Yup, I was a smart kid. I read early and thanks to my mom, I was IDd using the old Stanford-Binet at age 4. I was skipped 2 grades in reading starting in K.
I was the classic teacher's pet perfectionist. I was bossy and uptight. A real goodie two-shoes. Control was very important to me, I suspect because I was not being sufficiently challenged in school. That perfectionism and lack of challenge bit me in the rear in high school when I got a B+ in Advanced Math and was ready to slit my wrists over it. *sigh* I'm glad to have all that behind me. Life is a lot more fun as an adult.
I did always have friends, but that's probably because I was pretty lucky in a couple of ways:
1) I was in a grade that just happened to have quite a lot of GT kids. I was definitely one of the smartest kids in my class--for better or worse--but being smart wasn't a bad thing because there were enough of us that it was seen as pretty normal.
2) In addition to my friends in my grade, I also had friends who were 1 and 2 grades ahead of me because of the subject skip and my involvement in lots of extracurriculars. (That was how my parents kept my sister and me challenged: sports, GT enrichment classes, Girl Scouts, art classes, French classes, church youth group, church volleyball, library classes, etc.) That broad friendship pool was pretty great for me. I never felt "stuck" with kids my own age if they didn't suit me. My whole school career, I always had lots of older friends who accepted me without issue.
I was never "popular," just reasonably well-liked and hard to pigeonhole because of all the stuff I was in. I laugh at how long my list of activities was in my senior yearbook--I had the longest list in the class! Everything from sports to drama club to academic competitions to student government. Just ridiculous! And since I was a bit of a chameleon, I fit in okay everywhere. I just never really felt like myself in high school. I only have one truly lifelong friend with whom I stay in touch regularly. I enjoy Facebook and my reunions more than I thought I would, and I talk to everyone (unlike a lot of people there), but I only invited a handful of school friends to my wedding. I always did my best to fit in, but I never felt like I FIT, if you know what I mean.
And for the record, DH was a GT kid, too. He went down the rebel track in high school, though. We laugh because we both wound up at the same basic place through VERY different paths! I wouldn't have even considered dating him in high school, as tightly wound as I was! And he was a burnout, so even if he would have made a play for me, he would have held out no hope of success with me.
Funny how life works out.
