Stereotyping

Growing up, I never was really affected by any stereotypes. I was your average kid with an average family going to a public school with a bunch of kids who were pretty much in the same boat as me. However, when I entered high school, everyone began to stereotype. Throughout my childhood and teenage years as well, I have always been involved with sports. I used to play soccer competitively and I also ran track, played basketball, and flag football. To many, this may not seem like a bad thing, but to my fellow high school classmates it was something to joke about. I had a lot of guy friends in high school and so when we would get together to play football or any other activity, they would start making jokes. They would call me a dyke or a man. Of course I knew they were just kidding because I was dating one of their friends but still, they were stereotyping me based on things they assumed.
Also, in my senior year of high school, I dyed my hair blonde. I used to have blonde hair all through my childhood but as I grew up, my hair started getting darker. So, when I decided to dye my hair, I never thought that I would be stereotyped; sadly, I was wrong. Right away when I dyed my hair, the blonde jokes started. If I ever did something kind of dumb, all my friends would say ‘its okay, you’re blonde’. Or in class, if I got a bad grade on a test, everyone would say ‘you got that grade because you’re blonde’. Not really. At first, the jokes didn’t bother me but eventually they got on my nerves and I would get mad if someone tried to say I was dumb because I had blonde hair.
Then, I got accepted into the Honors Program at Florida State. When I told people about that, they were all like ‘ohhh, so you’re going to be one of those honors kids?’ One of those honors kids? I had no idea what they meant. They were assuming that all honors kids were “nerds” or “losers”. Which, as I have found out, is definitely not the case. I’ve met a lot of honors kids by living in Landis, and for the most part, all of them are as ‘normal’ as you and me. Granted, I don’t really care if people stereotype me as a nerd, but saying I’m in the honors program always makes kids think that all the honors students have no friends and are weird. Sometimes people can be so ignorant and judgmental.