As a kid, I was never either the "popular guy" nor the guy with NO friends; I was more like Kevin in The Wonder Years, with a couple of close, GOOD friends, smallish, bookish, funny, "cute" (god, how teen and pre-teen guys hate that word!), with a couple of friends from the "jock" crowd and one or two from the "geek" crowd.
In middle school, I was picked on unmercifully (I've never even told my own family this), and never stood up for myself. It was a horrible experience.
Thru it all, I always had GIRLfriends, but never really good male friendships, including the first couple years of high school. That all suddenly changed for me when I, basically, "broke up with" a guy who was my best friend, who was HIGH-MAINTENANCE and I just finally grew tired of kissing his ass all of the time, and decided "Having a friend shouldn't be this difficult."
After that, I seemingly met kids easily, and I had a small core of VERY good friends, and we were part of a larger circle of 30-40 kids, male and female, who all used to do stuff together. The last half of high school -- and into college and adulthood and before my marriage -- was a GREAT, happy time for me, that was full of many friendships and romantic relationships with some great (and great-LOOKING!) girls.
Not sure why I even wrote all of that, Hoozh, other than to say I can relate to C somewhat, and can relate to what DQ is saying about how quickly it can change for a kid. I think it's harder for a girl, and other girls can be SO cruel. To this day, neither of my daughters (now 23 and 21) have many female friends, and it makes me sad. I have prayed and prayed and prayed for God to send a good one or two across their paths, and I"m still believing for that.
