High School is a Social Suicide Dive

Is your hair in place? Does your clothing fit right? Is your make up applied as it is meant to be? Do you look pretty? Who cares if you think you look good, what will everyone else think!?
These are the questions many typical high-school students pelt themselves with before leaving the house. I personally am proud to say that I am among the ones who do not mind so much what others will think of us, but mind more what we think of ourselves. However we are sadly small in number.

You prepare yourself to walk the vicious hallway runway based on who you want to be with, what click you would like to be a part of. Perfect, clean and bright for preppy. Tattered, dark and “Hot-Topic” inspired for a more “emo”, “goth”, or “punk” look. Just grab a sweater vest and a bag to hide your head in if your aspirations amount to being stickered with the title “Dork”. 
For some this morning routine is typical, almost fun, natural. The desire to be “popular” and “cool” in this teenage wasteland is simply a part of them, truly nothing as artificial as it seems to the humans among us. For others, these morning thoughts are an agonizing test of how much pressure can be put on your nerves, how hard they masses have to push before you snap.
Whatever this is for you, I’d like to say a few words on it.

I’ll start by noting that for me, getting up and dressing myself is, relatively “easier” then a majority of high school students find it – my school has a coloured-coded dress code.
You wear Navy, White, Tan. No logos. No strapless shirts. No ass cheeks hanging out, and no belly rings on display. Of course, we’re teenagers, so we disobey most of the above listed rules. Basically everyone still wears American Eagle, Hollister and A&F, with the eagle and moose logos proudly on display. The teachers have basically given up on stopping us with that one. And we usually find one way or another to make it sluttish without causing trouble. But regardless of what colours I’m wearing I’ll still have my own style, thank you very much. And if I feel I look good, then your opinion is best to match mine, because otherwise it’s useless to me.

Now I don’t think anybody experiencing morning agony (or enjoyment) with this self questioning routine, really chooses to be obsessed, its just in teenage nature to be that self conscious. 
As somebody who cares a little less, or is more focused on how she feels about it then most anybody else – I would like to say this to those who care about the everybody else factor: “Everybody else” is just your audience. The world is Your runway, when your walking in it. And if you don’t like what your wearing, or it isn’t you that your showing, then why the hell do you think we want to see it!? I don’t want to walk down the hallway with my friends flaunting personalities in their clothing that they made up because the thought people they don’t know, and people they do know alike would appreciate it. I want to walk down the hallway, one in a group of people who want you to know just who we are, and what we are surely not.
It takes guts, yes. It takes A LOT of confidence, no shit. It takes confidence coming from your FRIENDS and FAMILY even more then it takes what you can pull out of your own little soul, that is obvious. But above all, it just takes good-old-fashion-balls (Hypothetically, of course Ladies.) You need to stop living for those around you and start living for you, because YOU are never going to get anywhere living for them.

So now, your all dressed up in that outfit that you’ve always dreamed of wearing, because YOU think it would be to-die-for cute, and it just makes you feel like, you, and that makes you want to dance, or sing, or shout – now what?
Are you going to leave the house? Go to school? The movies or the mall? Not alone, of course… grab a few good friends; everything’s more fun that way.
But then you get to the mall, and what’s’er-name is looking at you like you are a fashion tragedy! You get shaky and your loosing confidence the way a cobra snakes victim is loosing breath! What do you do? You have no choice; you walk right on past her like you don’t notice her. If she doesn’t like that you have confidence, what good was she to you?
Or that cute guy that you maybe sorta like is looking at you like he’s never seen a girl with personality before? Show it off, make him fall for you! Not a plastic whore. =)

But no, you didn’t listen to me, did you? You saw their faces, and you turned away without even reading their expressions. You decided this was a bad idea, and went to find comfort food at home. You took off your favourite outfit, and folded it neatly in your closet. You’ll go out again tomorrow, looking the way they want or expect you to?