Retrospect: the in-crowd, part 0

Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor mentions the first “in-crowd” he knew.

Up through grade four, there were always kids who were a little more popular, but the difference wasn’t typically much. Moreover, even through grade four, kids didn’t agree on who was popular; some might like one person, while others liked their rival, and so on. Popularity was pretty evenly spread.

In grade five, however, a recent arrival to a big new school, I watched popularity change into a commodity of which some had much, others much less. Looking back, it was the first true demonstration of how, among people, some have advantages over others.

These in-crowd kids weren’t what I’d call cool – they were too boring and similar to be that. The boys were mainly hockey players. I know less about the girls and what they had in common.

Similarity is mainly what those kids had – they were generic. Almost none was local – rather, they were all military who didn’t live on base (neither did I).

Compared with the local farm kids, who often had big personalities and were hard to miss or forget, the in-crowd kids were part of the scenery. I thought they were boring, because they never seemed to say or do anything interesting. To me, the local farm kids – even the ones who didn’t like me – were more attractive, because often, you just didn’t know what they’d say or do next.

Over time, however, I realized that even kids not among those “generic” (aka, in-crowd) ones, wished they were. Truly, many people wished they could figure out how to join them.

Of course, the “in-crowd” was very cliquey. Its original members were decided at the beginning of grade five. After that, only new kids who moved into town were accepted as new members. They had to be sports-centered, like all the “in-crowd” already were. The “in-crowd” knew who they wanted and nobody else was admitted.

As I say, I watched all this develop from the start of grade five. When I moved away after grade seven, it hadn’t changed. I didn’t think much of it, then, but nowadays I’m intrigued with how those kids organically developed their own clique.

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.