Redditors pinpointed some consistent clues that someone “peaked in high school” in an animated viral debate last week.
“What screams ‘This person peaked in high school’ to you?” Reddit user realHDNA asked. In other words, someone who hasn’t appeared to mature past their teenage years, or prefers to constantly relive their popular glory days.
“Still acting like a typical ‘Mean Girl’ when they’re damn near (or past) 30,” one user offered.
“They just graduate from mean girl to mean woman,” another user agreed. “I think some people are just mean.”
“Regularly reposting the same picture of the one notable moment that they had in high school,” another offered.
Some were eager to share specific anecdotes about encounters they had with people who fit the description.
“I work in schools in a HCOL area where a lot of these types ended up as the Real Housewives of the PTA,” gingergirl181 wrote. “They gossip and bully worse than their teenagers, start all manner of drama just because they’re bored and want to feel powerful, and at some schools they even extend their bullying to each other’s KIDS. Like straight up ‘it’s a shame about her daughter’s baby fat’, ‘looks like her son forgot to take his meds’, ‘at least my kid isn’t failing math like yours’ kind of bulls—. If I could sucker punch any of them without being fired, I would in a heartbeat.”
Others recalled unfortunate encounters with former high school classmates who they said fall in the category.
“About 5 years ago, I ran into one of the more popular girls in school at the mall,” Redditor Bayonethics said. “She was a cashier, and when I went up with my purchases, she actually said ‘Ew aren’t you that nerd from school?’ I literally just said ‘hi.’ After that, I didn’t say anything, just paid and left. I felt bad for her more than anything else because she clearly peaked in high school.”
Others who fit in the category, according to Reddit, are those who constantly relive their high school sports glory days. Some recalled characters like Dan from the movie “Waiting” or Uncle Rico from the 2004 film “Napoleon Dynamite” who obsessively spoke of his high school football career when he was a star player with dreams of going to the NFL. In the film, he still laments how his coach did not put him in the fourth quarter in the 1982 state championship.
“Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would’ve been state champions,” he says in the film. “No doubt. No doubt in my mind.”
“I graduated in 05,” Reddit user aznuke shared. “I was sitting at a tire shop waiting for my truck to get done and an employee slightly older than me walks up to me and asks me, with no previous interaction, if I played football in high school. Wondering where this was going, I responded that I did, but I wasn’t great at it. He asked what school I went to, and I told him. Then he starts talking about himself. How he was “all conference” and walking me through all of his high school accolades…
“I never asked for this conversation. I just sat there wondering why this nearly 40 year old, wildly out of shape, tire shop supervisor was telling me all of this. Then just as soon as it started he bid me good day and walked off. It was bizarre.
“The best comparison I could make was that he was like the manager ‘Dan’ from the movie waiting. That was his vibe.
“That’s how I knew he peaked in high school.”
“How do you know if someone peaked in high school? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you,” one Reddit user, puzzlednerd, wrote in one of the most popular answers.