Roo: What’s your definition of popularity?
Hutch: I used to think people were popular because they were good-looking, or nice, or funny, or good at sports.
Roo: Aren’t they?
Hutch: I’d think, if I could just be those things, I’d – you know – have more friends than I do. But in seventh grade, when Jackson and those guys stopped hanging out with me, I tried as hard as I could to get them to like me again. But then . . . (shaking his head as if to clear it) I don’t really wanna talk about it.
Roo: What happened?
Hutch: They just did some ugly stuff to me is all. And really, it was for the best.
Roo: Why?
Hutch: Because I was cured. I realized the popular people weren’t nice or funny or great-looking. They just had power, and they actually got the power by teasing people or humiliating them – so people bonded to them out of fear.
Roo: Oh.
Hutch: I didn’t want to be a person who could act like that. I didn’t want to ever speak to any person who could act like that.
Roo: Oh
Hutch: So then I wasn’t trying to be popular anymore.
Roo: Weren’t you lonely?
Hutch: I didn’t say it was fun. (He bites his thumbnail, bonsai dirt and all.) I said it was for the best.
— E. Lockhart
#friends #loneliness #popularity #funny
