One of my biggest pet peeves is when hot celebrities say they weren’t cool in middle school.

When Megan Fox sits across from Jimmy Fallon and talks about how she was “such a nerd” in middle school I want to scream. When a Victoria’s Secret model talks about how she was so “gangly” growing up I want to cry.

You did not know middle school ugly and awkward like I did! Don’t pretend to know my pain!

I wore horse t-shirts in middle school, okay? I know what nerdiness is. And Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie and Ryan Gosling and all of these hot gods saying that they used to be just like us makes me upset. Really? You’re just like us? Well then go on Jimmy Fallon and talk about how you and your only 2 friends used to play horses during recess, okay?

Until then, accept your destiny which is that sometimes you just get to be cool and successful. Not every celebrity has to have a tale of nerdy and awkward years, statistically, not all of you can be relatable.

At any rate…let’s move on.

You right now might be thinking as well that you “weren’t cool” in middle school. Luckily, I have a proven way to tell if you were cool in middle school. You’re either with me (and we’re playing horses at recess) or you’re against me (and you’re crazy hot).

Here are 5 ways I can tell that you were cool in middle school.

1. Your handwriting. Particularly how you spell "a".

This is the tell-tale sign of being cool in middle school, and I can’t explain how it is or why it is, but to me it’s a god given fact: write a lowercase letter "a".

If you have the curved line on top - you were a cool kid in middle school. If you spelled it like me, as basically an "o" with a little line to the right of it, you weren't cool in middle school. SORRY, LOSER!

I spent hours trying to get my a's to do this

I can't even explain it myself, it's like a certain gene that cool people just possess. They all write this way.

Now, there is a disclaimer. This is cool if you're a girl. Popular boys could write however they wanted. There really is no criteria for popular guys because popular guys at my school ranged from gorgeous and athletic to like...literally so gross I guess they were just rich and that’s what made them popular? I’m still baffled by some of the groupings that happened in middle school.

2. If you had Abercrombie clothing, and where you acquired that clothing

Abercrombie was cool kid cat nip. Hollister came around soon after, and that was also cool, but Abercrombie really reigned supreme. (And as a side note, apparently Abercrombie is making a comeback? Let’s talk about it)

At any rate, Abercrombie clothing made you kind of cool. But only if you bought it from the store yourself. Because I had Abercrombie clothing, but it came from hand-me-downs via my sister and others girls in the neighborhood.

But if your Abercrombie clothes were straight from the store....you were absolutely cool. Also you must have had a cool mom, too, because the grounded moms didn’t buy their kids clothes at Abercrombie, they bought them in a 5-pack from Costco. Let’s go, Costco!

3. You never practiced kissing on a pillow

I'm about to get a bit vulnerable here because I'm going to admit that yes, I have practiced kissing on a pillow. Also my shower wall, and also my hand.

But cool kids didn't need to practice kissing (or make their Sims do it while they watched curiously) because they actually did it themselves, probably at basement parties that were hosted by cool kids who had their parents go out of town a lot. Uncool kids took a lot longer to talk to members of the opposite sex and to fill the time we practiced kissing random things so we felt like we were 'caught up' on the same timeline as everyone else.

4. You were in chorus, not in band

This has always baffled me. Two things that are so similar, but different in one small way, can be perceived so differently.

Band was for dorks, it’s true. (The small caveat being that if you played “percussion” you were a cool kid…or you did drugs…or sometime both). And even though Chorus was also scheduled time for a musical hobby…it didn’t have the dorky stigma attached to it. In fact, most of the popular girls in my middle school were in Chorus!

I also joined Jazz Band in middle school and I can tell you firsthand that despite the jazzy name and how cool jazz is…joining jazz band was not for the cool kids. But smh, it really should have been. I love jazz.

5. You didn’t have close relationships with your teachers

I was very close to a few teachers. I had one reading teacher in 7th grade that I would hang out with before school started. God, I loved her. She was like my therapist, but also my friend, and my mentor, and she so believed in me and god I’m getting choked up, I just loved her!

I also was friends with my band teacher and English teacher, and yes I would bring them presents around the holidays and such.

If you did not have friendships or confide in or respect your teachers…certified cool kid. Ignoring your hardworking teachers is popular kid territory only!

Now here’s the thing - I am proud to have been uncool in middle school! I firmly believe that folks who are cool and attractive their entire lives - while they’re enviable, I also think they’re just a bit less developed. And it’s no fault of their own, but there’s only so much personal growing you can do when you’re in a comfort zone.

Something about being kicked out of a lunch table hurts in the moment, but builds iron-clad empathy for the rest of your life hahaha.

Also, I find that I form the closest relationships in my life with people who also felt a bit “weird” in middle school. So if you consider yourself one of those people (Megan Fox, I’m not talking to you!) then welcome. One of us! One of us!

Until the next one,
S

5 ways that I can tell you were cool in middle school