Dee Snider - Teenage Survival Guide

Doug is six years younger than me and the baby of the family. Because he was baby-faced as a teenager and seemed to live in the shadow of his four older brothers, he was teased a lot while at Baldwin High. Now my parents were moving to a town called Massapequa, and he was pretty scared at the thought of having to start all over at a new school. Being the new kid can be pretty weird.

He came to me one day for some advice, practically in tears I pointed out to him that attending this new school could be the biggest break of his lie.

"Nobody knows what you are or who you are. This is your big chance to become the person you want to be, not the person others want you to be. You can be anything, and your new schoolmates will accept that. "So, what do you wanna be?"

He replied, "I want to be cool, to be one of those guys who bop around the schoolyard totally confident. That's what I honestly feel I am."

"Well, then—poof!—you are cool." All that was missing was a magic wand.

The next day Doug attended his first day at the new school, and he bopped and strutted.

"It was unbelievable!" he said the next time I saw him. "I went in and strutted my stuff, and everybody went, 'Man, he's awesome!" Instant awesome. All because Mom and Dad decided to move.

You'll have that same freedom—if not right away, then soon enough. The important thing to remember is that only you can accurately measure your self-worth. If you're not satisfied with the person you are, you've got the power to change.

If you decide that you're too heavy and that you're going to go on a diet, the boost to your confidence is immediate. It may be several months before you lose the weight you want, but you know that your days as a heavyweight are over.

Sometimes it helps to make symbolic changes, just to remind yourself of the progress that is underway. Start hanging out with a new crowd. Shave your head. Get an after-school job. Buy a car. Do something radical; leave your old self behind. Make yourself come alive.

My own symbolic change was to use my middle name Dee instead of Daniel. It was my declaration to myself and to the world that Danny the Wimp was dead. Enter Dee. The name Snider, though, I always liked and never considered dropping. I wanted to be snide, so I thought my last name matched my personality: snide, snider, snidest. In fact, my music-publishing company is called Snidest Music.

Shortly after changing my name, I joined Twisted Sister and my life began turning around.

I was pretty shy in my early teens, especially in strange surroundings. I'd try to blend in with the scenery, so that I wouldn't be noticed. Shyness is tough to overcome because it's self-perpetuating. Someone walks over to you, says hello, and you freeze up; you're not a good conversationalist because you're shy. When you do manage to blurt out a coherent sentence, it comes out all wrong. You're so tense around people that an attempted smile gets twisted into a taut grimace. Maybe people misinterpret your shyness as conceit or aloofness. "She never talks to anybody. What a snob."

If you're shy, you probably worry about others liking you. Maybe it's because you don't really like yourself, so you wonder how anyone else could. That was the case with me. Now turn that logic around: If you learn to like yourself, then how could anyone else not like you? And if they don't, who cares? Once I added up my good points, I pushed myself to be self-confident, even though, truthfully, I was still pretty insecure. I had to force myself in another way, too. While before I'd always withdraw socially, allowing my shyness to inhibit me from meeting people and experiencing life, I decided to become more outgoing and to deliberately throw myself into situations. It was a challenge to myself, and it worked. I'd always been afraid to talk to girls. Now when I saw a member of the opposite sex who I was interested in—anything in a skirt, actually—I ran over and struck up a conversation before I had a chance to chicken out. Once I'd introduced myself and was standing in front of her, I had little choice but to dive in—to the conversation, that is. And—surprise, surprise—sometimes it worked. Instead of letting the situation control me, I seized control of it

You say you're scared to take the plunge? Don't give yourself time to think about It. Besides, what's the worst that could happen? A girl could say to me, "Get lost, Jerk." Many of them did— the law of averages,I learned that being rejected by a stranger was not the awful, death blow I'd thought it would be. I built a thicker skin and found that my fears were way out of proportion to the reality of the situation.

When you were a little kid, friendships usually required minimal work. They just sort of happened, often out of convenience. Most of your friends lived on your block, and you all played ball or made mud pies together. For a game of tag, you called on Neil next door. When you wanted to play Ken and Barbie Go to a Punk-Rock Club Where Ken Insults a Patron and Gets His Face Rearranged, you took your Barbie doll and strolled a few houses down to see Betsy, who owned Ken. And in the summer, everybody's best friend was the kid whose parents had a swimming pool in the backyard. Pretty simple.

Now there's more involved in maintaining friendships, such as loyalty, trust, shared interests and values. They're no longer automatic and you don't necessarily involve the same friends in all activities. Ben is a rock&roll fan who dislikes sports, so on Friday night the two of you attend a rock concert at the MegaDome, but the next day you play football with your friend Kirk, a jock who couldn't care less about music.

You'll find that as you change, so will your friends, and you may grow apart. But there are always new friends to be made, and some old friends—very special friends—will stick by you no matter what.

It's late at night. You're sitting on the couch with a date. Slowly, slip your arm around your friend's shoulder and... wait! We're discussing how to make friends, not put the make on them.

If you feel lonely and without friends, take a good look at yourself. What is it about you that you like? If your answer is "not very much"—like mine was—you have some serious work ahead of you before you can expect others to like you too. If your answer is "I'm talented," or "I'm fun to be with," it's possible that you haven't been communicating these parts of your personality to others, or that you're not being completely honest with yourself. Stop lying.

Why doesn't anybody else recognize your wonderful qualities, you may wonder. Maybe it's because they are as obsessed with themselves as you are with yourself. Yes, you egomaniac, you have some very special qualities, but so do others. Have you taken the time to notice? It's an old saying but true: To have friends, you must be a friend. Brilliant, huh? Learn to talk to others not just about your interests but theirs as well And learn to be a good listener.

Not being popular sucks. You hug the wall as you walk down the hall eyes downcast. You resign yourself to loneliness even though you may long to be outgoing and friendly. You just don't know how. You want someone else to make it easier for you, and you can't wait for that person to come. But instead, why not take the initiative yourself and be as friendly as you can to others, without being a phony. Not everyone is going to like you, but that's okay. After all, you don't like everyone you meet, do you?

Don't limit your friends to one particular circle. What about the girl who sits near you in home room? You've had some reasonably pleasant, casual conversations, and it's apparent that the two of you have a lot in common: You both like skating and boys' derrieres. There is obviously the potential for a friendship, but you haven't pursued it because she hangs out with the intellectual crowd, which you've never felt comfortable in. No one is asking you to be friends with the entire crowd, just her. You're limited enough in terms of the people you meet in school. Why limit your options even more?