Refreshing news about human nature

At the close of their interview with Terri Gross on NPR, the authors of the non-fiction retrospective Bar Mitzvah Disco noted that when they asked former Bar Mitzvah boys and Bat Mitzvah girls to identify the smiling friends at the table around them in the old photos, they always answered the same:

Oh, those weren't my friends. Those were the people I wanted to be my friends. The popular kids. My friends are hanging out back there in the corner.

I find this refreshing. We were all loathsome once.