Over this spring break, I spent a weekend acting as a college leader for a group of wonderful 7th grade girls at a retreat. After spending an extended amount of time getting close with a group of girls who were the exact opposite of me when I was their age, I thought about all the time I spent in middle school simply oozing awkwardness. I do not know one person who would go back to middle school, even if you paid them. Middle school is a time of transition, of changing who you are as a person. And mostly, a time of pure, unadulterated awkwardness. With that in mind, here are a few things that everyone went through in their miserable middle school years!
1. Rapid Style Changes
Every girl had the couple of months in which she strayed from her trusty wardrobe of Aeropostale t-shirts to explore another style. Just looking back on middle school fashion can make one cringe. I distinctly remember wearing a squirrel sweater and a pair of Christmassy candy-cane striped pants in public. Not ironically, either.
2. Awkward Photo Stage
Technology is a great thing but when in the hands of girls who are just discovering their egos it can lead to dramatic selfies that tend to stay on the internet for ages until you finally realize how awkward you actually were. Or until someone finds them and makes fun of you relentlessly. Even the very technology of school photos that end up in yearbooks can showcase exactly how awkward you really were.
3. Neverending Horrible Hair Days
I’m pretty sure that I didn’t discover the glories of a hair straightener until halfway through eighth grade. Neither did any of my other classmates, for that matter. Middle school consists of days on days of frizzy, grungy hair for most of the girl population, which only contributes to the awkwardness further.
4. Dreadful Dancing
Oh, the glorious middle school dances. The romantically sweaty gym, the dim lights that shone just enough so you could observe the distinct separation between the boys and the girls, and the awkward slow dances in which couples touched each other as little as possible. Not to mention the fact that you thought you could do the “Soulja Boy”, when in reality you looked like a stick bug.
5. Liking that One Boy
You know the one. The one who turned out to be a total loser and who your friends make fun of you for to this very day. Many first boyfriends or major crushes happen in this transitional stage, and many you have come to regret.
6. Makeup Mania
While everyone’s learning how to do makeup, there are certain points in your middle school career where you go through the raccoon-eyeliner phase, the “I’m going to smear all of these fancy colors on my eyelids” phase, and many more phases that include all the horrors that lipgloss and eye makeup can provide.
7. Obsessing Over Older Boys
There is something about middle school that makes you hormonally imbalanced to the point that you find questionable boys attractive–then comes in the older boy. The one that every straight girl finds hot, and thus begins the obsession. Need I say more? I know most of us would have loved this poster of Zac Efron watching over our beds as we slept!
So now that we’ve got a recap of the complete and utter awkwardness of middle school, just be thankful that you’ll never have to go back to that awkward stage of your life. Any awkward moments you want to share? Let us know in the comments below!