When one is a teenager, judging people seems to come naturally and most of the time our thoughts when seeing a different person were negative. During my junior and senior years, there were many different groups of students such as the preps, jocks, theatre kids and there were people everyone would call the “outcasts. ” The outcasts were the main targets that the more popular kids including myself, would continuously tease and judge. They hardly had any friends because they were not into sports or partying like the rest of my peers, they dressed outrageously and had tattoos and tons of piercings.
I never imagined the “outcasts” would become my best friends once I moved on to University. During my first year of University, I learned many things but to me the most important was to never judge someone by their looks. I learnt that true beauty comes from within a person and labels mean nothing. The saying “Never judge a book by it’s cover,” never really had a meaning to me until this year. Throughout high school, like many other students, I wanted the social life of having popular friends and attending many parties.
It seemed to me that in order to get into these groups, I always had to do things I was never comfortable with like calling others rude names. I knew criticizing people I didn’t know was wrong, but I wanted so badly to stay in my group of “friends” and not become unnoticed or someone who was never invited out. Whenever I saw the group of students all dressed in black with strange colours in their hair, I’ll admit that I would be a little creeped out and I would constantly wonder if they had any loose connection inside their brains.
I would always look at my friends and they would be pointing, giggling and yelling dreadful things such as “losers! ” or “Don’t hang out with them, they’re mental. ” I would of course join in on the teasing because at the time, I thought the exact same thing. They looked ridiculous with the chains, heavy black makeup, blue hair and piercings in every place possible on their faces. I thought they were weird and didn’t belong anywhere in my school because of the way they chose to dress.
I began hating each and every one of them, seeing them at school made me cringe and I would continue to say horrible things to them up until the day I graduated from the school. When university came around, I no longer spoke to any of my high school peers. I began meeting so many different people and becoming friends with a huge number of students. One girl in particular stood out to me. Her name was Dani and although she usually dressed in black with her arms covered in tattoos, she seemed to be the most artistic and sweetest person I have met so far. She would sit in a group of 2 or 3 others that looked exactly as she did.
I had never spoken to her until the day I was sitting on the floor in tears when I heard someone walk in, the bathroom door slowly started opening and it was her. I was unsure of what to say at first because of my judgement in the past, I felt like telling her to get out because I didn’t want someone like her to be there but then she asked me if everything was okay. I began telling her what happened and how I received my first horrible grade as she wiped my tears away for me. She sat down next to me told me that everything was going to be okay and she gave me some awesome advice that I still remember today.
From that day on, Dani became my best friend. She even introduced me to the rest of her friends which sort of surprised me that they were just as nice and genuine as Dani was. Many people look at someone else and start making bizarre assumptions instantly by whatever comes to mind. For me, it took a special kind of person to show me what is on the ? outside means nothing until the true colours of a person’s heart is seen. Dani showed me the real meaning behind the powerful saying “never judge a book by it’s cover”. I made a wonderful friendship by keeping an open mind and letting myself get to know a person before I start judging.
