[Just another Joe]

At least a nerd can be big enough that they don't get beaten constantly.

When you're 4'9'' and 95 lbs soaking wet going into High School, you're a walking punching bag.
I speak from experience.

[Dagny&Hank]

At least a nerd can be big enough that they don't get beaten constantly. When you're 4'9'' and 95 lbs soaking wet going into High School, you're a walking punching bag. I speak from experience.

My experience: Being nearly 6ft but skinny, wearing glasses, and always the last chosen for gym class teams (we didn't have track for kids like me to excel in). Being smart and having a high IQ was offset by being borderline autistic (they call it Asperger's nowadays) left kids like me on the outside of sports, dates, dances, etc. High school was hell. One of my friends, smartest kid in his class, suicided in his senior year.

[Myrddin]

When you're 4'9'' and 95 lbs soaking wet going into High School, you're a walking punching bag.

I was about 4' 11' on my 11th birthday. Similar weight. On my 12th birthday, my size 6C feet had grown to 10EE and I was 6' 3/8" and 110 lbs. My parents went crazy trying to keep clothes that fit on my hide over that year. On my 13th birthday I was 135 lbs. By age 16 I was 155 lbs on graduation day from high school. Those PE classes during football season weren't much fun when the guy on the other side was a 210 lb varsity football player.

It sucked to be always the last one chosen for a team in PE. Getting the best score on tests and papers in the other classes always had a quiet air of schadenfreude. Academic and athletic prowess have little correlation.

[mavfin]

At least a nerd can be big enough that they don't get beaten constantly.

Yeah. I was definitely a nerd, and socially inept, but, I didn't have to worry about being physically bothered. 6'0, 180 going into 9th grade.

The author's about right on some of that. I was never popular because I didn't care about the stuff they did. Clothes? Something to keep me warm and not naked. Cars? Something to get me from here to there. I'm not sure we ever really lived in the same world, me and the 'popular' crowd. I still don't. I work in IT, where I'm allowed to be me, and not some corporate idea of how you're supposed to act.

Small derail here, but, is it only me that thinks that the primary rule to work in sales is 'Lie as much as the market will bear'? I couldn't look in the mirror in the morning if I made my money that way. However, the most successful salespeople I know were the 'popular' people in high school. Coincidence?