Okay, I'm in a bit of a dilemma here. I get along well with most people st my school, but I feel I don't have status. I'm considering trying out for basketball, since I'm pretty decent at it and I think being an athlete will improve my status. But I have a couple setbacks.

  • Not sure I can get in. Like I said, I'm not bad at it. I'm pretty good, but my competition is people who've been playing their entire life. I've been to a couple open gyms where we've played. I did pretty good, got a couple baskets. But being honest, 90% of the people there outclassed me. I'm just a guy who plays for fun, they've played competitively.

  • Before trying out, you have to attend a month and half of preseason workouts. The problem is that this would prevent me from joining any other clubs.

Could I improve my game in the month and half? Yes, probably. But the problem is that, I'm not sure if I should pursue 1 1/2 months of this, and potentially be humiliated over and over again (when we play, I'm always one of the last people to be picked, and like I said, most of these guys have played competitively).

The problem, then, is that of how to raise my status. There is only one popular guy at the school who isn't an athlete, and he's not popular because he became best friends with the most popular kid in kindergarden, before our school became so goddamn cliquey. And none of the status-boosting sports (football, soccer, basketball, baseball) are no-cut or easy to get into.

I've considered some other interesting clubs- rocketry, debate, stuff like that. I'm actually a really good debater and do think I could excel in that. But the debate team wouldn't really boost my status.

What should I do? Should I do basketball anyway? Debate? Something else altogether?