When was the first time you consciously recognized your loner status?

[Deja Q]

For me, it was 6th grade. I don't know what dawned on me as I had always been "unpopular" (I'm not going to repeat any choice phrases my 'peers' used...). That's when I first truly noticed I never fit into society. Before that I never had a clue as to why kids were cruel and why I was an outsider. An outsider wanting "in", which made things even more awkward and unintentionally unpleasant.

But I recall, in 6th grade, for valentines day, taping up a big note hanging from the end of my desk about being available. (How pathetic is that!)

I'm not sure why I remembered this. But I'm sure there's importance to it somehow.

[BuelahWitch]

1. Mine was probably in the sixth grade too

My two best friends had been bussed to another school in our district. The other kids still wanted to play games at recess, I would have rather stayed in and read a book. They wouldn't let me, so I had a little radio, and I'd either sit and listen to it or walk around the playground.

My difference was, I never wanted to "fit in." I didn't like the names I was called (luckily I never got beat up or anything), but I had no wish to change myself to be someone else's idea of ok. Maybe it came from being an only child and raised by two people (my mother and grandmother) who treated me as if I were the be-all and end-all of their existance.

The only thing that was bad about it is that I never attracted the boys I liked until I was out of school. Although I'm kind of glad I didn't because I don't think it would have been a good thing to become sexually active in high school.

[FloridaPat]

2. Sounds like my life! I was wierd even earlier.

When I was in the first grade, we had a bully in the 3rd grade with a club foot. I went to a Catholic grade school. The nuns wouldn't do anything about the bullying on the playground from this guy. I was about half his size. So one day I got it into my head that someone should do something, so during recess as he was bullying other kids, I pushed him. He fell down and the nuns came rushing over. No one said a word to me. He never came back to school again!

[NI4NI]

3. Early on in 1958

At the age of 10 after being shifted around from grandmother to adoptive grandmother because my mother had to work nights.
Even though I spent alot of time out among people on the street fending for myself by hustling errands for shop keepers or shining alotta shoes I still had to go home to an empty apartment. At least I learned how to cook without burning the building down.

[djeseru]

4. Around 9, I believe.

The 4th grade was full of the name-calling and deliberate non-inclusion - and me being the new girl with very bright red hair and the odd name was the target. I had to go to a new school every year since my mother was constantly moving. Then, by the time I was 12 I moved in with my grandmother and began to like things with an oddness to them - and found it incredibly easy to become eccentric.

I've never been too close to very many, and never let them know too much. And, well, some days it's easy and some days it isn't.

But that's everyone's life, isn't it?

[marions ghost]

5. 2nd grade

I noticed that some kids were loud and popular and other kids were quiet and unpopular. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. But then I found happiness among the other nurds, misfits, loners and kids not wearing expensive clothes. A lot of the Populars later turned out to be cheerleaders, frat boys, desperate housewives, and Republicans, and so I was sincerely glad I did not bother trying to be one of them. But I wish that at an early age, there had been more understanding of our general type. Being ostracized is so hard on kids. It's damaging to our society as a whole.

In solidarity, mg.

[mdmc]

6. I was in a nightclub, age 18

when I thought, "is this all there is?" I hated it!

It was a sad and lonely time - , but I got through it.

I am not an intense loner - I go out, I socialize... but it drains me.

[Dervill Crow]

7. Around second grade.

I noticed other kids seemed to have more social skills than I did.

[bemildred]

8. Yeah, around 6th or 7th grade. nt

[LWolf]

9. 5th grade.

We'd moved (again). I was inside the new apartment, reading a book. Some mom from the apartment building next door had stopped by to introduced her daughter the day we were moving in; my age. Same daughter dropped by to see if I could come out and "play" a few days later. Mom answered the door and came to get me. I told her I didn't feel like it. She took the book away and made me go "be sociable."

[arewenotdemo]

10. Not pathetic at all!

Humans are social animals, even loners are.

I've always thought that the quality of friends was more important than the quantity.

With me it was first grade. I've had a fear of groups of people forever. One on one I can handle OK. I don't trust group-think.

[smirkymonkey]

11. Not until after I had stopped drinking for a few years.

I used to be able to hide my intolerance for being around other people by always having a buzz on or being hungover. Once I stopped drinking, I realized how sensitive I was to the energies of others and I am still getting used to coping with the fact that I don't like to be around people much, with a few exceptions.

I actually used to be quite social, but it was usually fueled by alcohol.

[idgiehkt]

12. I was around 6 because it was my birthday.

I had the biggest birthday party I've ever had in my life. All the neighborhood kids were there. My Mom had all these games planned and I wouldn't play any of them. I had no desire to, I just wanted to be left alone. So all the kids played games and I just played by myself. I didn't feel like a loner, it was just 'why won't people leave me alone to do what I want to do, not what they want me to do'. I am amazed at my conviction even back then that doing what other people wanted me to do was nothing but lame. Where it came from I have no idea.