Singled-Out

I used to hate being singled-out and praised in high school. It's not that anyone in high school made fun of me for standing out; but it was a remnant of my middle shcool career, a mental note that being different will get you picked on.

Today my General Psychology professor singled me out of the entire class to pay me a compliment. It was completely different this time. I liked it. I guess the difference was in high school and middle school there was a clear delineation between the intelligent kids, the average kids, and the not-so-intelligent-or-average kids. And when the intelligent kids keep getting a lot of attention, the other kids probably started to resent them.

Here in college, though, everyone is pretty much just as smart as everyone else (or at least pretending to be), so when I got the chance to be special again -- set apart from the "other kids" -- I felt good.