Well, this kid's screwed.

Sixth grade was a rough year for me. I was sitting at the semi-popular table at lunch and was delusional enough to think I was the cat’s pajamas. Looking back, I simply was not. Maybe because I used phrases like “the cat’s pajamas.”  And now, a Swedish study is telling me that my unpopularity will cause me to suffer from heart disease and diabetes later in life and I will most likely start doing drugs and try to kill myself.

If I had known this when I was 13, I would have combed my hair on a more regular basis.

The study, which is most definitely making me want to eat enough candy to put me in a diabetic coma/do drugs/crawl into my bed and cry, was done by Stockholm University and the Karolinska Institute and assessed children in sixth grade for their degree of “popularity, power and social status.”

Now, I have to ask: What kind of power were they expecting from a 13-year-old child? His ability to convince a girl in his class to go 7 Minutes in Heaven with him?

Popularity is such a trivial theory. And no, I’m not just saying this because I’m bitter that I’m at greater risk for alcohol dependency than others. Popularity in middle school ran parallel to who had the best desserts in his or her Power Rangers/My Little Pony lunchbox. By eighth grade, you were considered a cool girl if you had boobs and a cool guy if you were allowed to touch them. If you made it to second base, you were destined to be popular in high school. And if you went to an all-girls high school like I did, well no one was popular in that case. Read More »

I had the perfect relationship. We met in my junior year of high school, and continued to date for the next year. While I had already lost my virginity prior to meeting my high school sweetheart, he had not (as far as I knew). During the first couple weeks of our relationship, I avoided the topic of virginity like the plague, as I didn’t want to rehash my embarrassing and somewhat regretted first time.

The time eventually came for us to get it on, and while I hadn’t asked if he still carried is v-card, after our first time lasted a good 10 minutes I figured I had not been the one to take his innocence. (What? Guys with their v-cards tend to finish at just the thought of getting some…)

Shortly after, the big conversation rolled around and I found out that I was indeed his first. I fessed up to my previous experience, and it seemed to be cool with him. He told me he was relieved that I knew what I was doing, as he was without a clue. It was a constant joke in our relationship that I had been the one who corrupted him, ha ha ha. Read More »

Clearly, Britney is still messed up in the head.

The truth about high school.

What’s gonna happen to Jon and Kate Plus 8?

We love party dresses!

Stay out of debt, people.

Wait. There’s a Scientology clothing line!?

It’s that time of year, when people start packing up their lives to fit into the ridiculously small storage closets they call dorm rooms.  For some of us, we will be heading back to familiar sights and sounds, having already navigated our way through a couple years of school.  For the rest of us, it will be the first time on campus and the start of a much-hyped period in your life: the college years.

There have been several books written to prepare incoming freshman for all the crazy shiz that will go down during their first year of school.  Their relatives, friends, guidance counselors and even complete strangers will also advise them on how to stay healthy in the cafeteria and how to sneak alcohol into their dorm room.

To really be prepared for your freshman year, however, you should get familiar with the people that will surround you on a daily basis.  Will your roommate be a Loner or a Homesick Child?  Will your lab partner be an Athlete/Ultimate Fan and therefore too busy checking on player stats and scores to write the chemistry report with you?  Only time will tell, so you might as well be prepared.

Here’s the 10 types of freshmen you’ll meet on campus: Read More »

Remember when you were 13 and everything seemed like the biggest deal ever and “OMG you are going to die because life is just so bad”? Oh, and you were wearing giant bell bottom jeans and a shirt with a condom pocket on the sleeve? Yeah, those were the days.

Don’t you wish you could hop into a DeLorean and go back and give that girl some (fashion) advice? Maybe a little nugget of wisdom to make those angsty teenage years just a little less angsty? Unfortch, we can’t go back there (or maybe it’s a good thing – I don’t like looking at pictures of myself with that perm, so interacting with it in person would be devastating), but if you could, what would you say?

This week I asked the CollegeCandy team to share their life lessons with their younger selves.
What wisdom would you impart? Read More »

There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned American holiday to make you realize how alone you are in this world. Everything’s been going pretty well (according to my new post-college standards of pretty well) and I thought that for the most part I was building up quite the little social network of friends who would make me not feel quite so isolated. We would Gchat at work, grab Pinkberry here and there, perhaps even attend the occasional happy hour.

But apparently that social network of friends was a pure figment of my imagination.

July 4th came out of nowhere and everyone (people I’ve never spoken to) kept asking me what I was planning on doing. On the outside I remained calm and collected and responded with dignity; I’ll figure it out. But on the inside I was panicking like it was Halloween eve and my only available costume was sexy bunny. I would casually bring it up to my “friends” and they all would respond with excitement about boat trips with friends, annual family BBQ’s, and lake houses in states I thought were made-up. Then they would ask me what I was doing and I would mumble something about fireworks and hot dogs and anti-terrorism laws. Read More »

The summer after I graduated from high school I was excited to finally be free from compulsory family vacays to celebrate the 4^th of July. So to celebrate both America’s and my own newfound independence, I went big, I went all out – I went to a house party.

It was the kind of party I look back fondly on in remembrance of high school days. There was cheap vodka, a backup keg, and plenty of top shelf liquor plucked from the generous hostesses’ parents liquor cabinet. The night started out innocently enough, with keg stands, red and blue shots (white didn’t work out the way we’d planned), and plenty of high schoolers bragging about just how wasted they were.

As a mature, soon-to-be-freshman, I was so over the same un-graduated attendees that had been plaguing house parties for the last 4 years of my life. As I lamented the lack of “real men” with my equally sophisticated best friends, the college guys showed up. Read More »

Graduation is no longer just a corny Vitamin C song to me anymore. Next week is my own high school graduation, and now that the event is nearly here, it all feels so incredibly real: leaving home, heading to college, living mostly on my own without the guidance of my parents. I remember starting freshman year thinking that high school would be the longest four years of my life. In reality, the time flew by all too fast.

Looking back on my high school career, I was never that sentimental about moving from one grade to the next. I often counted down the last days of school on a huge calendar on my desk, just to make crossing off the final day that much sweeter.

But now, I find myself feeling rather schmaltzy about it all. On the last day of classes, I shambled after classmates and teachers to get signatures for my yearbook. I spent most of last week reminiscing with friends about the past few years the way my grandparents do about the “olden days.” I’m normally not one to wear my emotions on my sleeve, but something about this particular milestone in my life has been bringing these feelings the surface. The sadness about leaving friends and family, the uncontainable excitement of a new adventure – the mixture of the two is something I’ve never experienced before now. Read More »

You got a question? Tuffy’s got an answer! To have your question featured (and answered!) in the Tuffster’s weekly column, email her at TuffyLuv@collegecandy.com!

Dear Tuffy Luv,

I’m a high school junior who’s been having a bit of a problem. I sit in class with 5 guys in my chemistry class who constantly tease me. I’m the only girl on the left side of the room. Sometimes I don’t say anything, and they just start making fun of me. I get the fact that high school boys are immature, and that girls tend to be more mature at the age of 16.  Sometimes I try to defend myself, but no one can hear it over the 5 guys that are laughing in my face. All of my friends tell me they like me, but I don’t trust their judgment. Are they really making fun of me, or are they just doing it to grab my attention? Do I seem like someone vulnerable to them as a person to make fun of? How do I make them see me in a different light?

Thanks, Tuffy!

-Private Prep Girl

Read More »

So you’re finally settled back into home life for the summer. You’ve spent the last week catching up on sleep, home cooking and quality snuggle time with the dog and now it’s time to get out of the house. You rifle through the duffle bags you have yet to unpack, throw on some clothes and head out to visit your old high school haunts. Namely, the mall.

You park the car, grab a coffee from the first (of many) Starbucks in the suburban shopping center and begin wandering through the stores. You are contemplating a dress at Forever 21 when you hear someone calling your name. You turn around and realize it is an old high school “friend,” one of the many that you stopped talking to as soon as you threw your stuff on that twin extra long bed and began your life in college.

She wasn’t a good friend, but rather the kind of friend that you only had because you had homeroom together. The kind of friend that sort of drifted as soon as you got to college and realized that there were much better, cooler and more fun people in this world… and you didn’t have to talk to her anymore now that you didn’t have class together. The kind of friend that you only remember because she shows up in your Newsfeed every now and again. Read More »