How to deal with being considered a weird teenager

If you are a teenager and a lot of your peers or people around you seem to think you are really weird, well you are not alone. In fact I believe that anyone who doesn’t fit into today’s model of the televised average teenager, might be considered a strange weirdo. A lot of the supposedly normal teenagers today tend to be pretty similar because they all follow the examples they see from television and the media. Teenage girls might be really into fashion, reading magazines, becoming overly interested in the lives of movie stars and keeping too close of a tab on their weight. As for what teenage boys tend to focus on, it’s more in the realm of the latest games, gadgets, sports.

For today’s technology savvy teenagers, using instant messenging is a great way to keep in touch with their friends outside of school and to socialize through sites like MySpace or Facebook. But in a lot of areas, the best place for popular teenagers to gather is usually at the mall, the coffee shop (Starbucks, no less) or at other business locations. Businesses love this, because teenagers tend to spend a lot of money, mostly their parents’ money. But what if you are not one of these teenagers who lives to go shopping and find out the score for the latest football game? How do you deal with being considered a weird teenager by your peers?

I think I can give you some tips about how to deal with being an outsider among teenage peers because I was once in the same situation. I think that first of all, there will be other teenagers such as yourself who are not interested in the usual trivial day to day activities that most teens are. So I suggest you try and gain their friendship. Even though members of the out group might not seem like very attractive friends to you, you might be surprised to find that you have a lot more in common with them once you get to know them. Similarly, do not treat other so called “weirdos” the same way that you are being treated by the “less weird” in your school. You should always treat others the way that you want to be treated.

Now that you have a bit more of a support group to back you up, it is time to foster your weirdness. Yes, you read right. I think you should encourage your strange quirks into blossoming to full skills or qualities to be proud of. For example if you are not very interested in sports, but instead you enjoy drawing comic books, or even just reading coming books. Why not practice drawing more seriously and hone your skills to really develop into a more talented individual. Make use of all the free time you have, by not socializing with the in crowds, into really fueling your personal growth. A lot of people I know said that their GPAs went up after they decided to stop drinking alcohol, which alienated them from the in crowds and left them with more time to improve themselves.

It is possible to turn every seemingly bad situation into a good one. Don’t let the teasing at school bother you. You know that you are bigger than that, and that your personal worth is not measured by what everyone else thinks about you. Only you know your true potential. So don’t let the in crowd stop you from achieving your true potentials. Put aside the sorrow and stop wallowing in self pity. Stand tall, do what you love and maybe this type of self confidence is all it will take for the in crowd to notice that you have something even more special than what they have.