What Were You Like As A Teen?

I thought this would be a natural extension of the thread on what we were like as kids.

My teen years were not nearly as much fun as my grammar school years. Upon entering junior high, I got my first taste of social categorization. Within the first few days, we were branded as either a cool kid or a geek. I, of course, fell into the geek category. At best, we geeks were ignored…at worst we were tormented. It was not a pleasant experience!

To take me out of that environment, my parents sent me to an all-boy's high school. I really didn't fit-in any better there. My high school years coincided with the social revolution of the late 1960s. This was something I didn't understand or want to take part in. I disliked the music and didn't "get" the whole hippie/drug culture. And to make matters worse, I looked very young for my age. At 18, I often got mistaken for 12 or 13! (I didn't have my first date/girlfriend until I was 24. She was an electrical engineering student and I remember being VERY impressed that she knew how to solder!)

So I turned inward. I became an avid reader…devouring any book I could get my hands on pertaining to the automobile industry or having to do with the history of radio or broadcasting. I began collecting 78s, vintage phonographs and radios. I taught myself how to repair radios and TVs. I discovered that I didn't WANT to follow the crowd…that I could actually have more fun doing what *I* wanted to do!

My best friend and I spent our time tuning distant stations on golden era radios, or making comedy tapes with our tape recorders. These tapes always centered around radio station formats, and eventually became pretty sophisticated. We even created our own jingles!

My interests in cars and radio led me to study mechanical and electrical engineering, ultimately leading me to work in the auto industry.

What were your teen years like?

My early teen years, I was pretty much the way I was as a smaller kid. I listened to hip hop/rap almost non stop, I wore big baggy jeans, big baggy everything and huge gold earrings which my parents couldn't stand. I was really a "fly girl" with the latest name brand stuff down to my socks lol .

As a middle aged teen I realized my interest and ability in art. I began to dabble in vintage but was sort of an ethnic/goth-y kind of girl. I became very interested in race relations in America, past and present and was sort of militant choosing not to speak to or hang around certain people. I stopped straightening my hair and I guess began really looking for myself. My tastes in music broadened and I listened to a lot of my dad's old jazz and golden era albums along with my mom's soul from the 60s, 70s and 80s and grunge, garage and punk bands. I began watching foreign and indie films, showing an interest in anything different and not what everyone else was into. I dressed in black alot, dyed my hair like every other week (it's a wonder it didn't fall out) and tried all manner of makeup, hairstyles, etc. I started college and was opened to a whole new world of people which added to my search for self. I began writing more, painting, having discussions on race, politics, religion with people around the world. I learned so much and still wanted more. I began to see in myself the person I wanted to be and began to plan how I was going to get to that point.

As an older teen, I was a bit different again, (of course). I was really school and career oriented, very optimistic about the future. I was dating for the first time so that was an entirely new dynamic added into the picture of me. I was really hungry for knowledge and experiences, even more so than before. I devoured books, reading classics, books my professors and people mentioned. I began listening to jazz and classical (like REALLY listening to it) adding this into the mix of music I loved. I discovered Janis Joplin and completely fell in love with her and her tragic story. I questioned EVERYTHING! I did this while younger but now with a few years of college under my belt, I really felt confident in my ability to question authorites and rules. I began rejecting my parent's religion and researched world religions hoping to find something that made sense to me. I had at this age, two tattoos, 19 piercings and the hugest afro anyone had ever seen. It blew in the wind, fell in my eyes, it was a sight to see! lol After traveling to a few places in the world, I once again delved even further into the "ethnic" side of me and found a real alignment with my ancestors and their history. I could go on and on but I don't want to bore you all to death.

Basically I was a lot like I am now, except thirty pounds lighter and with less grey hair.

It was during my teens that I really came to realize I didn't fit into the contemporary youth culture of the day -- I just didn't understand it. So I stopped trying, and found that made life a lot less stressful than pretending to like what everyone else did just for the sake of fitting in. I had a small group of friends in high school, but they were more like expedient friendships than anything permanent: the sort of friendships that form kind of thru inertia with people you happen to see every day, and that don't have anything substantial to sustain them in the long term. I'd have liked to have had deeper friendships, but I guess I was just too odd by 1970s standards to attract them. I never dated.

I went to work when I was 13, and worked all the way thru high school, doing bookkeeping and customer service work for my grandparents' gas station/fuel oil business, and during the summers I'd help out at my uncle's drive-in movie theatre, which is where I first learned how to be a projectionist. I was required to pay my mother room and board out of my wages, and what I had left I usually spent at the flea markets and second-hand stores, or on old-time-radio cassettes via mail order. I suspect I was the only teenage girl in 1970s America with pictures of Rudy Vallee and Harold Lloyd on her wall.

I went to a very very inadequate high school, which did absolutely nothing to prepare me for the future. Nobody in my family had ever gone to a university and gotten a degree so there was nobody steering me in that direction, not even guidance counselors or teachers. (Less than half my graduating class went on to college.) This is the great regret of my teens, that nobody beat me over the head and tried to put me on that path when it would have done me some good. But, at the time, I didn't especially care -- like all teenagers, I knew it all and wasn't about to let anybody tell me otherwise. The result was that I graduated into a local job market with about 20 percent unemployment -- and worked some truly awful survival jobs until I finally landed in radio.

I was very shy, fat, didn't have any friends, had a bad haircut, bad fashion sense (but the late 80s/early 90s were the worst, though:eusa_doh: ), never wore makeup (glamour was not in my vocabulary!) and liked nothing but alternative & punk music!! Ned's Atomic Dustbin all the way!!

If you'd knocked on my head 20 years ago and told me that a time would come when I, Craig - scraper-through of O-levels, mover of lips (own) while reading, loafer, scrounger, pettifogger and general berk of this parish - would be able to carve my initials in the broad bark of the Master's oak, I'm pretty certain that I would have said "garn", or something like it.

I was, in truth, a horrible child. Not much given to things of a bookery nature, I spent a large part of my youth day dreaming and cheating in French vocabulary tests.

I wore platform boots with a brass skull and crossbones over the ankle, my hair was disgraceful, and I somehow contrived to pull off the gruesome trick of being both fat and thin at the same time. If you had passed me in the street during those pimply years, I am confident that you would, at the very least, have quickened your pace.

You think I exaggerate? I do not. Glancing over my school reports from the year 1979, I observe that the words "ghastly" and "desperate" feature strongly, while "no", "not", "never" and "again" also crop up more often than one would expect in a random sample. My geography teacher's report wondered how I even managed to find my way home.

But this, you will be nauseated to learn, is a tale of redemption. In about my 13th year, it so happened my interest in 20th century history entered my squalid universe, and things quickly began to change. From the very first sentence of my history books, life appeared to grow somehow larger. There had always been height, depth, width and time, and in these prosaic dimensions I had hitherto snarled, cursed, and not washed my hair.

But the chance to learn that there is not just the here and now but the past too, makes it a jolly exciting world.

Warden

I'll jump in on this one, I didn't have a chance to do the kid one. My teen years were a continuation of my childhood years. Painfully shy. I hated school and skipped out all the time. In first and second grade I'd hide in the culvert under the drive way untill the bus went pass so I didn't have to go to school. Pops used to beat me to a pulp when he got home, it was worth it though!
My Dad gave me a M1906 winchetser .22 when I was nine. I grew up in the country in NW Illinois along the Mississippi river bluffs. I spent most of my time hunting or fishing. At 14 I had saved enough money to buy a canoe. At 16 I bought a 64 chevy Impala and was completly mobile. I saw even less of school and more of the woods and river once I had a set of wheels. I actually did graduate high school, but I don't know how. I found my first girl friend when I was 19. She lived on the river and loved to fish, her parents owned a bait and tackle shop.(no surprise there)She actually manufactures fishing lures as a business yet to this day.
I had a very tight bunch of friends through out the period. About a 1/2 dozen guys. Mostly farm boys that loved to run the rivers and woods too. We were all considered odd in school, not fitting in with the jocks, although we slaughtered the jocks one winter in farm pond ice hockey. They all went home beaten, battered and bloody.lol
I had a great time as a kid and a teen. If school wouldn't have gotten in the way it would have been perfect.
Now, my 20's....those were fun times.

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe...

Quite with the people I didnt know, loud as sin with the clique I hung with, which was an odd mix of punk, goth, nerds, and regular non discrept no label kids like me.
Started working as soon as I could, cuz I wanted the money and wasn't even really getting enough from home for lunch. As A pre-teen in jr high I worked in the student cafeteria which gave a bit of cash (of course those were the free lunch days so that money was all MINE), as soon as I was 16 started working full time.
Even though I was smart, I did poorly in some classess because I could feel those teachers didn't give a hoot so I felt why should I. Then there was that one who just didnt like me, I swear she didn't. I had to go over her head to the dean for a paper she flunked and got a B on from him.
When I was a senior was nominated for home coming queen by the computer club...lol...I was the only girl in the computer club. Then my date got grounded and I didnt get to go I remember at graduation a lot more people clapped for me than I figured, huh, guess I knew more people than I thought. [huh]
Ahh, the memories.

I'm still a teen kind of (19, to be exact), but I guess I'll just write about my high school years.

I lucked out in two ways. First, I got to go to an amazing, small, private liberal arts high school that had really great students and amazing teachers. Secondly, my best friend from middle school went too, and she's still my best friend today. I would have been lost without her.

The bad thins were that I was terribly shy and would have panic attacks in classes like geometry! That doesn't make you extraordinarily popular, unfortunately. However, I realized that because I couldn't express myself through words, I had to do it in the way I looked. I would dye my hair dark blue and purple and wore bright red lipstick, band shirts and ratty converse. I wrote a lot and ran a zine distro (a website that distributes handmade magazines, usually personal writing or with a political influence). I was really creative and productive, and I really miss that now.

All of my friends were very creative. My current roommate, a year older than me, is who got me apply to UCLA as an art major (she is one too). My best friend is a ballerina, and our other close friend is an amazing photographer who attends Columbia now. The four of us were very close and I was lucky to have such great friends.

I didn't date, but had tons of crushes. I drank at a party once and got busted by the cops! I was a pretty good girl, just with anger management issues! But who doesn't have angst when they are a teenager?

Rosie said:

My early teen years, I was pretty much the way I was as a smaller kid. I listened to hip hop/rap almost non stop,...

Click to expand...

No Rosie, that was ME as a teen... lol

My granddad got me into swing music at age 5. So while I always listened to that at times in private, I never knew anyone else into swing.

Growing up as "the white kid" in my neighborhood, I got lots of attention; I was kinda like a "mascot" in a way. New kids, upon arrival, assumed they could "prove themselves cool" by picking on the white guy; friends fixed that quick.

Was totally into rap, listening & writing; made rap tapes, of myself & friends, using instrumental sides of 12" singles, & later a drum machine... at 13, friends told me I should enter a Cherry Coke rap commercial contest sponsored by the local R&B station, Foxy 107. I did... and won the "grand prize" for the first round (regional)!

So, I got a 2-month supply of cherry coke, a T-shirt, and a 10-speed "cherry red" bike. It was a real boost. Still have the bike. Wish I'd saved the T. Immediately gave away the cherry coke since I couldn't stand the stuff.

I was pretty extroverted in that environment... actually, probably somewhat loud & obnoxious. Always drumming out rap beats on the desk when the teacher left the room & leading the class in recitals of Run-DMC, Biz Markie, etc, those that knew the songs. Inviting friends over to "the studio" (bedroom) to make tapes. Ahhh, those were the DAYS...

When gangsta rap came in, about the time my neighborhood went downhill & got real rough, some guy in a nearby neighborhood decided he wanted to kill me (angry everyone else didn't hate me too cause I was white? [huh]), so I got a car & quit riding the bus. Quit rap altogether, turned to just 30s-40s swing & movies for the rest of high school, and became somewhat less extroverted - ended up about average, I guess. That's when I really got into Golden Era stuff. A good way to close out the teens

- C H

Yikes. During a large portion of my teens, I had hair that fell just short of my shoulders. I had a more or less perpetual scowl on my face, and was constatntly wearing headphones. I listened to a curious mix of a lot of heavy metal (Metallica, Emperor, Burzum, Borknagar, Amon Amarth, Mayhem, My Dying Bride, Slayer, etc.) and 60s/70s classics (think Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, etc.) Towards the end of my high school career I cut the hair (shaved it at one point, in fact) ditched the all black clothing, and started to more closely resemble a preppie. During the last of year of teenagedom I made my transition complete by converting to Catholicism.

I'm glad those days are over. I'm not sure you could pay me enough to make reliving them attractive. The early and mid-twenties have been much more enjoyable!

I was a state level athlete in two sports. I was also in all honor classes. But I hated high school. I hated the popularity contests and the clicks, of which I was apart of the most "desireable" one. I hated High school. I wore what I still wear today, boots, jeans and a cowboy hat as I worked on ranches throughout high school. i fished and hunted, but I also spent way to much time watching TV. I dated alot and had many acquaintances, but few real friends.

Hell in heels.
Or stylized combat boots, depending.

I was angry, articulate, stubborn, dry-humored, sarcastic, outspoken, depressed, and popular. I was Student Council President, class Vice President, in Honors classes, and on the Scholastic Bowl team. I played tennis and Badminton. I got a teacher fired for teaching racism and sexism in the classroom. I was friends with every sub-group; gangs, jocks, art students, thespians, nerds, geeks, and goths. I thought they all had a point.

I hung out with my older brother a lot. My brother and I had two bars in Chicago we went to so regularly that they sent us Christmas cards. My brother was of drinking age, I was not. My brother at that time worked for ticket master so we went to shows almost nightly, which made me really tired for school next day. During Summers I worked with all of my friends at a huge out door music amphitheater.

I wore lots of cut-off jeans with fishnets and garters peeking out, and layered undershirts with concert t-shirts over.

I was about as close as you could get to a human Daria.

Had a chip on my shoulder as big as a pine tree

Hey! Was a short guy at an all boys school, big nose and a funny voice. Wanted to fight the world. Moved to the States and was drafted. (How's that for Karma!) Never dreamed that I would end up a High school Teacher(There's that darn Karma again) Now deal with hundreds of angry teens:eusa_doh:

I was kind of wild sometimes

Just go ask my mother! lol lol

( well, wild but kind of shy at the same time, difficult to explain, whatever)

You all know what I'm like.

Just like now

Loud, obnoxious, class clown. Drove a pick-up truck. Ran Cross Country. Got good grades. Big fan of President Ronald Reagan.

Two words:


Total recluse.

Hmm, good question.

Early teens, Jr. High School - fairly introverted and shy, plenty nerdy. Did some standard geek hobbies - D&D club, fencing. 70's feathered hair. Had already been reading Sci-Fi and playing board wargames due to my brothers influence.

Middle and late teens - High School. Still plenty nerdy. Junior/Senior year fully adopted the punk look, and that got me interviewed for my only mention in the school newspaper. Really got into punk / new wave / ska. Was the teaching assistant for a Computer class, where the teacher would on occasion ask me if some technical point was correct. I think I attended one dance, didn't go to my senior prom. I did go out for prom night like activities the year before, when the girl I was dating had senior prom.

So not a whole lot different than now.

When I was a teen I was ill-adjusted, often lonely, generally tried too hard, and dated guys who were too old.

I had been homeschooled as a kid. When I was 12 I started classes at community college. You know about the emotional immaturity of college freshmen...? I didn't actually stand out that badly because I was quiet, and I could do the work when I tried, but I always felt awkward.

And I didn't ever study because I didn't want to and no one could make me so there! I'm going to the mall!

So yeah, yuck. And I dated a little, which was a whole 'nother horror.

-Viola