[dkarl]

I think my group of friends prided ourselves on being a little more inclusive, an easy distinction to achieve, but we still followed the same pattern the popular people did and the same pattern followed by HN: we valued the current state of our group and wanted to protect it. We knew we could drive out most people just by being ourselves, but more desperate people had to be sent social cues saying, "You're welcome once in a while, but don't push it." I don't remember us being overtly rude, though.

I remember being particularly mortified about a retarded kid who kept coming and talking to me about his chances of getting into "Hahvahd." I don't know who was messing with his head, but he honestly thought that being an Eagle Scout (honorary, I'm sure) gave him a a good shot at getting into Harvard, and he wanted to talk to me about it. The retarded kid was a bit slower with the social cues. I hated him for that. And I was smart enough to know that's how normal people felt about me, which made me hate him even worse, but I never made fun of him to his face.