I was the guy who was friends with everybody. Yes, I had my core group of friends, but I wasn't part of a clique that excluded people. I hope they thought I was a nice guy. I tried to be just friendly and outgoing. I was class president. I'm supposed to run my class reunion in 2013.
Start thinking positively. You will notice a difference. Instead of 'I think I'm a loser,' try 'I definitely am a loser.' Stop being wishy-washy about things! How much more of a loser can you be if you don't even know you are one? Either you are a loser or you are not. Which is it, stupid?
Loser loser, double loser, whatever, as if, get the picture. DUH!
You've got to realize that in any competition there is always a winner and loser. When it turns out that you're the loser on a given day, you can be a graceful loser, but it doesn't mean that you're a loser in the sense that you're willing to accept losses readily. Concede that on that day you weren't the best and that you were beaten in competition. But that should make you more dedicated and hard working. It's wrong to accept defeat as a loser. Be graceful about losing, but don't accept it.
My friends and I were the class clowns in high school, so one day we were showing off at our seats, and I fell off my chair! I had to get stitches, and I had a bloody lip. I was trying so hard to be a cool class clown!
I was brought up in a very naval, military, and conservative background. My father and his friends had very typical opinions of the British middle class - lower-middle class actually - after the war. My father broke into the middle class by joining the navy. I was the first member of my family ever to go to private school or even to university. So, the armed forces had been upward mobility for him.
I had no interest in sports so I didn't make friends in that traditional way where kids are in public school and they go and they join clubs, and play sports. So I kind of had to find my own way to make friends and get attention and so I just was the class clown.
One of my own kids was in a class with a friend who had two mums, and that was absolutely normal right from a very young age. I think it's important that we absolutely accept equality in every area whilst at the same time respecting that parents may have concerns about how young their children are when they become aware of these things.
I'm very clumsy, so there's been a lot of times I've tripped in front of girls I'm in love with, or spilled food all over myself. My friends and I were the class clowns in high school, so one day we were showing off at our seats and I fell off my chair! I had to get stitches, and I had a bloody lip. I was trying so hard to be a cool class clown!
The capacity for friendship usually goes with highly developed civilizations. The ability to cultivate people differs by culture and class; but on the whole, educated people have more ways to make friends... . In England, for instance, you find everyone in your class has read the same books. Here, people grope for something in common-like a newly engaged girl who came to me and said, "It's absolutely wonderful! His uncle and my cousin were on the same football team.
I was uncontrollable. I didn't like school. I was younger than everyone in my class by two years. I had few friends. I never had a girlfriend. I was kind of a grandmother's boy.
I know no class of my fellowmen, however just, enlightened, and humane, which can be wisely and safely trusted absolutely with the liberties of any other class.
I grew up with an absolutely horrible, debilitating stutter, and it was what caused me to retreat into myself and caused me to have very few friends and not want to socialize, and it made me absolutely terrified of giving reports in school. It was awful. It wasn't until I was 19 that I had intensive speech therapy. I had it for two years and it really helped, though I will say when I'm tired, the stutter comes out, even now.
One of my friends once saw another guy's (criminal) record and said, 'Look, this guy is a born troublemaker, just a loser.' I had to tell him, 'No, that's my record - and it doesn't include my juvenile history.'
I never want to be called a 'good loser.' Show me a good loser and I'll just show you a loser.
I grew up with white friends, Asian friends - Vietnamese, Chinese, Pacific Islanders. I had Hispanic friends, not just Mexican friends, but Guatemalan friends, Honduran friends, and we knew the difference, you know?