Meet Tania. She is an average high school girl, too plain to notice, too unimportant to remember. Right now, she is sitting forlorn on her bed, checking her Facebook newsfeed like any other day. She notices her current profile picture, which was uploaded two days ago with an artillery of 30 likes, and no comments. She thought of her best friend, Tuhin, who managed 365.
Okay, this was the limit. Rion uploaded a post saying “It’s summer and I’m bored.” A few hours, and 50 likes emerged!
“How is that more fascinating than my profile picture? I used a Snapchat filter on it for heaven’s sake,” thought Tania. She knocked some of her friends online. They all ignored her texts after seeing them. Unsurprised, Tania smashed the screen shut and put away her laptop.
She lay in the darkness of her blanket, like it would protect her from her messed up emotions. She stayed up all night thinking about why she isn’t popular enough to get a three-digit number of likes. She mentally listed down everything wrong with her, simultaneously drowning in the voids of her sub-consciousness.
If you can relate to Tania, don’t be embarrassed to admit it to yourself. Believe me, you are not the only one whose insecurities goes ricocheting up when life keeps presenting evidence of your almost invisible existence. Your friends are busy with their other friends and you never even got asked out. No shame. We can work this out. A tall glass of popularity coming right up!
First step of solving a problem is to agree that there is one. Some people are born with millions of friends. You are not one of them; discard that headstrongness and own up to yourself. The first thing to do is to bring a positive attitude in you about your mission to become popular. Never act like you don’t care about your reputation. Always show your friends, teachers and colleagues that you are interested in impressing them.
What you have to do now is to get yourself noticed. Your wardrobe plays a significant role here. Don’t hide yourself in clothes that you think might make you seem dull. Wear comfortable clothes but be trendy in your own style. You might have heard or read it that looks don’t matter. However, it does work as a catalyst for this particular mission.
Learn how to strike up a light-hearted conversation with anyone you like. Be careful to avoid controversial topics like politics and religion; but if your companion wants to discuss such topics, just go with it. Do not expect your friends to chase after you while you sit on a different table from them. Be social and approach them yourself. But if you see that s/he is busy or showing signs of not being interested in you, do not badger them. Just don’t hide yourself in the corner, give others the privilege of knowing a smart and fun person like you.
And a sense of humour is a crucial matter; crack jokes every now and then (not clichéd knock-knock jokes, though). Here’s a helpful tip - give direct observational compliments towards your friends, but make sure they are relevant. Use body language casually and keep yourself relaxed. Nobody wants to hear you go on and on about the finals coming up.
Talking smart isn’t all. Half the work you have to do is simply listen to your companion. And then, tactfully relate their stories to yours. For example, if they are talking about their siblings, compare yours to them. Make them feel like their feelings and experiences matter to you.
Once you are an expert on the previous stages, it’s time to get you up in the club. Building rapport will become much easier if you are a member of some club that matches your interests. Remember, your mission is to make yourself visible to as many people as possible.
“Be yourself,” and, “Popularity isn’t a thing,” these are some hackneyed phrases you learn through Netflix and such. If you feel like you have bigger mountains to move and these issues are trivial to you, then good luck with that. But there are some of us who see the celebrities in school and our work place and fantasise about what the spotlight actually feels like. The feeling of being on the outside looking in is a painful one.
But don’t let desperation drive you too far. Never try to do something illegal or unethical to attract attention. In particular, don’t just take a friend as a camera man, go beat somebody up beside a lake and then upload the video on Facebook to earn likes (people actually do that). That’s old hat. Adding strangers online and getting too comfortable with them just so that they will act as your “like-bank” is very dangerous as well. Don’t play with fire, especially in these troubled times.
Most importantly, be confident with whatever you say or do. Never cry in public. No matter how sick you are, get out of your bed and attend the party.
Mission accomplished.