Redditor Desperate_Bluejay330 asked about all the about the students who scored all those A's.
"What happened to the smartest kid at your high school?"
I'm not sure about my smarty pants people. Now I have to go look them up.
Physical
Get Out Love GIF by T-SeriesGiphy"He was actually quite overweight. When he left for college, he was studying physics. Couple of years later, I learned that he lost 175 pounds, became super into fitness, dropped out of college and became a gym trainer."
Apprehensive_Bet_438
Into the Sky...
"He's a NASA scientist, while I just come on Reddit."
superdupernumnuts
"I heard that the smartest guy in my class worked at NASA. I just looked up his LinkedIn and he's a mechanical engineer who works in manufacturing. Nothing aerospace related. Still much more impressive than anything I've ever done."
NativeMasshole
A Good Life
"He lives in the same small village he was living in when we were in school, is married with kids and apparently works in an office in the nearest town. He had aspirations of becoming a surgeon when we were in school, it didn't happen, but it sounds like he's living a good life regardless."
zerbey
"Similar. Top in our class went and got a masters in math, then moved back home and became the local librarian, but they have a wonderful family. Didn't change the world but they're happy. That's the real dream."
Futurenazgul
Who Knows?
"I couldn’t tell you what 99% of people from my high school are doing now."
okay11654
"Lol... I got ya beat. I can honestly say that I have zero idea what 100% of the people I went to HS with are up to now. I graduated 22 years ago, the moment I was done… I was done lol."
Regular_Sample_5197
"I guess that shows that my high school friends were truly good friends and we got along because we have a Christmas gathering beer exchange each year since like 2011 or so. There’s like 30 of us."
LordNoodles1
Career Changes
Season 2 Lawyer GIF by MartinGiphy"Became a doctor, decided it wasn't for her and went to law school. Is currently a barrister as far as I know."
Barnaby_Cuckoldsniff
"Sounds like my paternal uncle! He became an electrical engineer, decided it wasn't his thing, then became a patent attorney."
PM_ME_YOUR_WEIRD_PET
Doctor and lawyer? I type. Lord I'm lazy.
Nefarious
Season 9 Phoebe GIF by FriendsGiphy"Completely fell off the radar. I assume he's running some sort of nefarious think-tank for a huge tech company or something."
ckuiper
Friends
"I still talk to him. He's a good friend of mine, still. He's an engineer at Google now. I am not."
Endymian
"Smartest guy in our class (finished Calc BC in 10th grade, ended up going to a local college to take discrete mathematics and linear Algebra, graduated from CalTech, etc.) ended up working at Google and Facebook as a data scientist. I would be shocked if his net worth wasn't in the mid 7 figures at this point just off of equity."
Amyndris
The 3
"There were 3 I would argue were the smartest. They were all neck and neck for the valedictorian and salutatorian title. 2 of them I was never really close to so I have no idea what they're doing exactly. One of them moved out half way across the country and had a child and the other was a Jehovah's witness and there was something about them not being allowed to go to university for what they wanted to do. Other than that I don't know what they're doing."
"The other was actually a good friend I knew since the 3rd grade but we fell in and out of each other's lives. Life changed directions for them as far as aspirations go. Originally he was part way through a master's program for human kinetics but he realized it wasn't going to pan out as expected so he went into teaching. Now he's married, has a kid and overall happy I believe."
wert989
Still call him...
"Valedictorian of my high school is still one of my best friends, I was even the best man at his wedding. He went to the Army after graduating from Yale, became a Ranger then went into JSOC or something. Now he has a wife and two kids and works at the Pentagon. I stayed the nerd route and became a chemical and petroleum engineer."
NinjaGrizzlyBear
Fit as a Fiddle
Working Out GIFGiphy"He's a scientist (something related to nutrition) and a big fitness Youtuber."
"As an interesting anecdote, he might have started go to the gym during the last couple years of grade school but was still unassuming and tiny. I removed him from Facebook shortly after and was pretty dumbfounded when I stumbled upon his channel years later."
"It's not hard to believe he was that successful but didn't expect to see him jacked or on Youtube."
"Also we lived in a relatively small and pretty redneck town. There were social groups and cliques like an 80's movie - Of the popular kids or jocks he was the only one to actively oppose his friends bullying people."
Digrug
Harvard Bound
"She got her Ph.D in Chemistry from Harvard and is now Dean of the Science Department at our local state university, of about 20k students. Went to a high school in a town of about 4,500 people. Still see her occasionally."
PhillyCSteaky
Double Major
He went to college and double majored in business and biomechanical engineering at a very good school. Graduated, and is apparently doing research for some big company. Dude is smart AF.
BrilliantWeight
Flip The Script
"Not my class, like 15 years after I graduated. I visited my hs to see an old teacher who was retiring. While talking to the principle he tells me about this student who was legit one of the most brilliant students the school had had in decades. He wanted to be a chef. (I am one). Cut to the graduation and he is due to give his speech."
"The one they approved was totally dropped. He gave a scathing tirade against all the teachers for not supporting him and kept pushing him to not follow his dreams and to just go to regular college. I heard it was brutal."
"(Kid had a scholarship to several top culinary programs already, his family owned a successful restaurant).
"He is a happy chef. His family doesn’t support the school anymore."
"My years smart folks are all married and grandparents by now."
MissMurderpants
Well it's nice to see that studying pays off... sometimes.
Campuses are full of different student demographics trying to co-exist, and when there are those who feel like they do not belong to a community, the lack of a connection can lead to a tendency of avoiding social interaction.
Curious to hear from those who actually acknowledged introverts, Redditor BuhnanaSlug asked:
"People who've befriended 'the quiet kid' in school, what things did you wish your other classmates knew about them?"
Adverse situations can influence people to be introverted.
Problems At Home
"He was sitting on a rock at school by himself, I said if I see him there again I'm ganna tell him he can't, he's gotta come hang out with us cause I didn't want to see him by himself anymore. He didn't have to talk to us if he didn't want to. I wasn't going to let him be a target to anyone."
"He intergrated into our group nicely and quick. We all joked that because he's quiet he'll murder someone mostly being me for making him be social and he ran with the joke, his social skills weren't on par with the rest of us."
"One day we both got to school early and we sat down where our group hung out together and he turned around and told me his dad went to jail the night before. His father had been belting his mother for a few years and I think it stunted a lot of his social skills. We've been best mates for the past 15 years now. He's often the life of the party when we all catch up! I'm very proud of him!"
Unpopular Friendship
"He was brilliant, ahead of his time, and the best friend I have ever experienced. He was tormented for being so smart. Our friendship was frowned upon because we were a boy and girl. He treated me like that didn't matter (1956). When his family moved, I looked into their empty home and cried."
Home Life
"He was nice enough but even more strange at home. His parents were clearly the issue but he was very different and telling anyone what his home life was like would have been a curse."
People with undeveloped social behavior are withdrawn because they are not given fair chances.
A Speech Impediment
"She was just shy because of her stutter. She didnt smell like they said and was insanely smart. She got married last Saturday and I was her MOH"
A Different Social Pace
"He took his time talking. It was unnerving at first but then kind of cool. Like he actually thought about every response he made and how those responses could be perceived."
"People can be cruel and pushy though because he seemed slow. It could be pretty bad..."
The Regular Customer
"I wish my classmates knew that this quiet kid now visits me weekly at the restaurant I work for and orders his usual. He was the kid with a special instructor in each class, made fun of for it, among other things. Now he is independent and works/lives on his own. We bond over anime and kingdom hearts, which I tend to play the music of over the loudspeakers at work when he comes by."
Former Flat Earthers Explain What Finally Made Them Come Around | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
The Transfer Student
"In eighth grade there was a new student who was extremely shy and sat next to me in History class. Little by little, I became one of the only people who he'd open up to. I learned that he had Aspergers and had recently transferred from a school where he was consistently bullied."
"I wish people knew how intelligent he was; he was one of the smartest people I had ever met. He told me he dreamt of working for NASA one day and how passionate he was about physics and math. We parted ways after middle school because we ended up going to different high schools. I am now in college and was curious on what he was doing one day so I did a small google search."
"He's studies physics at MIT and lectures prospective students on differential equations."
"He's still one of the smartest people I have ever met."
Wealth does not always result in avarice or greed. Sometime, rich people are just quiet.
The Super Fan
"The quiet kid at my school was 1 stupidly rich 2 was wicked into superheros 3 he was just a allround good kid."
A Different Class
"One of the quiet kids at my school was also super rich, it was weird. Said he just didn't like most people and didn't enjoy talking to them. Wasn't social awkward either."
"All the richer jock types bragging about their 5 year old cars their parents gave them then there was this single brand new AMG always parked in the front that he never bragged about. He constantly had on a different ultra expensive watch. To this day the only time I have seen someone wearing a Patek Philippe was on him freshman year of high school."
The Cautious Friend
"I befriended a shy, hard-working, and really smart student named Elizabeth (Beth for short). After a year of hanging out and her coming over to my house, she finally invited me to hers."
"I was stunned by what I saw."
"She was absurdly rich and wealthy. Her house wasn't a house at all, it was a mansion and she lived in the wealthiest part of town."
"I was shocked and asked her why she was so quiet in school. She said, 'I don't want to be friends with people who only see me as a free bank card."
"We're still friends to this day."
Bullied Rich Girl
"Had a friend like that in 5th grade. She was quiet and was getting bullied, but I became friends with her after trying to help her out of it (ended up getting bullied myself though) but I did not expect her to have so much money.. it was nice to know she didn't use it to her advantage and just wanted some friends. I heard she changed though.. but I can't say for certain and it's not nice to assume. Hope she's doing well."
Being quiet also does not mean there is cause for concern.
"Weirdo Rocker Phase"
"I feel like I was the quiet kid, but kind of on accident. I wasn't shy or anything, I just didn't have a lot of friends and in eighth grade I went through kind of a weirdo rocker phase so I think I intimidated a lot of my classmates."
"I think I became the pet project of one of the nice cool girls, because she became super friendly in our last hour. She noticed that I spent a lot of time writing and started asking about it. She thought it was fun and I was eventually comfortable enough to share some of it with her, but she never badgered me about it or made fun of it."
"I don't know if she ever went back to her friends and made fun of me. If she did, I never heard about it (it was a small school. I would have.)"
Leave Them Alone
"They're not 'up to something' just because they're quiet. and yes, they're fine so stop asking them if they're ok or mad at you."
Egregious Assumptions
"Being a quiet redhead growing up made me not ever want to speak to strangers for any reason lmao women wanted my hair color/volume and men thought I was kinky. Couldn't go anywhere without comments about it from someone."
"And people wondered why I dyed the sh!t out of my hair as a teen."
You never know what people are going through.
So instead of making assumptions about the reticent, being kind by acknowledging their existence with a smile or a wave is better than asking, "Are you okay?" or "What's wrong with you?"
Because it's those who make assumptions about other people who are socially challenged.
u/Respect_The_Box asked:
What is the worst thing that has happened at a high school reunion party that you attended?
Here were some of those answers.
Who Just Carries Their Paycheck?
Five year reunion- one guy (always kind of a marginal figure in HS, but a nice person), after some sort of discussion, got his paycheck out and got loud saying "Now do you think I'm a loser?" "Don't believe how much I make? Check this out" Of course, he just made things worse, and everyone was laughing at him. I mean - he had his paycheck on him? Haven't seen him since, BTW.
Almost In Middle School
At my 10-year reunion, the organizers were doing the thing where they give "awards" for the person who came the farthest to attend, the person with the most kids, etc. The award came up for who had the oldest kid, and people started shouting out their kids' ages. When it quieted down, this shy girl near the front said in a normal voice, "11" and then we all realized why we had stopped seeing Heather right before graduation.
The Reunion That Reminded Us All Why We Don't Reunite
Small college reunion with my core group of friends from university. This was about 5 years after graduation. We all partied pretty hard in school, but mellowed out in our late twenties. Decided to all meet up for dinner at a local bar/restaurant. Think Applebees, but nicer.
One guy showed up already wasted, with a duffle bag full of multiple packets of weed and the bottle he started on before meeting us. He decided we were boring, finished his bottle in the restroom, and refused to come out. He ended up passing out there.
Bartender kicked him out. He came alone in an uber, and we had no idea where he lived. None of us wanted to take him to our places (he was angry, puking and belligerent), so we dropped him off at his last known address.
His parents' house.
Both of them answered the door, and we handed him over. It was past midnight and incredibly awkward.
He's not invited to the next reunion.
Round And Round
It's been a decade since i finished school. I see an old classmate sometimes when he does maintenance work in my apartment block. About a year ago he asked if I was going to the reunion organised by some of our classmates. I said no because i couldn't think of anything worse and also hadn't been invited. (Apparently they organised it over Facebook which i dont have.)
When i next saw him 6 months later I asked how the reunion was and he exasperatedly explained that it had been a real mess. The mean girls had started planning it together, fell out and then started each planning their own. So there was about 4 tiny awkward parties and everyone was confused.
When You Don't Even Know Your Days
At my 10 year high school reunion, we had a decent turnout, maybe 100+ people. We were at a pretty nice hotel banquet hall.
There was one guy I had known all through high school, and he was a well known stoner. I'll call him Chris for this story.
I see Chris walk in to the banquet hall, stop in his tracks, turn around in a very slow 360 degree circle, surveying the entire room. He just says, "Whoa...", and he looks visibly alarmed.
He stops and his eyes settle on me. I say, "Hey, Chris! Long time no see, man!". He kind of slides over to me and whispers in my ear, "This is really weird... I'm pretty sure I know every single person in this room." And that is when I realize he is wearing the same clothes as all the banquet hall workers.
OH MY GOD. CHRIS IS WORKING AS A SERVER AT HIS OWN HIGH SCHOOL REUNION, AND HE HAS NO CLUE WHAT IS HAPPENING.
I walk him out to the front lobby, and explain it's our 10 year high school reunion. He is mortified, beyond embarrassed. He was never contacted, and didn't even realize it had been 10 years since we graduated. He just knew he was working another catering gig in a neverending series of catering gigs.
I make him take me to his manager. I explain what is happening and tell the manager there is NO WAY this guy is working his own high school reunion. Awesomely, the manager agrees. We find a different suit jacket and tie for him, and I take Chris back to the party. He ended up having a good night.
Capitalism Didn't Work For Everybody
Someone who was considered a popular kid at my high school tried to organize our 10 year high school reunion on a cruise ship. Obviously no one wanted to shell out that kind of money, so the reunion never happened.
School Fundraisers
Not so much at but before. Ten year reunion for my largish school (500graduates per year). The plan was for the reunion to take place over Thanksgiving weekend. To help pay for the expense, raffle tickets were sent out to the entire class to sell.
The reunion didn't happen.
John, You Never Learned
When I was in 7th grade, this rich snob bully, John, grabbed off my head a wool scarf my mother had knitted for me. He threw the scarf into a pile of muddy leaves and jumped up and down on it. When I went home that day my mother was furious when she saw the torn, muddy scarf. She made me tell her who did it, then she called the school principal and yelled at him. The next day John got pulled into the principal's office and paddled. That was back when they still paddled kids.
FIFTY-FIVE YEARS LATER, at our 50th class reunion, John came up to me and angrily said, "You got me into trouble in seventh grade!!!"
I got him in trouble?! And he's still mad about it, 55 years later.
I said, "John you were a d!ck in high school and you're still a d!ck," and I walked away.
Just Cause
It wasn't really bad, just odd. A guy came with full Kiss-style make up on - white face, black shapes around his eyes and black lips. We were too awkward and polite to mention it, so everyone just chatted with him as though it was completely normal to turn up like that.
Dingbats
At my twenty year reunion - two decades after high school - two guys got arrested for fist fighting on the sidewalk outside the bar we went to Friday night.
Why were they fighting? One of the guys slept with the other guys girlfriend in high school, and drunkenly brought up the twenty years ago fling. Neither of them married her, or even dated her after high school.
Those idiots got charges twenty years later for her, though.
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