Social groups. A teenager’s worst fear. Cliques. Insecurity’s best friend. The words, the pain, the laughing. You can hear it all, but they don’t care. Some people go crazy trying to fit in. Some people go crazy trying to stay out. Some people try not to care. There are hundreds of different social groups. Jocks, preps, emos, punks, valley girls, nerds. All those and more. The difficult choice? To fit in, or stay out. It’s all really survival of the fittest. Sure, I could put my whole school into social groups if I had to. I could choose the perfect ones for the perfect people. The one thing I couldn’t do is place myself. It’s hard to place yourself in a social group. Try it. The thing is, it’s not really up to you.

Somehow, where you fit in, who you hang out with, who you are is decided by other people. Somehow, it’s not your job to place yourself. Somehow, other people have the right to call you a “poser.” The dreaded name. It’s the awful, despicable name that other people have the unwritten right to call you. Even if they don’t know you, others somehow have the right to decide whether or not you’re being yourself. If you dress one way and act another, you’re instantly a poser. It doesn’t matter if you just happen to like that style of clothing. If you don’t act like the people that others would depict to wear that clothing, you’re a poser.

I’ve had the hardest time trying to find out which social group I fit in to. I asked everyone I know. I got all different answers. I still don’t know where I belong. Maybe I never will know. Maybe it doesn’t really matter. It’s hard to tell.

There’s a girl at my school who happens to be sad a lot. But as much as she is sad, she is also happy. She can be depressed one moment, and then bouncy the next. She calls herself emo. Others call her a poser. I would not even bother to try to place her into a social group. She is too much of a complex individual. I don’t doubt that she has a hard life. I don’t doubt that she tries her best to be happy. With the talk that goes on behind her back and with her dad having killed himself over the summer, I can see how she would be depressed. But somehow, even with all of this in the way, she manages to stay happy at times. I wouldn’t go so far as to call her emo, but I wouldn’t call her a poser either. She really makes the best of situations and I do admire her for that.

I know that I must be called a poser too, behind my back. I’m sure it has happened to everyone, I just don’t know how you can call someone a poser if they aren’t truly themselves when they’re around you. No one knows what I might be going through and I don’t know what others might be going through. No one knows what you’re going through either. Recently, I’ve had a bit of a personal struggle. No one knows about it. I doubt anyone ever will. I’ve questioned my religion, my feelings, my writing, my appearance, and my friends. So far, I’ve told no one. Part of what came with that personal struggle though is questioning who I really am. What social group do I belong in? Do I fit in? Do I stand out? Unfortunately, it seems that the answers are not up to me. The answers seem to be up to others. No matter how much, or how little, they know who I really am, it’s all up to them.