The Inherent Cruelty of Children's Games and the Social Consequences Thereof

Children: sweet, naive, honest children. The only difference between children and adults is that most adults know how hold their tongues. This practice is also known as "civility", but more commonly described as "two-faced". Children don't know how to merely "be nice" to other children, even if they don't like them. Kids can't make efforts towards peace. Diplomacy rarely exists naturally in the collective until the teenage years. So kids take sides, with no capability of rational thought, based purely on their "honest" emotions. The whole idea of taking sides is rampant in the games they play. Look at games like Red Rover. The whole point of the game is to leave one last person all by themselves to be made an example. The loser, the least liked, the alienated.
What about in gym class? Remember when they let the kids pick teams? There was always that one kid, usually the obese one who couldn't run fast, who got picked last. But even then, if the obese kid's friend is picking the team, he wouldn't be last. That last kid was "the loser", the one who didn't have many friends, or at least "popular" friends.
So you must be thinking, "She must have been that kid. Why else would she rant about such trivial things?"
Well, yes. I was that girl. The brains of the class, the annoying dorky girl that wore big plastic glasses since 2nd grade. Think Hermione Grainger (all ye Harry Potter fans), add a dash of Moaning Myrtle, but not quite as cute. I was doomed to be forever excluded from the social circle of my grade. Even if I loved and was good at baseball and kickball, even if I had all the answers on all the tests. Most of the time the closest thing I had to friends were the kids who tried to use me for test answers. They knew they had to suck up to me. They knew that if they threatened me, they'd get told on. They couldn't even beat me up, I was the tallest girl in the class. So I made friends another way: outcasts unite!
I had friends from all different walks of life. Roxanne, whose parents brought her up on Christian music, and bible studies. There was something we both shared: the ultimate brainwashing. I grew up Christian, too. And Bible Study is an automatic -100 points on the coolness scale, considering most of the kids were Catholic and church was barely in their vocabulary. So we'd play Nintendo and Barbie's, practice the violin together (yes I still play today and even teach it. -75 points.) I still keep in touch with her sporadically, as our parents are neighbors. We shared the love of music, and it was music that helped us shake off the brainwashing of our parents' religious ideals. I remember her and I listening to Aerosmith and STP when our parents weren't home. God forbid they heard what we 12-yr-olds were listening to! Roxy rocks.
Then I think of Lieu Thi Tieu and Busi Mtemunye. My elementary school was made up of snotty little brats borne from upper-middle class WASPs. Minorities didn't exist in that school, and barely at all in my town. So where did that leave young Vietnamese and South African girls? I remember, the two separate incidents of my meeting them. Both began with them by themselves in some remote spot on the playground at recess. All it takes is to care about others. They were both really nice girls. It was then that I began to realize that those popular kids weren't cool at all. They were total douchebags. They had no concept of humanity. They only knew their self-centered little existences, and that these girls were different from them. It was at the age of 8 that I began developing my sense of justice, of truth, and discernment. I know these girls (well, women, now) are still around, and I hope I encounter them again (it's been since High School).
Looking back on all this, I realized that I always had a small group of friends that I could actually trust. It was always evolving, as people changed, people moved away, but there were never hard feelings. All these people who have added beauty and understanding to my life, still pop up now and again. And the long-standing friendship is still there. As my social life has fractaled out of control, (believe it or not I've evolved into something considered "cool" without losing my integrity, it's called "being myself"), I have come to learn one thing. You can know alot of people, and get along with most if you know how to adapt to them. But your friends are the ones in whom you place trust, understanding, and unconditional love. They are in a class of their own.

This first rant is for all the cool people I've come to know and love, who have overcome the social torment of childhood loserdom. Rock on.