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Confessions of a Teenage Nerd
By Ruth Kerr

A high school reunion is exactly like you see in the movies. Cheesy Grade 12 music blasts over the sound system. People fiddle with nametags bearing their (please!) graduation photos. Women embrace each other and exclaim, “You look EXACTLY THE SAME!” Men are more restrained, shaking hands and poking each other’s potbellies.

Welcome to your 20-year high school reunion, where former beauty queens are a little faded and folks who were once wallflowers hand out expensive business cards.

The high school reunion is not for the faint of heart, especially if you were a nerd as a teenager. You survey the room full of middle-aged people and recall, with a twinge of sadness, how things were way back when.

The Best Years?

When I was young, my well-meaning father often reminded me that teenagers were free from the worst things in life – a mortgage, utility bills, children with crooked teeth. “These are the best years of your life,” he warned.

To a girl in thick brown glasses and K-Mart pants, this was a grim prospect. Who wants to spend the best years of her life camouflaging homemade haircuts and watching Fantasy Island on Saturday nights?

In my high school, there were four groups of people: the “jocks” (sports-minded individuals); the “brains” (academic-minded individuals); the “heads” (narcotics-minded individuals); and the nerds (me). The pressure to belong to one of these cliques was enormous. The students in my school were not renowned for their views on individuality. I was different and I paid the price. My teenage years were a social wasteland—much to the delight of young neighborhood parents who needed a last-minute babysitter.

There has to be more to life than this, I told myself. The scorn and ridicule from classmates were, at times, almost overwhelming. I promised myself that after graduation I was never going to speak to those people as long as I lived.

Advice for Nerds Only

It’s tough being a nerd in high school. It’s easy to let your classmates become your entire world. Your peers scrutinize everything you do, say, or wear and they are not shy about voicing their disapproval. You might start to think people will always behave this way toward you. Will it ever get better? Is there life after high school?

In short, the answer is Yes. Here’s some advice from an aging nerd: Develop long-term vision. What they say is true—high school doesn’t last forever, and some day it will all seem like a bad dream. You really will graduate. After that, a year soon goes by, then two, then ten, and you suddenly realize your high school experiences are funny stories people request at parties.

More importantly, ask God for help. As a teenager, I often felt God had more important things to do than help some nerd cope with a day of high school. But that’s the great thing about God. He does have a million important things to do, and one of them is helping you get through “the best years of your life.”

Return of the Prodigal Nerd

I could not face my former classmates after graduation. I could not pretend I was glad to know them. But when the high school reunion rolled around, I relented. It was too tempting not to attend. Who can pass up the opportunity to see what your former tormentors look like now?

There were two great surprises. (1) All the people who thought they were so cutting-edge in high school now drive mini-vans. (2) Every person I met embraced me and said I looked EXACTLY THE SAME. (Thanks.) People actually waited in line to talk to me! You would have thought I was some rich old aunt handing out early inheritances.

Take it from someone who’s been there. It may not seem like it now, but before you know it you’ll be attending your own high school reunion. It’s then you’ll realize that high school cannot forecast real life. Sometimes, the best years of your life start after the “best years of your life.”