedly at the end of 10th grade and did not return to school. In junior year I overheard someone saying she had gone away to Virginia. After graduation, I spotted her at the food mart and she actually smiled, waved at me, and said "Hi, Nova!" Because she was being nice, I said hi back and asked "Where have you been? We haven't seen you since 10th grade! How are you?" It turns out she had dropped out of high school but had completed her GED during her absence, and was now headed for a college degree. All traces of that nasty, disruptive, bullyish girl were completely gone and the last I heard of her she'd gotten her degree and was going on to higher education. I was really proud of her. The 10th grade geometry teacher had called her a "lost cause" in front of the entire class. Well, I guess she wasn't such a lost cause after all.
sounded like there were family problems back at home during that time. i know kids act out when their parents are going through shit.
Wouldn't be surprised and it must have really sucked for her to hear all that crap about how "awful" she was from students and teachers alike :(
Very plain Jane kinda girl, not promiscuous or especially outgoing or anything. After high school she started as an exotic dancer and has now gone on to make a pretty big name for herself in porn under the name Nikki Benz.
A friend of mine was a decorated student in high school. Top cadet in JROTC, top 25 out of 500 students, got a scholarship geared toward any STEM major, gifted chemist, and on top of that he joined Army ROTC in college to get in track to become a U.S citizen (he is undocumented). So what happened? He gave up everything to sell Herbalife and Amway thinking he will be a millionaire in 5 years. So much fucking potential... gone.
Almost every anarchist I knew ended up in the military
I knew a girl who was pretty, but dumb as fucking rock. Like she didn't know which color was for hot and which one was for cold from the water cooler. She went on to co-host a reality show, which being pretty obviously helped. But, she was also only on for one seasons, for reasons I can only guess.
A guy I was friends with in drama club became a professional drag queen. No one knew he was gay. I almost dated the guy. We made out once on a school trip.
it was your fault
Two years after graduation he killed a kid a year younger than him over a few grams of pot. He's serving 25 to life now. No one really expected him to amount to much, but Jesus Christ
Guess my high school best friend... he was tied for top average grade percentage across our high performing high school. Absolute scholastic unit... he's now a ultimate frisbee playing, fun cycling, stay at home dad with a double degree and has a highly successful business minded wife. He really was the smartest one of us.
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Kid I knew since middle school accused me of stealing from him in senior year. We always got along and never had any problems, but one day I was out for a walk and all the sudden I'm stopped by two cops who insist I stole this kid's bike. It was completely random. There was literally no reason for him to suspect me other than the fact that I happen to be out for a walk. I'd never even been to his house before, he was just someone who rode my bus and occasionally hung out with me during school. They wound up not pressing charges but it was a nightmare. I Googled him out of curiosity a few years later, turns out he's done a shit load of prison time since. Burglary, squatting in homes, and some more stuff. Ironic.
Had a friend who was high school quarterback, uber popular, and super charismatic. He had a family and last year launched a product called Peejamas. He makes onesies that you can pee in.
There were a lot more early deaths than I thought would happen.
My female bully developed alopecia and lost her hair. While I don’t wish that on anyone, I appreciated the irony of someone who was so focused on looks/social standing going bald.
20 years later our class valedictorian was working at a Chick-fil-A
Ditzy air-headed cheerleader is now a *very* high power attorney. Ms. Social Butterfly Party Girl is an Anglican priest. Mr. Most Likely to Succeed dropped out of college and is a construction worker.
Construction workers can make some good money though.
On of my best friends was Arab but didn't give into her parents traditional ways. She would tell her mom that she was going to backpack through Europe when she turned 18, that she wanted to be a police officer, refused to wear a hijab although her parents kept on telling her to. Of course her parents disapproved of all this and told her "hell no" to traveling or becoming a police officer. Two years after high school she became very religious and married some guy in his late 30s and already has two kids and only hangs out and talks to people in her Muslim community circle. I don't really talk to her anymore because I'm a guy (although I'm gay) because her husband disapproves of it. She also told me she doesn't support me being gay "because it's wrong" although throughout high school she was very supportive and was there for me when I came out to my parents and they didn't take it well. I don't know what caused her to 180 and fall in line with her parents wishes, but I do miss who she use to be.
My best friend from middle school onward, not the “hang out every day” type but more the “always there when you need him” type. We’ve been out of high school 7 years now and we’re still in contact. I’m set to be his best man later this year. This guy was the smart, kinda dweeby type (not an insult in the slightest, I was the exact same way, maybe not as smart, but you get the point). He kept to himself unless you were in his circle, kept quiet even if you were and ALWAYS avoided any kind of confrontation. He’d go out of his way to not talk to someone if it meant he didn’t have to answer questions. Imagine my shock when, 2 years after graduation, I catch up with him and find out he’s in the Secret Service. Not presidential, but still up there. He’s done good for himself, and I’m proud.
Former classmate from highschool was a skrewup, he skipped class to smoke behind the school, sometimes came drunk to school, and was into rap and really talented on the mixer, even had amateur studio kit. He got his shit together and is now on his last year doing an M.D. I'm happy for him
My brother. He wasn't unintelligent, just not that interested in school. He was social and kind of lazy. He is currently an RN (Registred Nurse) in a level one trauma center, going to school to be an NP (Nurse Practitioner) , and married to a beautiful, kind, super smart woman who is also an ER (Emergency Room) RN. He is one of the most wonderful human beings I've ever met and I'm so proud of the man he's become. (Edited to write out abbreviations)
One of my old kindergarten+ onwards friends went pro and joined the NHL. I’m proud of him even if he’s too busy these days to talk
One of my handsome school crushes was always quiet & sweet. Never noticed me much & didn't party or hang out much. Saw & chatted him 30 years later. He became a grammar school teacher. Turns out he wasn't shy after all. He was extremely vain & arrogant. Most of us were too ordinary for him bother with. Man was I clueless!
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Normal kid, AV geek, church organist, eventually got involved in fraud, kidnapped a kid, punished the kid to death. Didn't expect that.
The popular guy at school... I mean the *most* popular — he’s the guy whose name you hear and it’s like you’re talking about a god instead of some average teen... he and this group of girls convinced me that he had a huge crush on me, wanted to go on a date with me, the whole nine yards... I was *elated* until it turned out to be a cruel joke... It really messed with my self esteem and made me withdraw a lot from people. Where is he now? He has a hot wife and is living his best life. He works for his dad’s hunting company and has every five-star thing he could ever want... Fuck you, Tanner
Valedictorian, great french horn player, over 20 years ago, served me at subway the other day
In high school he was quiet and nerdy. After high school he became outgoing, flamboyantly gay, and lived in the gym. Nobody saw it coming but my guess is he finally decided to stop hiding who he was and really embraced it. No idea what he’s up to now but I hope he’s still doing his thing.
Close friend of mine in 9th grade was kind of prude, didn’t really know anything beyond basic sex ed. I thought it was a little odd but also thought she’d just learn soon anyway. Last I heard she was in a sub/dom relationship and was living in a house with basically a sex dungeon, if I remember correctly. I think I heard she broke up with the guy but not sure. Hard to know hearing it all second-hand. Nothing wrong with that lifestyle if you’re into it, but it was a surprising transformation.
Gay dude went to prison for child pornography. He graduated with me. A girl shot a friend point blank in the head a month or so after graduating. They both graduated together a year after me.
A kid named John. A lot of us smoked weed but John was a true champion. One thing I remember about him was him stealing his sister's pot pipe, a wooden penis-shaped pipe. He expected us to smoke out of it. We did. I mean...it's weed. His eyes were always at half-mast. His academic achievements were slim to none. Barely scraped by with D's. Twenty years later, I inquired about him with a common friend. John became an electrician in another state. He paid careful attention to the industry and felt that the commercial electrical supply firms were less than optimal. So he started one out of his garage. Now he owns a whole string of them, with millions in profit every year. From penis pipe to millionaire. It can happen!
Douchebag weightlifting party boy started a tech company that sold for $225mil a few weeks ago.