During my life I have been called many things. A freak, a sadist, a loner. But never can I recall being called a coward. Now this is not due to any outstanding acts of bravery on my part, nor do I deny that I fear anything. In fact it’s quite the opposite, I fear many things. Spiders, small spaces, I’m even mildly haphephobic. What stops me from being a coward is, undoubtedly, my pride.  My life is ruled by my pride. No matter how much I fear something, if it comes down to it I can dismiss this fear, taking comfort in the knowledge that I will always have my pride, my dignity, my self-respect. It is this part of my personality which causes me to despair in my generation.

 Now as someone who generally distances themselves from the mainstream culture of today’s youth, I’ll be the first to admit that I understand little of their culture. The language confuses me, the fashion amuses me and the music gives me a headache. However despite this there is one aspect of their lifestyles that continues to vex me, this being their obvious disregard for pride.

As most people who know me will admit, I do not possess the most stable temper in the world, or for that matter the school. As such I often find my self engaging in fights with other people my age. Now of five of these occasions which have stayed in my mind only one has been one on one, and in none have I felt it necessary to go in, shadowed by a large group of “homies”. Whilst yes, it would be comforting to have back up near by should things get particularly out of hand, I have always fought my own battles. Granted fighting, especially for a girl, is perhaps not something to be especially proud of, but I cannot help but be disgusted by how the majority of teenagers insist on having their friends fight in their place. What particularly gets me, is the way they will even leave the fight, only to return minutes later with their little miniature armies, acting all tough and strong when really they could probably be taken down with a ham sandwich.

I honestly don’t understand how they can respect themselves, let alone gain the respect of others, but in some way unknown to me they manage it. Somewhere along the way, whilst those of us who actually possess any amount of guts were out fighting pointless battles against older, larger and stronger opponents, with the sole aim of not being crushed into the ground, it became the norm to band together with a “posse” of cowards and beat down on younger, smaller and weaker kids, often those same kids with the guts and pride.

I fear the day, when the rest of the world gives up their honour in favour of an easier, weaker existence, because that is when humanity is truly doomed. Only seconds after fearing such, I realise, it has already happened. Is this strength in numbers? Or weakness of one?