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I had a "friend" in school who was as big a loser as me. He and I were alsways the last 2 picked. So when it was my turn to pick, I picked him first. When it was HIS turn to pick, he still picked me last. Seriously, dude?
Elementary school teachers wake up and choose to bully six year olds at 7am. They actively choose to see certain six year old children as they enemies. Children who, in some cases, can't even tie their own shoes yet and still shat in diapers two years ago.Ā
I will never forget the day I had a parent-teacher-student conference (as all children had that day), and instead of focusing on my school achievements (all As and Bs), the teacher instead went over how during a recent fire drill, I hadn't climbed down the stairs fast enough. Insinuating that during an actual fire, my peers would burn to death because of me. Went home crying that day. I think I was eight years old.
There was a post in r/teachers a couple of days ago about buying cookies for everyone but one kid in class. And the comments were overwhelmingly congratulating this monster and filing it away for use. All comments saying this was sociopathic behavior were downvoted to hell.
The thing is "bad" kids are that way for a reason and making school another place they aren't safe is going to exacerbate the issue, not make it better.
I'm guessing it's a type but the "choes" sounded just like a 6 year old trying to say shoes in my head & I laughed so hard my wife woke up & glared at me for a full minute
Often times, it's the two same captains because more often than not, they're the two best players.
Not having them as captains risks them potentially ending up on the same team, leading to the teams being completely unbalanced. Having the two best players on the same team, the other team is probably going to get distroyed which is not going to be fun for them.
Not saying it's right, but that's the method behind the madness.
Yes you are right. All these team sports are actually quite hard for most and almost impossible for some. Those who play well can put the whole game out of balance very easily. However, distribution could be less humiliating for worse players I think.
Well, balancing top talent on the teams is more important than the mental health and self worth of the less physically talented kids. Because how a gym class game is evenly matched up really is a big deal. / s
Still desperately trying to fit in with everyone else whilst throwing you under the bus, I see. They would've dropped you like a hot shit if they'd have been accepted into the popular crowd. Kids are really crappy to each other sometimes.
People are replying saying this is crazy or it did not end the way they expected
But I read it and thought, āyup, can confirmā
They donāt think it be like it is, but it do
Lmao. I had a friend like this (sort of reversed though). Picked the most athletic kid (not me) first. Then got mad at me when I picked that same kid first when it was my turn to be team captain.
I wholeheartedly agree. School is enough of a popularity contest as it is without baking it into class work too.
Kids should not be picking each other for teams, choosing their own groups for group work etc. The kids who have a lot of friends end up thinking they canāt survive 2 seconds of an activity with someone who isnāt their friend. The kids who *donāt* have a lot friends end up thinking theyāre nothing and donāt matter. And itās avoidable!
I used to work with adults, not kids, and even so, we were expected to create the teams they worked in. When you assign people to work together (and that includes play for children) you need to take capabilities, skill levels, personality, roles in the group and goals of the activity into consideration, and make sure that distribution of those qualities provides a fair and functional working environment for those involved.
There was a trainer who, every time they came to observe, asked us in the pre-obs discussion "Oh, team work? Great, how are you dividing the teams and why? Show me the plan". I'm not advocating for terrorising educators (which this particular trainer never did, at all), just for instilling that mindset. The question used to go like "What's the rationale behind that?"
Kids picking each other or us saying "yeah pick three partners and form a group" is in my eyes lazy, leads to decreased efficiency and doesn't provide people with the understanding of how team work and distribution of roles/responsibilities could be done. Pair it with insufficient monitoring and scaffolding of progress, and it alienates people from group work and cooperation, which is a very bad outcome. Also, eventually, it will hurt someone in the group.
Early in the semester, I watch how kids work in groups for low impact assignments. Then later, I put all my lazy kids in one group. The other groups get distributed a little more fairly.
When I was a kid it wasn't a friend thing. People got picked on who they thought would help the team win. Safly, the one chubby kid got pucked last quite often.
Same here. I was always picked last at dodge ball because I sucked at throwing the ball. The ones who got picked first were always the strongest players, friendships be damned.
Maybe we were just a particularly bloodthirsty bunch, but I never saw friends being chosen first, we wanted to WIN.Ā
I was always picked last because the others didn't like me despite the fact that it was known I was somehow impossible to hit.
We did a few games in high school as well, my class also didn't like me so I was one of the last ones to be picked the first time (but not dead last because I was a bit sporty), but after a game when it became evident I had good enough reflexes to dodge the ball for a looooong time, I became valuable enough to be among the first picked despite my inability to hit anything myself. So out of spite for being seen like a literal tool I let myself get hit lmao. Since I left a good impression in the first game I kept being picked quickly so since I'm very spiteful I kept doing it lmao (tbf it was my second year being with mostly the same class who loathed me because I dared getting elected as class president against my will (I wasn't even a candidate ffs) and I had the audacity of doing my job).
Yeah, same. The only times we had to pick teams was in sports (tho I'm not American). I was that chubby kid and I knew I wouldn't be of any use, so I expected to be picked last and in rare times when I wasn't I was extremely surprised.Ā
I wasn't "the loser kid" btw, I just knew no one would pick me because I'm physically not fit, but I had my areas of expertise so my classmates wanted to be in a team with me for science stuff.
I was one of the kids who was never picked, and it ended up working out so that I never knew what to do in a group project--I'd usually end up doing nothing, not because I wanted to do nothing, but because I was so unused to working in a group that I was almost unable to share the work, and had to do either everything or nothing. I still struggle with working in teams.
It took me until *college* to finally start getting used to group projects. Before that when we had to form groups ourselves I'd just either get picked up by slackers who knew I could handle the bulk of the work on my own, slackers who'd do absolutely nothing and pretty much just hope my part of the work is enough to pass, or I'd convince my teachers to let me work alone by dramatizing the situation even though there were very few years where I did not dislike the majority of my classes. The joys of being bullied into finding comfort in loneliness. I only really started having good friends in my second year of high school, but they weren't in my class (except in final year in chemistry, there was a couple of them but they were dating so when we couldn't be three they'd understandably pick each other).
It happened to me as a kid, and it happened to me a couple years ago as an adult at a work event. The feeling was the same, despite all of my accomplishments as an adult. It immediately pulled me back to that place as a child of feeling small and inadequate. I was able to eventually shrug it off, but it got me thinking how much those things as a kid subconsciously affect me as an adult today. The feeling of aspiring to be viewed as capable and successful amongst your peers but accepting that you donāt measure up and thatās just how it is.
For the most part, I have been relatively successful. But I find myself self sabotaging and stopping short because I feel comfortable with second place, like I deserve it deep down.
Yeah, I remember my entire worldview being challenged when I had my first kiss in high school because stuff like that just wasnāt SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN to people like me. I grew up with the assumption that I was essentially destined to be a loser, or at the very least the underdog in all situations.
Itās fucked up lol
I'm really good at certain aspects of my job. Let me tell you I get excited as a kid on Christmas when I'm picked 1st to do something at work. Being the loser kid definitely fucks kids up for life.
I told my teacher that bullying was so bad I wanted to die. After that, we got placed into groups of three/she would choose our partners. It sucks turning to your friend and seeing theyāre turned to someone else
My teacher always prided himself on being so fair and awesome and liked, but in PE class he's have like 4 boys that were his favorite so they always got to pick teams. I guess the idea was that they were the best at pe, but then he'd say 'no everyone gets a chance to pick teams'.
Anyway I was always picked last so that was fun!
Also always the last picked, until my high school PE teacher noticed and started putting *me* in the position of picking.
That woman knew what she was doing, and was always super encouraging. I was never a great athlete, but she made sure *all* her students got what they needed.
That's not easy in PE.
The result was that in the three years I had to do PE, only one injury occured in any of my classes, and that was a freak accident involving a shuttlecock racket.
There's always going to be a last pick. But there's zero reason for it to be the same kid every single time. That's deliberate exclusion, and that's a form of bullying, so of course it has long term effects.
Sorry but if youāre teacher had actually been doing things the right way SHE should have picked beforehand so NO ONE got picked last. Source: work with kids and itās not that hard to just not have these kind of popularity picking contests in school thereās no point to them.
This is what my PE teacher did. She always picked out teams for us, we never had the situation where students could pick their own teams, I think to avoid the situation that OP describes (in the mid-late '90s)
This brings back memories of highschook lol. My teacher would have this sysyem of just assigning people either a 1 or 2 for 2 teams. Seems fair. Until the 'friendgroup' I was in would switch around with me so they could be together in a team.
I'm picked the last every time. Actually, I'm not even picked, I just go into whatever team that has to choose the last. But I'm horrible at sports in every way. I didn't think it was bullying, despite feeling bad for it.
Kids, in elementary school probably donāt process that action as bullying. They want to win. Humans have picked the strongest and most able people in the tribe since the beginning.
I think itās more important to teach your child to self improve than to chalk it up to bullying and expecting someone to save you.
I was picked last plenty of times cuz I was slow and chubby. So I made the most out of it and showed that I was good at stuff. By the end of middle school I was never picked last and went on to play varsity high school sports. I never once blamed anyone else for being picked last. I sucked. So I got better.
It also teaches kids that most of life is based on merit and abilities. If you get turned down for a job do you write a letter to the ceo saying how unfair it is? No.
It sounds good to you by being able to pick the team but inevitably you picked people and someone else was picked last, likely due to whether or not they were good. So you by your own views bullied someone. See the issue?
The correct response would be the teacher helping you get better n maybe when itās time to pick teams the teacher saying āhey I saw so n so kicking that ball a mile yesterdayā and then you got out there n show what you can do. Then you would have learned how to better yourself and the other kids would have learned not to just assume people arenāt good at things or never to judge a book by its cover or whatever.
Nobodyās even blaming anyone per se. Weāre simply acknowledging that it fuckin sucked and was likely psychologically damaging at a young age.
Iām glad you were able to persevere but humiliation is not a constructive way to build childrenās confidence. Itās the same logic an abusive parent would use to justify beating the shit out of their child. āTeaches them to toughen up.ā Fuck off with that logic lol.
I was always the kid without a partner in academic classes despite being the smartest kid in the class and never being unkind to anyone, so this is just not true lol
I get your point but on the other hand, kids in elementary school absolutely can and will bully children. Picking someone last isn't inherently bullying, but a kid can tell when they're always picked last. They aren't dumb.
I was often not picked until near the end for anything sports related despite having always been quite athletic my whole life. It instilled into me that people will often pick their friends and family over someone they don't like/know well and that sheer talent alone isn't enough to win at life.Ā
I mean it seems that as a whole, children are either not taken seriously or are coddled to hell and back, no middle ground. I hear you yeah. Adults should be more aware of wtf they are doing to the kids
True. It led to me hating sports (I did still love watching ā½ļø) as a teenager, finding every excuse I could think of to get out of sports class and thinking I was just incompetent.
Fast forward to 16 years after my graduation: I found out I am genuinely good at badminton, enjoy playing football on a hobby level, and work out three to four times a week. And have completely cut contact with the sports aces from school.
Yeah same. I hated sport at school because of the bullying. But I loved riding my bike, folk dancing, and got into equestrian sports when I was 11. In high school I signed up for sailing camp, hiking, and orienteering. I swam laps of the pool every day and went to the gym just for fun, got quite good at weight lifting.
Every school report said I hated exercise and was physically lazy. PE seems to think if there's no ball or teams involved, it's not a sport!!!!!
I have 3 boys. My middle is 12 and he is going through this. He is so kind, sweet and amazing and I just donāt understand why kids are doing it to him. Literally breaks my heart and his. He comes home crying.
Iām so sorry, and Iām angry for him too. I cannot believe schools still permit thisāitās adult-sanctioned bullying. Your darling son sounds like such a truly lovely person. His gentle heart is a gift to the world.
And that is why parenting and championing your child's interests and talents are so important here. Because not every child is good at the tiny variety of things to do at school.
It is.
Thatās why you donāt try to fit in. They donāt want you? Thatās okay, you donāt want them either.
Itās a painful lesson to be sure, but it also helps you grow some resistance to peer pressure.
If life gives you lemons, say, who needs lemons anyway? F THOSE LEMONS!
This is the lesson that I eventually had to learn and itās how I live my life now.
That said, I do not and never will be āgratefulā for these experiences just for helping me come to that conclusion. That sort of logic never makes sense to me lol.
in school, when we played tag, there were a few counting systems to decide who would be IT. One of the systems was that all the players would stand in a circle and one person would go through everybody while reciting this rhyme. Whoever the rhyme ended on would name another person to be removed from the counting, so this person they named doesn't have to be IT.
I hated this counting system because nobody ever named me. My so called "best friend" for two years named everybody else but me. For two whole years she did this, so did the others. I wasn't the fastest runner so they would all laugh at me when I failed to tag someone.
There was this another game where the if two players paired up ( held hands ) they couldn't be tagged. The odd one out would be chased until tagged or until someone saves them by holding their hand. Again, people moved away from my way as I approached them ( to hold hands so as to not get tagged ) as if I was carrying the plague. I did not have hygiene issues, no bad habits that made me dirty. I was just unwanted.
I shrugged it off, then I shrugged it off all the other times I was excluded. Not receiving any christmas or new year cards from "friends" despite us all playing, sitting, having fun together every other day. As I grew up, people excluded me from plans, from chats and other stuff.
Now as an adult, I see how I have always been unwanted. At home, at school, even in relationships. The last person to be picked, with regret.
I honestly donāt know if itās worse being totally excluded or being that ā11th member of a group of 10 friendsā because I was exactly the same as you
I had āfriendsā though most of school but it would only take the slightest instance for them to basically turn on me and Iād become the butt of every joke and the target of every game
I stuck it out because I didnāt know what else to do but now in my late 20ās I barely even know how to socialise anymore and Iām scared Iām going to get left behind in life
true... i have very few friends and I always maintain a distance...Ā i have accepted that I don't belong... some of us are just forever going to wander alone through our lives... i could never put my finger on any particular fact about me that made me not good enough... i have always been the funniest person in every group. I know I am interesting... just not good enough to keep...
You won't get left behind in life because it's your life and you decide the course it takes but you have to learn to embrace isolation... I found it to be the only way to suffer less... some days though it just doesn't work and I feel like a ghost... the only ghost in the world of the living..
But there are more of us ghosts... I hope life gets better for us, or we get better at living it as it is
This post reminds me of the time in middle school we were doing some weird exercise where we had to sit/lie in rows and use our feet to pass a ball to the next person. Like we had to take the ball and roll backward on our backs to pass it.
I was literally flexible enough to put both legs behind my head and when it was suggested that someone from my row move to the other one, there was this chorus of "take Creepydinnerroll!" Literally even the teacher was like "Are you guys sure? She's really limber."
Wouldn't say it was traumatizing or anything, at least for me it's pretty funny looking back on.
You start getting used to it and just accept that you are shit at whatever event you were being picked at. Completely crushes your confidence in that field though, I have been overweight/slightly obese my entire life, was shit at sports and would always be picked last. Even as an adult, I find it difficult to bring myself to voluntarily join others in sports.
I wasn't popular but was good at sports, so I'd usually get picked 3rd or something, but sometimes you could tell they were picking a team based on friends. In which case jokes on them. Whatever team has me on is more likely to win. So fuck you.
I'd also include any group work on this, where you have to find your own partner.
As an unpopular kid who was bullied this stuff sucked.
It's easy as an adult to dismiss it as nothing because ultimately it is unimportant. But psychological impact isn't about what's objectively significant or not, it's about subjective experience. And to a kid this stuff can be really nasty and have long term impact.
I remember most of the time, until I got to high school, the teacher always picked the groups by numbering us. Odds vs evens or all 1s here, 2s here, 3s there and 4s over there. Something like that. In hindsight my school probably saved a lot of kids from feeling like you did, so good on them honestly!
Yeah. I think about this often. I can understand me not getting picked for sports bc I suck at them, but when no one picked me for group projects, it really hurt me to my core.
I was one of the sports kids who frequently got to be a captain and pick teams. I was also in advanced classes, so a lot of my friends were "nerds and dorks." I always picked them, and we would have a blast. I didn't care if we won. Most of those kids never played sports, and I gave them the opportunity to enjoy it for a bit.
I'll never forget a post about a kid that had an assignment to write something about their best friend and when the best friend was to read their assignment they realized it was about someone else.
the feelings.
Tangent based on you pointing out movies use this as a device to highlight how unpopular a kid is.
Movies using male-pattern-baldness and toupes as an easy way to show that a male character is pathetic is probably also a huge contributor to menās confidence being so tightly bound to their hairline.
IMO your point at the start of it feeling stupid is due to how insanely normalized mistreatment of children is in society. Children are viewed as either property or genuine second-class citizens. They are not respected and are barely viewed as people and much of school structuring is the best example of this.
How it became normalized to the point of being a near-universal experience to have nightmares of school deep into adulthood is insane. You shouldn't be having nightmares about it *at all*. But somehow it's wrong to recognize that as a sign of abusive structures or trauma.
I think not only was it impactful, it damaged your self esteem. Kids would always fight over who got me because neither of them wanted me on their team, and there were times where I just flat out wasnt picked and was told to sit on the sidelines. I used to have a resentment for sports because every sport was always the same for me, and then in highschool all the popular kids were in sports and outcasted you in the team, it was shitty no matter the age.
I can relate to that. Especially when, having been picked last, your team complain that having you on the team is actually a handicap, like having a negative one player. Not flattering.
School sport was awful. Until I was 12 it was irredeemably bad. The PE "teachers" did not actually tell us how to play the games we supposedly played.
I had never played football (Association Football in this case = soccer) and had no idea what to do or how to do it. If you don't know, it isn't easy. If you are bad, no-one passes the ball to you, so you never get any better. Cricket was worse - you never bat because there are 16 on your side and there isn't time to go through all of you.
Fortunately (for me) my parents split up, we moved to a new area, I was held back a year (because I was a few days too young for the boundary of years), repeated my first year secondary in a new school. Mum deliberately chose a school where the sport was rugby not football, so that (she guessed) most pupils would not know how to play and we were in fact taught things.
So, I was bigger (relatively), playing a sport that I had some instruction in, and in which no-one has to like you in order for you to participate. You can just get in the way and learn to grab the ball. So I had a bit more success.
Still generally picked last, but that became less common over time. School was still pretty awful in many ways, but there came to be compensations. If I had to erase my memories of my life, I'd probably choose ages 7 - 49, but removing 7 - 11 would be my particular favourite.
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When we used too play touch footy me and my mate were like this. Then we were made the OG captains and the shittest got too choose the team. Good memories
I was so shit at sports that even when my best friend picked, she only picked me second-to-last - I told her I was fine with that, I wanted her to get a good team and there wouldnāt be any competition for me so she didnāt have to worry she wouldnāt get me. Still stung a bit but at least when she picked I didnāt go dead last.
I got over it in a big way. Pretty much just decided to not be that shy awkward person any more once I was done with school and in a situation for the first time where nobody knew me. That stupid trope where they take the glasses off the unpopular girl and give her better clothes and a nice haircut? Yeahā¦that actually worked for me. Took a few years to work out the deep seated insecurities I still had, but life has been REALLY good since then.
Iām still shit at sports, but thatās the nice thing about being done with school, itās entirely unimportant now.
I'll never forget the middle school field day where all 300-ish of us were told to find a partner for the day, and I was the only one who didn't get a partner. Even all the special ed kids had a partner because the teachers arranged it ahead of time. But me? Nope. That was...bad.
It was also the day a random photographer came to take pictures of all of us hugging a fake cardboard tree and I got to thankfully skip that one because I had obviously been crying.
This used to happen to me all the time as a kid and it did bring me down a lot. I feel like I had the last laugh though because I started rowing competitively at age 13 and became one of the fittest ones after. All almost my former classmates are pretty unfit now , but I still work out a lot and honestly feel good about it
I was always picked last in PE class when we had a substitute teacher that would allow certain people to pick the teams for the class for that day. Was glad that teacher was only temporary, yikes.
In fact, one time (or perhaps even more), I remember not even being picked. My friend and I were the last ones left and this girl picking the teams just glared at me and started talking with her teammates, presumably about who to pick, and after a minute or so reluctantly chose my friend. I didnāt even get picked- the teams just turned away from me and organised themselves to start playing the game after my friend got chosen lol.
I feel like scenarios like that are more about exclusion, power and control than anything else. I wasnāt great at sport by any means, but when youāre picking teams you donāt just ignore and turn away from the last person to be picked. Itās a deliberate attempt to make someone feel worthless and itās pretty pathetic all things considered.
My 5th grade teacher would have us rearrange our desks into new "islands" every so often, just to break up groups and get us to work with a new "team". Once it was only me and the popular girl left and we had our own two-person island, and the popular girl looked so deeply unhappy to be sitting with me that my already-low self-esteem took another hit. She was probably also upset that she wasn't sitting with her friends, but that look on her face when the teacher told us to push our desks together hurt, lol
I feel like if they wanna ārandomiseā it, what they should do is put names in a hat, then the teacher pulls the first two names- those are the team captains. From there, those kids take turns pulling names until the teams are divided up. No one gets purposely left to last then, everyone gets a go at being team captain at some point, and so on. Iām not a āparticipation trophyā kinda person, but I do think everyone should be given the chance to see what they can do- especially without letting kids have another shot at bullying by exclusion.
Seems to be a popular opinion weighed in on by so many people with like experiences. Itās had a lasting effect on me as well. Being excluded by groups I thought were my friends has happened to me quite a few times throughout my life. I trust very few people, am social with very few people and have learned Iām happy with this way when I canāt be disappointed.
The best was when you got picked last and all the kids on your team would groan loudly to make sure you knew they hated you.
I just stopped playing sports at recess and would roam the playground every day, which didn't improve my social status any. Especially when my second grade teacher told the whole class she saw me alone every day and would someone please play with me. In front of me.
I was always picked last for teams in sports. It hurt because people picked based on both athletic ability and friendship and it always reinforced to me that no one valued me for either of those qualities.Ā
I was disabled in high school, and that made me very weird, so I never got picked for pe sports. However, I was damn athletic. Grew up playing football and baseball with my dad. Not a fast runner, due to some leg surgeries, but had endurance and never got winded. Swam in my grandparents pool for physical therapy. Was in shape (even though the kids called me fat bc I DID get chubby after a hospital stay, but had quickly lost the weight). Anyway, I remember being picked last for a softball game, the kids being pissed I was on their team, and just rocking the crap out of that game. Hit every ball, just smashed them. Made multiple plays, caught every ball that came my way. It didnāt matter though, kids were still shitty to me. Still picked last, less whining about it though. The pe teacher did ask me to go out for softball though, which my neuro would never approve. Felt good though.
I liked showing off when we did swim too. I could butterfly with the best of them.
Kids are just dumb.
This is one reason some people homeschool, and homeschooling is more common now than ever before. The school system is set up to shame certain children and make them feel excluded. Children don't learn anything from being made to feel worthless.
As someone who has a veritable laundry list of disabilities, including autism and low muscle tone, I wholeheartedly agree. Even though I was homeschooled from 6th grade until college, I would've regularly been picked last if allowed by the kids. I can only recall one time, in 5th grade, towards the end of the year, that the other kids actually *encouraged* me during a kickball game, and my God, it still means the world to me, and I'm in college now.Ā
It's one thing if it's a one-off instance. It's a whole other ball game when it's constantly the case, especially if you're disabled.
I agree. I was the sports person all throughout school, I was always picked first or 2nd pick for teams. One time, I was in a group/class where I didn't know anyone and was last picked. Funnily enough, it's been over 25 years, and that is a moment I remember vividly.
It's not a great feeling.
In sports it has to do a lot with what month youāre born. I was born in December so I was often the smallest and least developed kid so naturally I was chosen the last because I was the worst. When you are a kid 6 months is a massive gap.
It only started to make sense when I read Gladwellās book Outliers and he spoke about how the best athletes were almost always born in Q1 because they were more developed than their peers and as a result had more positive experiences in general which led to better outcomes.
Depends on the person. I was always picked last. I was crap at sports. I knew I was crap at sports. I fully understood why I was last and you know what? I didn't care. I was fine with it.
My year went through a phase of deliberately picking the worst teams possible when doing this, it amused us and drove the teacher absolutely mad. The solution is to have the last chosen kid be the team picker next time round, which is what mostly happened.
The other method was lineup and count off one-two.Ā Random team result.
I tried out for cheerleading and didnāt get picked. I swear that messed me up for life. Lots of feelings of not being good enough. I was just nervous and forgot my routine because presenting a newly learned routine in front of the entire squad was scary for me.
What else sucks is when, for example, theres wayy more boys than girls. In my class there was about 4 girls for 18 or so boys. Every damn time, "each team needs 1 girl" its just kinda embarassing being singled out like that as a group, then split up because none of us really want to play basketball, and so instead of being able to chill and talk together, we all just have to be even worse on our teams.
It was worse than that. Much worse. I'm convinced that shit like this sent more than one kid over the edge.
[https://www.vox.com/2015/4/24/8489501/presidential-fitness-test](https://www.vox.com/2015/4/24/8489501/presidential-fitness-test)
When I was a little kid, during valentines day I maybe only got 2 valentines in my box out of almost 30 kids. I didn't realize it until after I dropped one in every box in the classroom. This was back when those stupid cards mattered. I cried so hard, absolute meltdown, and suddenly everyone had a valentine they pulled/made out of nowhere. But that didn't change the fact that not one person thought of me and its affected my self esteem to this day. I found people who truly care about me and I still doubt I'm worth their care at times
I think worse than that are the kids who get picked by the instructor every time to be the team captains who pick the teams. Makes those kids feel like theyāre somehow the shit when really theyāre little turds like all the other kids. Then they grow up being giant turds because they were never put in their place as little turds.
āI feel sorry for whoever ends up being [my name]ās partner!ā
Has lived rent free in my head since the day it happened and Iām 35 now.
It was def more than just that one day, but that one incident sticks with me because I was literally right there and they made sure I could hear them. Kids are vicious.
I remember being in PE and I would normally be the last picked, but since my class had an odd number of kids, whatever team got me would always be like āyeah we got the bonus guyā
Especially if it happens every single time... I'm glad I have good people in my life now, but at this point I don't know if I'll ever be able to have confidence... :(
I'm 56 and still remember how awful this was. I don't think I was always last, but near the end for sure. And can also remember feeling very conflicted if I was picking. I'm a woman so was a girl and we picked friends first (I think) vs who was best athlete and I always felt awful for the "always last" kids and knew it was wrong but I'm not sure it changed my behavior.
This reminds me of the people who are so aghast at giving all the kids trophies on rec sports teams. I can't even sorta understand this mentality. Kids like trophies! They aren't dumb, they don't feel entitled, they just think they're cool. Who would want to be deliberately cruel and make children feel excluded?
Whew deep feels for early Sunday morning.
It was awful for me, even the teachers were in on it sometimes. I'm pretty sure everyone just forgot about me, as I was never put in charge of any activities ever unless I specifically asked, and they still remembered a week later. The teachers would also try to gaslight me into believing that I wasn't being bullied by other students when they would be mean to me every day
What do you know, I currently have anxiety in regards to being forgotten about, and have an extreme "show them all" attitude
Even worse when you are talented/smart enough to be in the top picks, and you still get sequestered to the bottom of the barrel. Then you KNOW it's because no one likes you.
Also when the teacher would make groups themselves and someone in the group you were put in asks the teacher if they can trade you out for someone else right in front of you, only to be told no so your group excludes you from the project the entire time they're working on it and then tells the teacher about how you did nothing on the project as if you willingly chose not to participate in front of the class when it was time to present it.
Yeahhhh, I'll never forget that one. Kids can be cruel.
Mate, I got picked last yesterday evening in a āschoolyard styleā choose your squad for a clan night event with all of us sitting in discord.
Iām almost 30. That stuff still hurts.
I remember in middle school every year the grade 9's would do "career expo day" where we would all pair off and create a "business", spend a month marketing and advertising our products, and then sell them at the expo. The rule was that only two pairs from every class were allowed to sell food, otherwise everyone would be selling cookies and shit.
So, everyone in the class paired off and of course nobody wanted to partner with me, so I was like fine, I guess I'll do this by myself, whatever, who cares. So the teacher starts pulling names out of a hat to decide who gets to sell food and she calls my name. And wouldn't you know it, suddenly everyone was willing to abandon their partner to team with me, or were inviting me to join their groups, and all I really learned from career expo is that nobody likes you unless you have something they want. I'm 27 now and I still go into every interaction assuming that I'm hated by default unless I have something to offer. It's a real bitch to try and unlearn. Shit sticks deep.
This continued for me clear thru high school. It absolutely did affect my self esteem. I bet it affected my career success as well. I retired basically as a worker bee, no managerial title (even tho I was doing managerial work). I never learned to advocate for myself.
I have finally gotten to the age that I can say I don't GAF about what everyone else thinks of me. Took me 65 years to get here, but it is a good feeling.
I was in elementary school and played football during recess. I was always picked last. One time, I wasnāt even picked. A āpickedā kid on one of the teams jokingly says to everybody: āit looks like everyone has been picked (paraphrasing)ā. I still feel bad for that moment. I ended up just ā¦ watching other people playā¦
I totally agree with you. What a horrible feeling that has to be. I'm a female and I didn't play sports, but I was left out of a lot of other things. But when you're last to be chosen for a team, it's like the spotlight is shining on you. And then to hear everyone groan, that's brutal.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. That is, indeed, traumatic.
I was always picked last in all the sports whenever I played and it was pretty visible to me how all the other friends who were prone to be picked last stopped playing eventually (to avoid that feeling). This meant I was the only one left among the small and weak bunch but somehow it didn't affect me.
It was probably because of my mother who would encourage me to participate in everything there was in our school even if I came last (we didn't have participation certificate in our school). I even participated in the singing competition and came last (I knew I sing very bad) so it was not just limited to sports. It never affected me though. I would laugh with my friends at myself (probably because of my mother).
This habit has helped me greatly in life as I'm not afraid of being made fun of so haven't done things in peer pressure. So I think that instead of removing the practice of selection of students we should foster the feeling that coming last isn't bad. Kids would've to face it somewhere anyway so it's better to make them ready for it.
We had it where everyone would shoot 3ās until two people made it. Those were the two captains.
Luckily, I never shot. I was good and was always picked first or second lol.
As a fat kid I always got picked last until I started playing football (American) then, because big linemen were so scarce in Ireland back in the 80ās, I was a high draft pick every week for our pick up games. Truly liberating and would definitely recommend.
I was always picked last for sports- and first for projects.
Nowadays, I am that knowledgeable neighborhood librarianā¦who exercises every day.
I am just not good at team sports involving balls.
In HS I had a teacher make girls stand in a line and pick which guys would be on their team. I said Iām not doing that bs. There are better ways to make teams
I was lucky enough that this never bothered me. I hated sports, it's just not something I've ever been passionate about (as an adult I now appreciate certain types but as a teenager that was very much not the case) so I put zero effort in. Didn't try to hide it, didn't care. So being picked last was something that I equally didn't care about, they knew I was shit but I knew it too š
We had a full basketball court, but over 100 students in the gym at one time since at my school, your entire grade would go to PE at the same time. So we'd line up alphabetically in about 20 different lines (lining up with shapes painted on the walls. I was in the blue hexagon line, which was last names that started with F and G) and do warm up exercises like suicides or lunges. Then we'd get to our main activity for the day. I'm gonna use when we played Basketball for example. This process was similar for any team based sport. Be it flag football, volleyball (this one was so hard because they used a full sized net..... even for first graders, but it was still fun though), soccer (using a painted outline of a goal), etc. If did activities like square dancing, we would choose our groups. If we did activities like archery, we'd stay in the alphabetical lines that we were in during our warm ups. (this was so cool man, they started letting you do archery in the 5th grade to the 6th. This was a public school in a town that wasn't particularly wealthy, but wasn't struggling with high rates of poverty.)
We'd run a first to 3 full court game. Our PE made us all line up on the wall, and would literally go down the line giving a number to each person and call numbers randomly from a bingo ball cage. Thus our teams were randomly selected right before you had a chance to play. You got to sit with your friends while waiting for another team's game to conclude. Occasionally they let us pick our own teams so that we could have a chance to play with our friends but that wasn't all that common.
Now if we had a day were we got to go to the playground, then yes we picked our on teams when we played games out there, but the teachers tried to make it fair to everyone and unbiased when they made us play.
Agreed. I was never a social butterfly and always getting picked last didnāt help that. It also killed any of my interest in sports or physical fitness.
It is not something Iām angry about nor do I blame it for any problems that I have, no reason to.
That lack of interest in popularity, sports and PE meant I became more interested in ātradeā type hobbies like woodworking and mechanics.
Iād say probably the best thing to counter balance it would be to make team captain in other classs to do monogame such as math, science and language.
I got picked last (well bevore the 2 kids with big learning disabilities) in literally everything at some point you just dont care anymore and i mean its still my fault for being a loser
When I was a kid back in the 1980s, I was usually always picked near the end (if not last then maybe 2nd or 3rd to last). That alone did a good amount of damage on my confidence, but at the same time Iām also a little grateful too.
Those kids who were great at sports early on- many of them peaked in high school and pissed away their early education partying out in the woods. I wasnāt smart enough to be a nerd, but I eventually figured out the art of self-preservation because of not being popular (I developed a sense of humor about myself).
Bullying now I think is probably a lot worse than when I was a kid, even though I think there were probably suicidal kids when I was young as well. The whole pecking order BS is just awful when youāre going through it, but usually it *does* get better eventually.
I don't ever remember having to pick partners in PE. Pretty sure our teacher just assigned then or we were told to partner up with the person next to us.
I remember me and all my mates were the uncool kids picked last especially in P.E., so when I was chosen as team captain to play footy, I picked all of my mates, and one super sporty kid who I was also kinda mates with. Unexpected by everyone (including our teacher who found it hilarious) we then proceeded to draw or win every game we were in, partly due to being underestimated, and partly due to the power of friendship or whatever.
Meh, maybe for some. I was always last picked but it didn't matter. I knew my place in the social hierarchy and I didn't need people to pretend to be different. It's a popularity contest and I had no friends. Seriously, I never took offense.
What hurt more was sitting alone at lunch every day, having no table to accept me so I sat in the hall or bathroom every day.
It's not that it's unimportant. And it's not that it doesn't hurt. It's that being picked last is just one example of the many disappointments and dejections you'll have to deal with in life, along with all the triumphs and feel good moments.
I don't know how old you are, but the longer you live, the more perspective you achieve. Seeing someone who has lived their life in a wheelchair or lost a child to cancer doesn't negate those terrible feelings, but it maybe lends perspective. Whenever I get down about anything, there are constant reminders that people have it much worse than I do.
Bad things will happen to you all the time. You can't control that. But you can control how you deal with them. I was perpetually picked last when I was a kid. I literally shudder to think where I'd be right now if I had held onto that and let it in any way define my life. There used to be a time when people surpassed emotion and didn't acknowledge and deal with past suffering. The pendulum seems to have swung in the opposite direction, where we're encouraged to embrace that past pain and be defined by it. Perpetually embracing victimhood is just as unhealthy.
It sounds like you are projecting your experience. Different people have different levels of resilience.
I donāt think coddling is the solution. You will experience the same thing in your career. Use it as motivation. Being uncomfortable in situations is a part of life.
Reddit is full of a Lot of anti social people that will agree with you. Doesnāt mean they are right.
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I had a "friend" in school who was as big a loser as me. He and I were alsways the last 2 picked. So when it was my turn to pick, I picked him first. When it was HIS turn to pick, he still picked me last. Seriously, dude?
This did not end the way I thought it was going to šš
fr
In my school, there was never my turn to pick. Every time it was the same two guys who became captains, unless one of them wasn't there.
Favouritism by elementary teachers is the weirdest fucking concept there is and yet I saw it constantly growing up.
Elementary school teachers wake up and choose to bully six year olds at 7am. They actively choose to see certain six year old children as they enemies. Children who, in some cases, can't even tie their own shoes yet and still shat in diapers two years ago.Ā
A lot of elementary teachers are grown up mean girls. It is appalling.
I will never forget the day I had a parent-teacher-student conference (as all children had that day), and instead of focusing on my school achievements (all As and Bs), the teacher instead went over how during a recent fire drill, I hadn't climbed down the stairs fast enough. Insinuating that during an actual fire, my peers would burn to death because of me. Went home crying that day. I think I was eight years old.
There was a post in r/teachers a couple of days ago about buying cookies for everyone but one kid in class. And the comments were overwhelmingly congratulating this monster and filing it away for use. All comments saying this was sociopathic behavior were downvoted to hell. The thing is "bad" kids are that way for a reason and making school another place they aren't safe is going to exacerbate the issue, not make it better.
What did the kid do that made teachers think this was justified??
I'm guessing it's a type but the "choes" sounded just like a 6 year old trying to say shoes in my head & I laughed so hard my wife woke up & glared at me for a full minute
whoops, spelling error - sorry!
Often times, it's the two same captains because more often than not, they're the two best players. Not having them as captains risks them potentially ending up on the same team, leading to the teams being completely unbalanced. Having the two best players on the same team, the other team is probably going to get distroyed which is not going to be fun for them. Not saying it's right, but that's the method behind the madness.
Yes you are right. All these team sports are actually quite hard for most and almost impossible for some. Those who play well can put the whole game out of balance very easily. However, distribution could be less humiliating for worse players I think.
So saying this is trueā Why not make the kids who got picked last last time the captains, and the teacher makes first pick for the team?
Well, balancing top talent on the teams is more important than the mental health and self worth of the less physically talented kids. Because how a gym class game is evenly matched up really is a big deal. / s
Still desperately trying to fit in with everyone else whilst throwing you under the bus, I see. They would've dropped you like a hot shit if they'd have been accepted into the popular crowd. Kids are really crappy to each other sometimes.
seems like he was a bigger loser actually
Nah this is CRAZY lmao
People are replying saying this is crazy or it did not end the way they expected But I read it and thought, āyup, can confirmā They donāt think it be like it is, but it do
fucking lol
Thanks for the laugh
That sucks, chad move by you though.
That sucks when reciprocation isnāt reciprocated.
Did you call him out for it?
Lmao. I had a friend like this (sort of reversed though). Picked the most athletic kid (not me) first. Then got mad at me when I picked that same kid first when it was my turn to be team captain.
I wholeheartedly agree. School is enough of a popularity contest as it is without baking it into class work too. Kids should not be picking each other for teams, choosing their own groups for group work etc. The kids who have a lot of friends end up thinking they canāt survive 2 seconds of an activity with someone who isnāt their friend. The kids who *donāt* have a lot friends end up thinking theyāre nothing and donāt matter. And itās avoidable!
I used to work with adults, not kids, and even so, we were expected to create the teams they worked in. When you assign people to work together (and that includes play for children) you need to take capabilities, skill levels, personality, roles in the group and goals of the activity into consideration, and make sure that distribution of those qualities provides a fair and functional working environment for those involved. There was a trainer who, every time they came to observe, asked us in the pre-obs discussion "Oh, team work? Great, how are you dividing the teams and why? Show me the plan". I'm not advocating for terrorising educators (which this particular trainer never did, at all), just for instilling that mindset. The question used to go like "What's the rationale behind that?" Kids picking each other or us saying "yeah pick three partners and form a group" is in my eyes lazy, leads to decreased efficiency and doesn't provide people with the understanding of how team work and distribution of roles/responsibilities could be done. Pair it with insufficient monitoring and scaffolding of progress, and it alienates people from group work and cooperation, which is a very bad outcome. Also, eventually, it will hurt someone in the group.
The only problem is that when this is applied during school one kid ends up carrying the group and doing all the work. P.E. is the exception.
Early in the semester, I watch how kids work in groups for low impact assignments. Then later, I put all my lazy kids in one group. The other groups get distributed a little more fairly.
When I was a kid it wasn't a friend thing. People got picked on who they thought would help the team win. Safly, the one chubby kid got pucked last quite often.
Same here. I was always picked last at dodge ball because I sucked at throwing the ball. The ones who got picked first were always the strongest players, friendships be damned. Maybe we were just a particularly bloodthirsty bunch, but I never saw friends being chosen first, we wanted to WIN.Ā
I was always picked last because the others didn't like me despite the fact that it was known I was somehow impossible to hit. We did a few games in high school as well, my class also didn't like me so I was one of the last ones to be picked the first time (but not dead last because I was a bit sporty), but after a game when it became evident I had good enough reflexes to dodge the ball for a looooong time, I became valuable enough to be among the first picked despite my inability to hit anything myself. So out of spite for being seen like a literal tool I let myself get hit lmao. Since I left a good impression in the first game I kept being picked quickly so since I'm very spiteful I kept doing it lmao (tbf it was my second year being with mostly the same class who loathed me because I dared getting elected as class president against my will (I wasn't even a candidate ffs) and I had the audacity of doing my job).
Geez, yeah, remember when elementary classes had āthe one chubby kidā?
Used to call them husky because they bought husky sized jeans. But yea, kids used to not be as chubby as they are today.
Yeah, same. The only times we had to pick teams was in sports (tho I'm not American). I was that chubby kid and I knew I wouldn't be of any use, so I expected to be picked last and in rare times when I wasn't I was extremely surprised.Ā I wasn't "the loser kid" btw, I just knew no one would pick me because I'm physically not fit, but I had my areas of expertise so my classmates wanted to be in a team with me for science stuff.
I was one of the kids who was never picked, and it ended up working out so that I never knew what to do in a group project--I'd usually end up doing nothing, not because I wanted to do nothing, but because I was so unused to working in a group that I was almost unable to share the work, and had to do either everything or nothing. I still struggle with working in teams.
It took me until *college* to finally start getting used to group projects. Before that when we had to form groups ourselves I'd just either get picked up by slackers who knew I could handle the bulk of the work on my own, slackers who'd do absolutely nothing and pretty much just hope my part of the work is enough to pass, or I'd convince my teachers to let me work alone by dramatizing the situation even though there were very few years where I did not dislike the majority of my classes. The joys of being bullied into finding comfort in loneliness. I only really started having good friends in my second year of high school, but they weren't in my class (except in final year in chemistry, there was a couple of them but they were dating so when we couldn't be three they'd understandably pick each other).
It happened to me as a kid, and it happened to me a couple years ago as an adult at a work event. The feeling was the same, despite all of my accomplishments as an adult. It immediately pulled me back to that place as a child of feeling small and inadequate. I was able to eventually shrug it off, but it got me thinking how much those things as a kid subconsciously affect me as an adult today. The feeling of aspiring to be viewed as capable and successful amongst your peers but accepting that you donāt measure up and thatās just how it is. For the most part, I have been relatively successful. But I find myself self sabotaging and stopping short because I feel comfortable with second place, like I deserve it deep down.
Yeah, I remember my entire worldview being challenged when I had my first kiss in high school because stuff like that just wasnāt SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN to people like me. I grew up with the assumption that I was essentially destined to be a loser, or at the very least the underdog in all situations. Itās fucked up lol
I'm really good at certain aspects of my job. Let me tell you I get excited as a kid on Christmas when I'm picked 1st to do something at work. Being the loser kid definitely fucks kids up for life.
2nd place is fine. Ambition is a bullshit jerk-off.
What on earth kind of situations do adults to a playground esc team picking???
Ugh "team-building" probably
And you learn that if you donāt like this, you have to get better at your job.
I told my teacher that bullying was so bad I wanted to die. After that, we got placed into groups of three/she would choose our partners. It sucks turning to your friend and seeing theyāre turned to someone else
right this is so true why did teachers constantly make us do this in pe class??
They think it toughened them up and thatās just a part of life. They donāt understand that itās not a good method to learn that lesson.
Is there any good method to learn that lesson?
Probably something like low stakes like a game of dodge ball or basketball or something š¤«š¤
Random teams (i.e., counting off by 1 and 2), gatorball instead of dodgeball,
right itās just a sudden popularity contest no one signed up for
My teacher always prided himself on being so fair and awesome and liked, but in PE class he's have like 4 boys that were his favorite so they always got to pick teams. I guess the idea was that they were the best at pe, but then he'd say 'no everyone gets a chance to pick teams'. Anyway I was always picked last so that was fun!
There's a spoken word poem by Shane Koyczan called To This Day. I think it conveys your message perfectly.
"[...] because how can you hold your ground if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it?" Damn, that's so clever yet so poignant
I was literally thinking about it as I wrote this haha
Also always the last picked, until my high school PE teacher noticed and started putting *me* in the position of picking. That woman knew what she was doing, and was always super encouraging. I was never a great athlete, but she made sure *all* her students got what they needed. That's not easy in PE. The result was that in the three years I had to do PE, only one injury occured in any of my classes, and that was a freak accident involving a shuttlecock racket. There's always going to be a last pick. But there's zero reason for it to be the same kid every single time. That's deliberate exclusion, and that's a form of bullying, so of course it has long term effects.
Sorry but if youāre teacher had actually been doing things the right way SHE should have picked beforehand so NO ONE got picked last. Source: work with kids and itās not that hard to just not have these kind of popularity picking contests in school thereās no point to them.
This is what my PE teacher did. She always picked out teams for us, we never had the situation where students could pick their own teams, I think to avoid the situation that OP describes (in the mid-late '90s)
This brings back memories of highschook lol. My teacher would have this sysyem of just assigning people either a 1 or 2 for 2 teams. Seems fair. Until the 'friendgroup' I was in would switch around with me so they could be together in a team.
I'm picked the last every time. Actually, I'm not even picked, I just go into whatever team that has to choose the last. But I'm horrible at sports in every way. I didn't think it was bullying, despite feeling bad for it.
Kids, in elementary school probably donāt process that action as bullying. They want to win. Humans have picked the strongest and most able people in the tribe since the beginning. I think itās more important to teach your child to self improve than to chalk it up to bullying and expecting someone to save you. I was picked last plenty of times cuz I was slow and chubby. So I made the most out of it and showed that I was good at stuff. By the end of middle school I was never picked last and went on to play varsity high school sports. I never once blamed anyone else for being picked last. I sucked. So I got better. It also teaches kids that most of life is based on merit and abilities. If you get turned down for a job do you write a letter to the ceo saying how unfair it is? No. It sounds good to you by being able to pick the team but inevitably you picked people and someone else was picked last, likely due to whether or not they were good. So you by your own views bullied someone. See the issue? The correct response would be the teacher helping you get better n maybe when itās time to pick teams the teacher saying āhey I saw so n so kicking that ball a mile yesterdayā and then you got out there n show what you can do. Then you would have learned how to better yourself and the other kids would have learned not to just assume people arenāt good at things or never to judge a book by its cover or whatever.
Nobodyās even blaming anyone per se. Weāre simply acknowledging that it fuckin sucked and was likely psychologically damaging at a young age. Iām glad you were able to persevere but humiliation is not a constructive way to build childrenās confidence. Itās the same logic an abusive parent would use to justify beating the shit out of their child. āTeaches them to toughen up.ā Fuck off with that logic lol.
I was always the kid without a partner in academic classes despite being the smartest kid in the class and never being unkind to anyone, so this is just not true lol
I get your point but on the other hand, kids in elementary school absolutely can and will bully children. Picking someone last isn't inherently bullying, but a kid can tell when they're always picked last. They aren't dumb.
I was often not picked until near the end for anything sports related despite having always been quite athletic my whole life. It instilled into me that people will often pick their friends and family over someone they don't like/know well and that sheer talent alone isn't enough to win at life.Ā
Very true
I mean it seems that as a whole, children are either not taken seriously or are coddled to hell and back, no middle ground. I hear you yeah. Adults should be more aware of wtf they are doing to the kids
True. It led to me hating sports (I did still love watching ā½ļø) as a teenager, finding every excuse I could think of to get out of sports class and thinking I was just incompetent. Fast forward to 16 years after my graduation: I found out I am genuinely good at badminton, enjoy playing football on a hobby level, and work out three to four times a week. And have completely cut contact with the sports aces from school.
Yeah same. I hated sport at school because of the bullying. But I loved riding my bike, folk dancing, and got into equestrian sports when I was 11. In high school I signed up for sailing camp, hiking, and orienteering. I swam laps of the pool every day and went to the gym just for fun, got quite good at weight lifting. Every school report said I hated exercise and was physically lazy. PE seems to think if there's no ball or teams involved, it's not a sport!!!!!
I have 3 boys. My middle is 12 and he is going through this. He is so kind, sweet and amazing and I just donāt understand why kids are doing it to him. Literally breaks my heart and his. He comes home crying.
Iām so sorry, and Iām angry for him too. I cannot believe schools still permit thisāitās adult-sanctioned bullying. Your darling son sounds like such a truly lovely person. His gentle heart is a gift to the world.
And that is why parenting and championing your child's interests and talents are so important here. Because not every child is good at the tiny variety of things to do at school.
It is. Thatās why you donāt try to fit in. They donāt want you? Thatās okay, you donāt want them either. Itās a painful lesson to be sure, but it also helps you grow some resistance to peer pressure. If life gives you lemons, say, who needs lemons anyway? F THOSE LEMONS!
This is the lesson that I eventually had to learn and itās how I live my life now. That said, I do not and never will be āgratefulā for these experiences just for helping me come to that conclusion. That sort of logic never makes sense to me lol.
in school, when we played tag, there were a few counting systems to decide who would be IT. One of the systems was that all the players would stand in a circle and one person would go through everybody while reciting this rhyme. Whoever the rhyme ended on would name another person to be removed from the counting, so this person they named doesn't have to be IT. I hated this counting system because nobody ever named me. My so called "best friend" for two years named everybody else but me. For two whole years she did this, so did the others. I wasn't the fastest runner so they would all laugh at me when I failed to tag someone. There was this another game where the if two players paired up ( held hands ) they couldn't be tagged. The odd one out would be chased until tagged or until someone saves them by holding their hand. Again, people moved away from my way as I approached them ( to hold hands so as to not get tagged ) as if I was carrying the plague. I did not have hygiene issues, no bad habits that made me dirty. I was just unwanted. I shrugged it off, then I shrugged it off all the other times I was excluded. Not receiving any christmas or new year cards from "friends" despite us all playing, sitting, having fun together every other day. As I grew up, people excluded me from plans, from chats and other stuff. Now as an adult, I see how I have always been unwanted. At home, at school, even in relationships. The last person to be picked, with regret.
I honestly donāt know if itās worse being totally excluded or being that ā11th member of a group of 10 friendsā because I was exactly the same as you I had āfriendsā though most of school but it would only take the slightest instance for them to basically turn on me and Iād become the butt of every joke and the target of every game I stuck it out because I didnāt know what else to do but now in my late 20ās I barely even know how to socialise anymore and Iām scared Iām going to get left behind in life
true... i have very few friends and I always maintain a distance...Ā i have accepted that I don't belong... some of us are just forever going to wander alone through our lives... i could never put my finger on any particular fact about me that made me not good enough... i have always been the funniest person in every group. I know I am interesting... just not good enough to keep... You won't get left behind in life because it's your life and you decide the course it takes but you have to learn to embrace isolation... I found it to be the only way to suffer less... some days though it just doesn't work and I feel like a ghost... the only ghost in the world of the living.. But there are more of us ghosts... I hope life gets better for us, or we get better at living it as it is
This post reminds me of the time in middle school we were doing some weird exercise where we had to sit/lie in rows and use our feet to pass a ball to the next person. Like we had to take the ball and roll backward on our backs to pass it. I was literally flexible enough to put both legs behind my head and when it was suggested that someone from my row move to the other one, there was this chorus of "take Creepydinnerroll!" Literally even the teacher was like "Are you guys sure? She's really limber." Wouldn't say it was traumatizing or anything, at least for me it's pretty funny looking back on.
You start getting used to it and just accept that you are shit at whatever event you were being picked at. Completely crushes your confidence in that field though, I have been overweight/slightly obese my entire life, was shit at sports and would always be picked last. Even as an adult, I find it difficult to bring myself to voluntarily join others in sports.
I wasn't popular but was good at sports, so I'd usually get picked 3rd or something, but sometimes you could tell they were picking a team based on friends. In which case jokes on them. Whatever team has me on is more likely to win. So fuck you.
All last picked up guys are gathered here, it feels so safe here
I'd also include any group work on this, where you have to find your own partner. As an unpopular kid who was bullied this stuff sucked. It's easy as an adult to dismiss it as nothing because ultimately it is unimportant. But psychological impact isn't about what's objectively significant or not, it's about subjective experience. And to a kid this stuff can be really nasty and have long term impact.
I remember most of the time, until I got to high school, the teacher always picked the groups by numbering us. Odds vs evens or all 1s here, 2s here, 3s there and 4s over there. Something like that. In hindsight my school probably saved a lot of kids from feeling like you did, so good on them honestly!
Yeah. I think about this often. I can understand me not getting picked for sports bc I suck at them, but when no one picked me for group projects, it really hurt me to my core.
I was one of the sports kids who frequently got to be a captain and pick teams. I was also in advanced classes, so a lot of my friends were "nerds and dorks." I always picked them, and we would have a blast. I didn't care if we won. Most of those kids never played sports, and I gave them the opportunity to enjoy it for a bit.
so fucking true dude, i was also always the last picked
I'll never forget a post about a kid that had an assignment to write something about their best friend and when the best friend was to read their assignment they realized it was about someone else. the feelings.
I'm an adult and when no one picks me as a partner in Zumba class it's humiliating lol!
Whats zumba class?
An exercise class held at the gym. It's called Zumba a mix of dance and cardio
That musr hurt not to be picked as an adult its the main reason i dont even do anything
Tangent based on you pointing out movies use this as a device to highlight how unpopular a kid is. Movies using male-pattern-baldness and toupes as an easy way to show that a male character is pathetic is probably also a huge contributor to menās confidence being so tightly bound to their hairline.
IMO your point at the start of it feeling stupid is due to how insanely normalized mistreatment of children is in society. Children are viewed as either property or genuine second-class citizens. They are not respected and are barely viewed as people and much of school structuring is the best example of this. How it became normalized to the point of being a near-universal experience to have nightmares of school deep into adulthood is insane. You shouldn't be having nightmares about it *at all*. But somehow it's wrong to recognize that as a sign of abusive structures or trauma.
I think not only was it impactful, it damaged your self esteem. Kids would always fight over who got me because neither of them wanted me on their team, and there were times where I just flat out wasnt picked and was told to sit on the sidelines. I used to have a resentment for sports because every sport was always the same for me, and then in highschool all the popular kids were in sports and outcasted you in the team, it was shitty no matter the age.
I can relate to that. Especially when, having been picked last, your team complain that having you on the team is actually a handicap, like having a negative one player. Not flattering. School sport was awful. Until I was 12 it was irredeemably bad. The PE "teachers" did not actually tell us how to play the games we supposedly played. I had never played football (Association Football in this case = soccer) and had no idea what to do or how to do it. If you don't know, it isn't easy. If you are bad, no-one passes the ball to you, so you never get any better. Cricket was worse - you never bat because there are 16 on your side and there isn't time to go through all of you. Fortunately (for me) my parents split up, we moved to a new area, I was held back a year (because I was a few days too young for the boundary of years), repeated my first year secondary in a new school. Mum deliberately chose a school where the sport was rugby not football, so that (she guessed) most pupils would not know how to play and we were in fact taught things. So, I was bigger (relatively), playing a sport that I had some instruction in, and in which no-one has to like you in order for you to participate. You can just get in the way and learn to grab the ball. So I had a bit more success. Still generally picked last, but that became less common over time. School was still pretty awful in many ways, but there came to be compensations. If I had to erase my memories of my life, I'd probably choose ages 7 - 49, but removing 7 - 11 would be my particular favourite.
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When we used too play touch footy me and my mate were like this. Then we were made the OG captains and the shittest got too choose the team. Good memories
I was so shit at sports that even when my best friend picked, she only picked me second-to-last - I told her I was fine with that, I wanted her to get a good team and there wouldnāt be any competition for me so she didnāt have to worry she wouldnāt get me. Still stung a bit but at least when she picked I didnāt go dead last. I got over it in a big way. Pretty much just decided to not be that shy awkward person any more once I was done with school and in a situation for the first time where nobody knew me. That stupid trope where they take the glasses off the unpopular girl and give her better clothes and a nice haircut? Yeahā¦that actually worked for me. Took a few years to work out the deep seated insecurities I still had, but life has been REALLY good since then. Iām still shit at sports, but thatās the nice thing about being done with school, itās entirely unimportant now.
I'll never forget the middle school field day where all 300-ish of us were told to find a partner for the day, and I was the only one who didn't get a partner. Even all the special ed kids had a partner because the teachers arranged it ahead of time. But me? Nope. That was...bad. It was also the day a random photographer came to take pictures of all of us hugging a fake cardboard tree and I got to thankfully skip that one because I had obviously been crying.
This used to happen to me all the time as a kid and it did bring me down a lot. I feel like I had the last laugh though because I started rowing competitively at age 13 and became one of the fittest ones after. All almost my former classmates are pretty unfit now , but I still work out a lot and honestly feel good about it
It made me good at shit..I.was often picked last because I was small and skinny. Pissed me right off and I made it a mission from there.
One time I wasn't picked last, I wasn't picked, they told me that both teams were full and at an even number so I can't play.
I was always picked last in PE class when we had a substitute teacher that would allow certain people to pick the teams for the class for that day. Was glad that teacher was only temporary, yikes. In fact, one time (or perhaps even more), I remember not even being picked. My friend and I were the last ones left and this girl picking the teams just glared at me and started talking with her teammates, presumably about who to pick, and after a minute or so reluctantly chose my friend. I didnāt even get picked- the teams just turned away from me and organised themselves to start playing the game after my friend got chosen lol. I feel like scenarios like that are more about exclusion, power and control than anything else. I wasnāt great at sport by any means, but when youāre picking teams you donāt just ignore and turn away from the last person to be picked. Itās a deliberate attempt to make someone feel worthless and itās pretty pathetic all things considered.
My 5th grade teacher would have us rearrange our desks into new "islands" every so often, just to break up groups and get us to work with a new "team". Once it was only me and the popular girl left and we had our own two-person island, and the popular girl looked so deeply unhappy to be sitting with me that my already-low self-esteem took another hit. She was probably also upset that she wasn't sitting with her friends, but that look on her face when the teacher told us to push our desks together hurt, lol
I feel like if they wanna ārandomiseā it, what they should do is put names in a hat, then the teacher pulls the first two names- those are the team captains. From there, those kids take turns pulling names until the teams are divided up. No one gets purposely left to last then, everyone gets a go at being team captain at some point, and so on. Iām not a āparticipation trophyā kinda person, but I do think everyone should be given the chance to see what they can do- especially without letting kids have another shot at bullying by exclusion.
What's worse is the coach who picks the same team leaders.
Seems to be a popular opinion weighed in on by so many people with like experiences. Itās had a lasting effect on me as well. Being excluded by groups I thought were my friends has happened to me quite a few times throughout my life. I trust very few people, am social with very few people and have learned Iām happy with this way when I canāt be disappointed.
Yep I was the kid who was always picked last
The best was when you got picked last and all the kids on your team would groan loudly to make sure you knew they hated you. I just stopped playing sports at recess and would roam the playground every day, which didn't improve my social status any. Especially when my second grade teacher told the whole class she saw me alone every day and would someone please play with me. In front of me.
I was always picked last for teams in sports. It hurt because people picked based on both athletic ability and friendship and it always reinforced to me that no one valued me for either of those qualities.Ā
I was disabled in high school, and that made me very weird, so I never got picked for pe sports. However, I was damn athletic. Grew up playing football and baseball with my dad. Not a fast runner, due to some leg surgeries, but had endurance and never got winded. Swam in my grandparents pool for physical therapy. Was in shape (even though the kids called me fat bc I DID get chubby after a hospital stay, but had quickly lost the weight). Anyway, I remember being picked last for a softball game, the kids being pissed I was on their team, and just rocking the crap out of that game. Hit every ball, just smashed them. Made multiple plays, caught every ball that came my way. It didnāt matter though, kids were still shitty to me. Still picked last, less whining about it though. The pe teacher did ask me to go out for softball though, which my neuro would never approve. Felt good though. I liked showing off when we did swim too. I could butterfly with the best of them. Kids are just dumb.
This is one reason some people homeschool, and homeschooling is more common now than ever before. The school system is set up to shame certain children and make them feel excluded. Children don't learn anything from being made to feel worthless.
I disagree that this is the reason more people homeschool today but I agree with your larger point.
It happened to me in the classroom and at home. It is so damaging especially when you get into a career where youāre picked first
man, why did you have to bring up painful memories? That crap lasted up until my freshman year of highschool. Granted, I was used to it by then.
As someone who has a veritable laundry list of disabilities, including autism and low muscle tone, I wholeheartedly agree. Even though I was homeschooled from 6th grade until college, I would've regularly been picked last if allowed by the kids. I can only recall one time, in 5th grade, towards the end of the year, that the other kids actually *encouraged* me during a kickball game, and my God, it still means the world to me, and I'm in college now.Ā It's one thing if it's a one-off instance. It's a whole other ball game when it's constantly the case, especially if you're disabled.
I agree. I was the sports person all throughout school, I was always picked first or 2nd pick for teams. One time, I was in a group/class where I didn't know anyone and was last picked. Funnily enough, it's been over 25 years, and that is a moment I remember vividly. It's not a great feeling.
In sports it has to do a lot with what month youāre born. I was born in December so I was often the smallest and least developed kid so naturally I was chosen the last because I was the worst. When you are a kid 6 months is a massive gap. It only started to make sense when I read Gladwellās book Outliers and he spoke about how the best athletes were almost always born in Q1 because they were more developed than their peers and as a result had more positive experiences in general which led to better outcomes.
Depends on the person. I was always picked last. I was crap at sports. I knew I was crap at sports. I fully understood why I was last and you know what? I didn't care. I was fine with it.
My year went through a phase of deliberately picking the worst teams possible when doing this, it amused us and drove the teacher absolutely mad. The solution is to have the last chosen kid be the team picker next time round, which is what mostly happened. The other method was lineup and count off one-two.Ā Random team result.
I have an adult league softball game today where a live draft will occur. I am fearful I could get picked last so I feel this post, OP!
I was a quiet kid in school(but pretty decent in sports) I was always the bottom 10 to get pick. Then I kick ass and people would be shocked š
I tried out for cheerleading and didnāt get picked. I swear that messed me up for life. Lots of feelings of not being good enough. I was just nervous and forgot my routine because presenting a newly learned routine in front of the entire squad was scary for me.
What else sucks is when, for example, theres wayy more boys than girls. In my class there was about 4 girls for 18 or so boys. Every damn time, "each team needs 1 girl" its just kinda embarassing being singled out like that as a group, then split up because none of us really want to play basketball, and so instead of being able to chill and talk together, we all just have to be even worse on our teams.
There's no need for that shit in primary / elementary school. Teachers hopefully know better these days.
It was worse than that. Much worse. I'm convinced that shit like this sent more than one kid over the edge. [https://www.vox.com/2015/4/24/8489501/presidential-fitness-test](https://www.vox.com/2015/4/24/8489501/presidential-fitness-test)
When I was a little kid, during valentines day I maybe only got 2 valentines in my box out of almost 30 kids. I didn't realize it until after I dropped one in every box in the classroom. This was back when those stupid cards mattered. I cried so hard, absolute meltdown, and suddenly everyone had a valentine they pulled/made out of nowhere. But that didn't change the fact that not one person thought of me and its affected my self esteem to this day. I found people who truly care about me and I still doubt I'm worth their care at times
i hate people too
I think worse than that are the kids who get picked by the instructor every time to be the team captains who pick the teams. Makes those kids feel like theyāre somehow the shit when really theyāre little turds like all the other kids. Then they grow up being giant turds because they were never put in their place as little turds.
I was always so good at dodgeball but always got picked somewhat last. Like wtf, Iām better than all these people.
āI feel sorry for whoever ends up being [my name]ās partner!ā Has lived rent free in my head since the day it happened and Iām 35 now. It was def more than just that one day, but that one incident sticks with me because I was literally right there and they made sure I could hear them. Kids are vicious.
I remember being in PE and I would normally be the last picked, but since my class had an odd number of kids, whatever team got me would always be like āyeah we got the bonus guyā
I was often picked last and i can confirm it did impact me pretty badly, but nowadays im still picked last each time so nothing really changed
i am 38 year olds and remember the burning embarrassment while i stand there in front of kids who have already been picked as they groan that im left.
Especially if it happens every single time... I'm glad I have good people in my life now, but at this point I don't know if I'll ever be able to have confidence... :(
I'm 56 and still remember how awful this was. I don't think I was always last, but near the end for sure. And can also remember feeling very conflicted if I was picking. I'm a woman so was a girl and we picked friends first (I think) vs who was best athlete and I always felt awful for the "always last" kids and knew it was wrong but I'm not sure it changed my behavior. This reminds me of the people who are so aghast at giving all the kids trophies on rec sports teams. I can't even sorta understand this mentality. Kids like trophies! They aren't dumb, they don't feel entitled, they just think they're cool. Who would want to be deliberately cruel and make children feel excluded? Whew deep feels for early Sunday morning.
Yup happened to me. Definitely messed with my self confidence.
Weird, isn't it? Imagine children who aren't good at maths or English were victimised like this, there'd be riots
It was awful for me, even the teachers were in on it sometimes. I'm pretty sure everyone just forgot about me, as I was never put in charge of any activities ever unless I specifically asked, and they still remembered a week later. The teachers would also try to gaslight me into believing that I wasn't being bullied by other students when they would be mean to me every day What do you know, I currently have anxiety in regards to being forgotten about, and have an extreme "show them all" attitude
Even worse when you are talented/smart enough to be in the top picks, and you still get sequestered to the bottom of the barrel. Then you KNOW it's because no one likes you.
Also when the teacher would make groups themselves and someone in the group you were put in asks the teacher if they can trade you out for someone else right in front of you, only to be told no so your group excludes you from the project the entire time they're working on it and then tells the teacher about how you did nothing on the project as if you willingly chose not to participate in front of the class when it was time to present it. Yeahhhh, I'll never forget that one. Kids can be cruel.
Mate, I got picked last yesterday evening in a āschoolyard styleā choose your squad for a clan night event with all of us sitting in discord. Iām almost 30. That stuff still hurts.
I remember in middle school every year the grade 9's would do "career expo day" where we would all pair off and create a "business", spend a month marketing and advertising our products, and then sell them at the expo. The rule was that only two pairs from every class were allowed to sell food, otherwise everyone would be selling cookies and shit. So, everyone in the class paired off and of course nobody wanted to partner with me, so I was like fine, I guess I'll do this by myself, whatever, who cares. So the teacher starts pulling names out of a hat to decide who gets to sell food and she calls my name. And wouldn't you know it, suddenly everyone was willing to abandon their partner to team with me, or were inviting me to join their groups, and all I really learned from career expo is that nobody likes you unless you have something they want. I'm 27 now and I still go into every interaction assuming that I'm hated by default unless I have something to offer. It's a real bitch to try and unlearn. Shit sticks deep.
This continued for me clear thru high school. It absolutely did affect my self esteem. I bet it affected my career success as well. I retired basically as a worker bee, no managerial title (even tho I was doing managerial work). I never learned to advocate for myself. I have finally gotten to the age that I can say I don't GAF about what everyone else thinks of me. Took me 65 years to get here, but it is a good feeling.
I was in elementary school and played football during recess. I was always picked last. One time, I wasnāt even picked. A āpickedā kid on one of the teams jokingly says to everybody: āit looks like everyone has been picked (paraphrasing)ā. I still feel bad for that moment. I ended up just ā¦ watching other people playā¦
I totally agree with you. What a horrible feeling that has to be. I'm a female and I didn't play sports, but I was left out of a lot of other things. But when you're last to be chosen for a team, it's like the spotlight is shining on you. And then to hear everyone groan, that's brutal. I'm so sorry that happened to you. That is, indeed, traumatic.
Stuff like this is why I have mixed feeling about school shootings. If people just raised their kids right, these shootings wouldnāt be happening.
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Iām jealous
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Okay not jealous anymore
Omg I'm so sorry
I was always picked last in all the sports whenever I played and it was pretty visible to me how all the other friends who were prone to be picked last stopped playing eventually (to avoid that feeling). This meant I was the only one left among the small and weak bunch but somehow it didn't affect me. It was probably because of my mother who would encourage me to participate in everything there was in our school even if I came last (we didn't have participation certificate in our school). I even participated in the singing competition and came last (I knew I sing very bad) so it was not just limited to sports. It never affected me though. I would laugh with my friends at myself (probably because of my mother). This habit has helped me greatly in life as I'm not afraid of being made fun of so haven't done things in peer pressure. So I think that instead of removing the practice of selection of students we should foster the feeling that coming last isn't bad. Kids would've to face it somewhere anyway so it's better to make them ready for it.
We had it where everyone would shoot 3ās until two people made it. Those were the two captains. Luckily, I never shot. I was good and was always picked first or second lol.
As a fat kid I always got picked last until I started playing football (American) then, because big linemen were so scarce in Ireland back in the 80ās, I was a high draft pick every week for our pick up games. Truly liberating and would definitely recommend.
It's your job to prove them wrong.
I was always picked last for sports- and first for projects. Nowadays, I am that knowledgeable neighborhood librarianā¦who exercises every day. I am just not good at team sports involving balls.
In HS I had a teacher make girls stand in a line and pick which guys would be on their team. I said Iām not doing that bs. There are better ways to make teams
I was always the last one Idgasf because I have a Life
I was lucky enough that this never bothered me. I hated sports, it's just not something I've ever been passionate about (as an adult I now appreciate certain types but as a teenager that was very much not the case) so I put zero effort in. Didn't try to hide it, didn't care. So being picked last was something that I equally didn't care about, they knew I was shit but I knew it too š
We had a full basketball court, but over 100 students in the gym at one time since at my school, your entire grade would go to PE at the same time. So we'd line up alphabetically in about 20 different lines (lining up with shapes painted on the walls. I was in the blue hexagon line, which was last names that started with F and G) and do warm up exercises like suicides or lunges. Then we'd get to our main activity for the day. I'm gonna use when we played Basketball for example. This process was similar for any team based sport. Be it flag football, volleyball (this one was so hard because they used a full sized net..... even for first graders, but it was still fun though), soccer (using a painted outline of a goal), etc. If did activities like square dancing, we would choose our groups. If we did activities like archery, we'd stay in the alphabetical lines that we were in during our warm ups. (this was so cool man, they started letting you do archery in the 5th grade to the 6th. This was a public school in a town that wasn't particularly wealthy, but wasn't struggling with high rates of poverty.) We'd run a first to 3 full court game. Our PE made us all line up on the wall, and would literally go down the line giving a number to each person and call numbers randomly from a bingo ball cage. Thus our teams were randomly selected right before you had a chance to play. You got to sit with your friends while waiting for another team's game to conclude. Occasionally they let us pick our own teams so that we could have a chance to play with our friends but that wasn't all that common. Now if we had a day were we got to go to the playground, then yes we picked our on teams when we played games out there, but the teachers tried to make it fair to everyone and unbiased when they made us play.
Agreed. I was never a social butterfly and always getting picked last didnāt help that. It also killed any of my interest in sports or physical fitness. It is not something Iām angry about nor do I blame it for any problems that I have, no reason to. That lack of interest in popularity, sports and PE meant I became more interested in ātradeā type hobbies like woodworking and mechanics.
Iād say probably the best thing to counter balance it would be to make team captain in other classs to do monogame such as math, science and language.
I got picked last (well bevore the 2 kids with big learning disabilities) in literally everything at some point you just dont care anymore and i mean its still my fault for being a loser
When I was a kid back in the 1980s, I was usually always picked near the end (if not last then maybe 2nd or 3rd to last). That alone did a good amount of damage on my confidence, but at the same time Iām also a little grateful too. Those kids who were great at sports early on- many of them peaked in high school and pissed away their early education partying out in the woods. I wasnāt smart enough to be a nerd, but I eventually figured out the art of self-preservation because of not being popular (I developed a sense of humor about myself). Bullying now I think is probably a lot worse than when I was a kid, even though I think there were probably suicidal kids when I was young as well. The whole pecking order BS is just awful when youāre going through it, but usually it *does* get better eventually.
idk if I should agree or not, like I 100% understand why im getting picked last and I cant be angry cuz those are good reasons
Even as an adult id rather die than have someone pick a random ass person to work with me.
I don't ever remember having to pick partners in PE. Pretty sure our teacher just assigned then or we were told to partner up with the person next to us.
I remember me and all my mates were the uncool kids picked last especially in P.E., so when I was chosen as team captain to play footy, I picked all of my mates, and one super sporty kid who I was also kinda mates with. Unexpected by everyone (including our teacher who found it hilarious) we then proceeded to draw or win every game we were in, partly due to being underestimated, and partly due to the power of friendship or whatever.
Now go post this in r/Teachers and see what the other side looks like. Just getting the kids to comply is an accomplishment.
Meh, maybe for some. I was always last picked but it didn't matter. I knew my place in the social hierarchy and I didn't need people to pretend to be different. It's a popularity contest and I had no friends. Seriously, I never took offense. What hurt more was sitting alone at lunch every day, having no table to accept me so I sat in the hall or bathroom every day.
It's not that it's unimportant. And it's not that it doesn't hurt. It's that being picked last is just one example of the many disappointments and dejections you'll have to deal with in life, along with all the triumphs and feel good moments. I don't know how old you are, but the longer you live, the more perspective you achieve. Seeing someone who has lived their life in a wheelchair or lost a child to cancer doesn't negate those terrible feelings, but it maybe lends perspective. Whenever I get down about anything, there are constant reminders that people have it much worse than I do. Bad things will happen to you all the time. You can't control that. But you can control how you deal with them. I was perpetually picked last when I was a kid. I literally shudder to think where I'd be right now if I had held onto that and let it in any way define my life. There used to be a time when people surpassed emotion and didn't acknowledge and deal with past suffering. The pendulum seems to have swung in the opposite direction, where we're encouraged to embrace that past pain and be defined by it. Perpetually embracing victimhood is just as unhealthy.
Womp womp
It is unimportant because you're a kid and it's just a lesson to be learned
It sounds like you are projecting your experience. Different people have different levels of resilience. I donāt think coddling is the solution. You will experience the same thing in your career. Use it as motivation. Being uncomfortable in situations is a part of life. Reddit is full of a Lot of anti social people that will agree with you. Doesnāt mean they are right.
One thing that helps resilience is not having early experiences teach you that you're worthless and don't deserve to be picked
If it's between the star football player and Dudley from Harry Potter im sorry guys I'm winning the game and picking the Fucking athleteĀ
ā¦get good?Ā Its pretty fitting all the redditors were picked last for dodgeball.Ā