Why nerds are unpopular is one of Paul Graham's classic essays and well worth reading again. This essay made me re-evaluate my terrible memories of high-school (I think now I wouldn't have changed a thing); and will no doubt shape any recommendations I have for other young nerds who suffer the same terrible problems that come with massive unpopularity at school.
"When we were in junior high school, my friend Rich and I made a map of the school lunch tables according to popularity. This was easy to do, because kids only ate lunch with others of about the same popularity. We graded them from A to E. A tables were full of football players and cheerleaders and so on. E tables contained the kids with mild cases of Down's Syndrome, what in the language of the time we called "retards."
"We sat at a D table, as low as you could get without looking physically different. We were not being especially candid to grade ourselves as D. It would have taken a deliberate lie to say otherwise. Everyone in the school knew exactly how popular everyone else was, including us."
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