Popular people live longer.

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There’s not much difference between getting a job and getting a man.

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.

I got to college and finally came to terms with my own social status, wherever I happened to fall on the social food chain. But now I’m learning that I can never truly leave my unpopularity in the past, as it will have a long-term impact on my identity, behavior and ambitions.

Currently, I feel pretty good about myself. No sign of diabetes and no one has had to talk me off the ledge just yet, but who knows. Perhaps the time I split my pants during a talent show performance and my entire middle school laughed me off the stage will be the cause of my ultimate demise 20 years from now.

Sometimes, I think finding out that your mate has cheated is a blessing in disguise, because you can sidestep the entire “this isn’t working” discussion and end things in an explosive fight instead. Of course, for those of us who just had to choose nice, faithful boys, it can be hard to let the poor guy down. So, we make up excuses. Sometimes we even lie.

If you don’t think your man can handle the truth (“You’re obviously not going to get any better at foreplay,” “If I have to waste one more Sunday watching football with you and your frat boy buddies, I’m going to slit my own throat,” or, simply, “I can’t wait to bang Johnny from Journalism class, as soon as I get out of these shackles,”) you may want to/be forced to fabricate a reason for ending your exclusive relationship.

Junior year of college, I was in a dead end relationship. I had chased my boyfriend, and won, and within six months, I was bored. I tried so hard to instigate a blow-up, but it never worked. Instead of the ever-dramatic, uber-conclusive “Get out!”/ doorslam combo, my ex started crying and pacing around the halls of my dorm room, where a concerned RA took pity on him and returned him to my doorstep.

I considered a plethora of lies to catapult me back into the singles scene. “It’s not you, it’s me” is too generic an excuse, and when I tried to play that card, the guy started promising to change. I tried to use money as an excuse, arguing that I needed to pick up more shifts at work and spend less money on nights out. That one blew up in my face, since we worked together, and he thought that more work for me would also mean more time we could spend together; he also suggested saving money by staying in and watching movies. By this point, cuddling with him was making my skin crawl, but of course, I bit my tongue and sat through Quentin Tarantino’s Four Rooms. Since he was a pothead, I considered using narcotics as an excuse, but, as a partier myself, I would sound hypocritical, unless I vowed to cut booze out of my life.

How was I ever going to end this one?

Truth be told, it took an ambulance ride and a percocet prescription to get back into the singles scene. I kid you not.

My blessing-in-disguise came in the form of a dislocated knee. I had to take a leave of absence from my waitressing job, where my ex was a cook. Bonus: no awkward post-break-up interaction! I ignored the guy for a couple of days, and then told him that since I was incapacitated, I thought it would be too difficult to continue with the relationship. He was working full-time, after all, and I had to hobble around campus on crutches and crash, exhausted, at the end of the day.

I pretended I was more upset than I really was and said I was going to throw myself into my schoolwork for the rest of the semester. In reality, I was at the bar most nights, crutches and all. But at least I was single at the bar on crutches. It is sad that it took bodily harm to end my relationship, but sometimes there are no other options.

Am I alone on this one? Anyone else ever have some ridiculous story to get out of a relationship?

I’m sure you could have stopped any kid on the street with a skateboard or girl buying leggings at Forever 21 and they could have told you that, on less of a budget.

The only real surprising thing about this show is that the girls were so candid on camera. They were truthful about things that most girls wouldn’t want their parents knowing, but since the show follows the 12 girls for four years, by the time their parents view it…they’ll be old enough to not have to explain themselves and their bad behavior. Except of course if there’s a baby involved within the four years….they may have to explain that…

Each girl goes through the things that we’ve all managed to make it through; sex, parties, pressure, family chaos, self-loathing, and the search for “SELF” (which most people don’t find until after high school anyway). Starting off with braces and frizzy hair, pictures flash from beginning to end on how they’ve at least managed to find a better conditioner, regardless of “self.”

After all, ridiculous or not, in high school, image is pretty damn important.

Though I don’t think the show is doing anything ground-breaking, I’ll still tune in every Monday night. There is something endearing and intriguing about these clumsy teenage girls going through many of the things we’ve all encountered…only with an entire camera crew around.

Many of the stories are stories we can relate to, can understand, can empathize with and feel our aching hearts coincide with those of the girls. Its tumultuous and exciting and makes me say, thank the dear LORD I made it through…

And they will too.

The show is on the WE network, every Monday 10/9c. Tune in and let us know what you think.

So, Tila Tequila isn’t bi? You mean, her entire existence is a total sham? There’s no way the most popular girl on MySpace would ever try to sell herself further for essentially doing nothing! No! It can’t be! Tila is a completely legitimate woman/pop singer/MySpace celebrity, right?

Sure she is! She’s as classy as a queen. Need proof? Check out the evidence:

She’s singing “Like a Virgin”! Those semi-seductive winks and all that head shaking is just for show. Not. Slutty. At all.

She’s a dancer! I’d say this video is NSFW, but she’s an artist so I’m just going to say it’s beautiful.

Tucker Carlson wants to interview her! This is when you know she’s made it. She’s on cable news and totally well-spoken and intelligent. You can’t beat sound-bytes like, “I’ve always had this thing where I wanted attention from everyone…” Lovely!

Well, someone wants to put a stop to all the preaching.

Coolest Girl in School, a “mobile phone based game” (a term which makes me feel old, since I have no idea what it is) is about to debut in Australia, and parents are pissed.

“Game developer and producer” Holly Owen, the (no) brains behind this new game, says that the point behind Coolest Girl is to “”lie, bitch and flirt your way to the top of the high school ladder“, a description that makes me think Owen has “cool” confused with “total asshole”.

“It’s not about glorifying bad things, it’s about giving young girls the opportunity to play around with high school.” Owen says about her horrible idea, going on to muse “It’s a pretty ironic game because things that might seem obviously cool like taking drugs and smoking might work against you because you have to go to rehab or have stinky breath when the captain of the football team comes to speak to you.”

Right. So in Owen’s world, it’s not cancer that should dissuade you from smoking, it’s the chance the captain of the football team might think your breath stinks.

What fantastic morals.

Besides opting to smoke or not to smoke, players in Coolest Girl “must choose whether to experiment with drugs, alcohol…skip school, spread rumours, [sic] bully and even fall pregnant in their effort to win the game.”

Now, I may not be anyone’s mom, but I’m appalled. What kind of crack addict idiot thinks teenage girls need any more glorification of negativity in their lives? Holly Owen must have had one boring high school experience—why else would she think getting pregnant and experimenting with drugs is just fun and games?