Since the beginning of high schools, there’s always been one thorn that can never quite be clipped off. Cliques. Over time there have been different names for these many cliques: the popular kids, the jocks, the rowdies, the preps. Today, there might not be tight little groups with titles and clearly drawn lines, but cliques haven’t disappeared; they’ve just blended in. We’ve all been guilty of it at one time or another. We find that group of friends and just never bother trying to expand it. The problem with that is the kids who don’t find a group of friends. The kids who eat alone every day. The kids who are too shy to talk to your group of people. Those kids are all around us, unnoticed. Then there are the kids who are simply … too different for you to want to talk to. Why should it matter if someone wants to wear all black, color their hair differently, wear dresses every day, or dress normally? We’re all still human, regardless of what we look like. Just because someone looks or dresses differently doesn’t mean we wouldn’t get along great together. For all we know, the kid we just never bothered to talk to could turn into our best friend if we gave it a chance. For a long time, I was one of those kids. I sat by myself and just tried not get picked on. No one talked to me, so I didn’t talk to them either. Going to school became the bane of my existence; I hated it. Then one day, one of the girls at my school left her group of friends and actually talked to me. We ended up becoming best friends. If it wasn’t for that one girl, just one person, I might never have come out of my shell. I’d still be hiding from people in the corner of the lunch room. It’s not just the “normal” kids who are guilty of sticking to themselves (although really, what is normal?). The outcasts can be just as guilty of it. Sometimes people decide it’s better to stick to themselves than be rejected, or they decide someone who has a unique look could never be like them or like them. That’s not true. Why can’t we be friends? Simple. There is no reason we can’t. All we have to do is reach out a little. Talk to someone we’ve never said hello to before. Invite the kid sitting alone to come to your table at lunch. It’s really not hard. You might be surprised with whom you develop a friendship.