Most of us think our high school experience was distinctive. More painful than others. More romantic. More successful. More traumatic.
Maybe it was, but it turns out that our experiences are pretty common.
Looking back to those three or four formative years, nearly all of us have some sort of romantic remembrance, a group of friends (maybe very small) with whom we identified, some sort of great classroom memory and some sort of bad classroom memory.
One theory why: From (roughly) age 14 through 18, almost all of us have some sort of crush on someone, some friends and take a bunch of classes. Logic indicates that those classes included some we liked and some we didn't.
Science backs me up. Well, if not science, a survey by YouGov (my favorite source for interesting data). According to their survey of more than 2,200 adults, more than three-fourths of us have high school memories of having a crush on or dating someone, having a group of friends, having a class we loved and having a class we hated.
In other words, common high school experiences.
Sorry to rain on your parade if part of your identity is telling people you weren't, "at the popular table" (which, by definition, fits an overwhelming majority of people. Because there is a narrow definition of "popular" for teenagers). Most of us weren't at the popular table.
I'm also sorry if, like Uncle Rico on "Napoleon Dynamite," you had your hopes dashed in high school by a coach or teacher who didn't give you the chance you thought you deserved. Most of us had that.
Sorry if you think your high school romance was especially dramatic or tragic. Maybe it was, but it's probably similar to many other people's.
Turns out high school has other common experiences.
If you lied to your parents, you're not alone: 67% of respondents did and the other 33% also did, but are liars who now lie to survey-takers.
Interestingly, some gender stereotypes are affirmed by the study. Men are far more likely to have gotten into trouble in school, including for fighting, while women are far more likely to have made the honor roll, but experienced anxiety or depression.
There's a generation gap on a few issues, too. Far more young people had cellphones in high school, while older people were more likely to have a driver's license (because we had to physically drive to someone's house to talk to them without our family members listening in to our calls on the landline).
What's the lesson here? I guess it's that as awful or great as you think high school was, you're not alone. At least in our perception, most of us have had similar good and bad memories from that time.
As we get older, most of us tend to go to one end of the continuum when remembering high school. It was either the greatest time of our lives, filled with friends and parties and football games and academics or it was the worst time, filled with loneliness and being excluded and not sitting at the cool kids' table (which we all insist we wouldn't want to do anyway).
The most clear-thinking of us realize there's no way we'd want to be 15 or 16 or 17 again. We wouldn't again want to wonder what it would take to be cool, while noticing that our hair was terrible, struggling over having acne and wishing we were more athletic or smarter or more talented.
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.
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