THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 3, 1994 TAG: 9406020062
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTY MOHORN, HIGH SCHOOL CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: 940603 LENGTH: Medium
No longer are students happy being themselves. Fronts have gone up and individuality has been stored away. Clothing choices, bad behavior, drug use and premarital sex are all influenced by this powerful need to belong. Few students escape its grip.
{REST} ``Everyone wants to feel like they're wanted, to be accepted,'' said Mark Brown, a senior at Indian River High School. ``In the past, I've said things to other people to be accepted. I've cussed at someone, and that's not really me. I just did it to fit in.''
Nick Santasiere, a freshman at Tallwood High School, confessed that he has had trouble admitting that he is a Christian. ``People will joke you, laugh at you and call you names if they know,'' he explained.
The need to belong, to fit in, is most intense during junior high and early high school, said Dr. Elaine M. Justice, associate professor of psychology at Old Dominion University. Teens and pre-teens ``are aware of how they are being looked at, and they don't want to stand out,'' she said. ``They (begin to) realize the similarities and differences between themselves and their peers.''
``You don't want to be different,'' said Kevin Alig, a Tallwood sophomore and a member of the junior varsity basketball team. ``It makes you feel good to be accepted.''
Nowhere is the need to conform more obvious than in the way people dress. School social groups are often formed solely on what people wear, regardless of personalities. This group only wears what's expensive. That one is into heavy metal T-shirts and basic black. Another dresses like they've stepped from the pages of Seventeen magazine. There are lots of mirror images, and dressing different - being different - is unheard of.
Some students go to more dangerous extremes to get into the ``in'' crowd.
An Indian River High sophomore admitted that she smoked to fit in with her brother. ``I was more like my older brother when I smoked,'' she said. ``When we did stuff like that together, it brought us closer.''
``When I'm around people who do drugs, I'll just go ahead and do them,'' an Indian River junior said. ``I don't feel like I belong unless I do. It really messes me up though. I can't come to school because of them, so my grades go down.''
He also admitted putting up a front.
``I'm actually a very serious person, but I don't show that side of me because I'm afraid (others) won't accept it,'' he said. ``I act obnoxious instead because it makes people laugh, and when they laugh, I feel accepted.''
But the popularity thing even goes further. A Deep Creek senior admitted that she slept with her boyfriend of two months because she thought that would make him like her more.
Acceptance is even based on who accepts you.
``People develop a negative opinion of you if you hang around someone who's `uncool' ,'' said Kevin Herrell, a junior at Indian River and a varsity football player.
Later in high school, the pressure sometimes subsides.
``I used to be like, I have to do this or that to be accepted, but now I pretty much do my own thing,'' said Mark, the Indian River senior who is well known at his school for being one of the first to sport dreds.
The key, Justice said, is positive peer groups. When students start to identify with negative groups, such as gangs, trouble can follow.
``Anytime you have to compromise who you really are to please someone else,'' said Kevin, ``that is too far.''
by CNB