Friendships in School Hierarchy

What are the kinds of friends we make through our lives? What are the friendships that last? What are the kinds of friendships you will remember through your life?

Let me try answering these taking inputs from my own life. Rather than focus on the recent years let me go back at least 10 yrs before & earlier. My school was a pretty strict type of a school - where studies were of utmost importance. The main focus of the school was – ensuring 100% first classes in X board exams. Naturally, the school hierarchy was then formed based on marks.

My School’s Hierarchical structure-

Toppers
The select few. They always get the first rank, the best grades, and the highest marks. They are the super motivated lot. They combine the best qualities of focused working nature & high brainpower. The teacher’s favourites, they make sure they have the most impressive report card.
Desire for marks: High
Marks: High

Followers
Who wouldn’t want to make friends with the 'Toppers'? After all, these are the most appreciated students. Naturally they had many so-called friends (I’m too lazy to put the definition of friends here). The 'Followers' were attracted to the 'Toppers' out of the desire to get better marks to be more respected among peers & elders. They generally had the motivation but somehow were not able to make it to the top.
Desire for marks: Med to High
Marks: Low to Med

Others
Though this category is clubbed into one, they would be the most unique of characters. As we cannot have a category for each individual, we club the unique individuals in one category. These were the people not in the race for marks. At least their orientation towards marks was much less. Now this was the unpredictable lot. They sometimes would ace a particular subject out of nowhere leaving the toppers gaping. Probably they would see something in that particular subject other than marks. At other times they would be out of the race.
Desire for marks: Low
Marks: Variable

Now I would most definitely be in the 'Others'. However more important is the breed of friends I made.

The ‘Toppers’ were always surrounded by their own share of ‘Followers’. They were too much involved with studies & their ‘Followers’ to spend time on other things. Their motivation for forming friendships was study & study related stuff. Naturally forming friendships with ‘Others’ was not possible.

The ‘Followers’, like the ‘Toppers’ were too involved in study related stuff to form friendship with the ‘Others’. Some of them would try coming close to an ‘Other’ when that guy would suddenly score exceptionally high. But since ‘Others’ did not get their kick out of scoring high marks, they did not get much help from the ‘Other’. So most of the time the ‘Followers’ would be with the ‘Toppers’.

Now this leaves the ‘Others’ to form friendships among themselves. They were like the sideyed people out of the ‘In’ group. They had their own individual preferences & didn’t care much about what others thought was important. Thus while the Toppers had a big list of ‘friends’, the ‘Others’ generally went around with a few only.

Being an ‘Other’, I too had very few close friends in my life. These were not all people with high marks. These were not all people with low marks. Marks was not the criteria. In fact there was no criteria. I did not consciously make friends. Friends just happened. If I felt good being with someone, that was my friend. There is one person named JS who used to stammer, got low marks & had bad handwriting. He was my very good friend for a long time. I don’t know what benefit he got out of me or what I got out of him. Two years ago I got to know that he had passed away. It was sad but I know he will be with all my life. When I look back, I can recall each & every friendship I’ve had. Yes each & every friendship. I suspect its because my making friendships was not dependent on my mind that evaluates the benefits & losses I will have out of any engagement. This is one area where I do not apply my mind.

PS: There is a rumour my mother keeps propagating that I got the first rank in UKG, 1st, 2nd & 3rd standards. Don’t believe her.