A friend of mine recently messaged me with a dilemma:

"Down to real serious business: I have a cousin here in Austin who is kind of different than her classmates - she loves Dr. Who, she dresses kind of crazy and she's really shy around new people. (She's very nice, smart, basically like little-us). She's in 7th grade and I think the other kids pick on her b/c she's different. Anyways, her mom tells her its going to be ok b/c when she gets older, things will be different, she'll go to college and meet nice people, etc. And while that is certainly true, I remember I absolutely hated people telling me "just wait til you're older".

So the question is - is there anything else I can say to her that would be better?"

And I realized that I had no idea what to say.  "It gets better" or "just wait until you're older", while profound statements of hope, don't offer much in the way of practical short-term advice or comfort.  When I was thirteen, nerdy, and desperately miserable, I remember wanting to punch anyone who told me "it'll be better in college" in the teeth. But it's hard to give a good alternative, because anything you say is coming from your own history and perspective, which may be very different from the young person to whom you're giving advice.

So I thought I'd ask the internet.

ETA: A number of people have asked for copies of the results, so we'll be publishing the responses - with full anonymity preserved - here, on Tumblr: http://wheniwasthirteenandnerdy.tumblr.com/.  Go see what wonderful things people have to say.