We all know what they are right? Mean girls I mean. We've met them, and some of us have probably even been them. I was kinda under the impression that mean girls mostly disappear after high school or certainly by the time college is over. (You do still find some mean girls in college, especially in the sorority set. No bitterness there..I AM a sorority girl....but you guys KNOW it is true...) I guess I figured that any mean woman was simply a bitch....not a "mean girl". Surely you can't be serious; people grow out of that, right? NOPE. And don't call me Shirley.....
You know my newest addiction...CrossFit? Well, there are two mean girls there. JUST LIKE THE ONES IN HIGH SCHOOL. They look me up and down, turn up their noses, won't include me in conversation, pretend I am invisible, whisper, stare....the whole enchilada. The stuff that made certain parts of high school a misery. The stuff that made me feel left out, alien, not good enough, ugly, fat, nerdy...
But something is intrinsically different about this experience. You know what that is? I don't give two rats' asses about those women. They are nothing to me. I go to CrossFit for ME; I neither need nor want their approval. The fact that they will be there every morning when I get there doesn't make me want to stay home or go later. I'm fine with them being there; I just go into my little zone. I smile at them and go about my sweaty, crazy work. If they speak to me, great. If I speak to them and they answer, great. If not, no harm no foul. I'm just indifferent, and that is a weird experience for me.
It is too bad they don't want to be friends....too bad for them. From the looks of things, they have lots of life lessons to learn. They clearly have not emotionally grown much since high school, and that is unfortunate. Like me, they are both military spouses, and being a mean girl is no way to win friends and influence people. Someone down the line will probably make that point to them...and it probably won't be pretty.
But that person won't be me.
I had enough of mean girls in high school. But I have given that some thought too. I am Facebook friends with some of the same people I labeled "mean girls" back then, and they have become lovely people...or were they always good people at heart? Maybe they too were just trying to navigate the uncertain waters of adolescence. Is it their fault that they got dealt better cards somehow...fell in with the right friends? Looking back on it, I doubt they sat around plotting ways to make my friends and me feel left out.... I think it is just a part of human nature to feel more secure in one's own status by leaving someone else out. You know, a club isn't really very much fun if EVERYONE can be a member. There have to be RULES!!!! Right?!?
What does being a mean girl accomplish? Does anyone know? In adulthood, I mean. Life is really so much better and so much easier when we realize we are all on the same team. I kinda pity those chicks because they are missing out on some friendships with some great people. And I worry about what they are teaching THEIR kids about how to treat people. I would never let my kids see me act that way. My daughter knows when I don't really someone because she knows me, but not because I treat that person any differently. If anything, I try to treat the people I don't like with even more politeness and care.
So do mean girls ever go away? Apparently not. But what does go away is our willingness to allow those people to hold some kind of sway over us. I wish I had realized in high school that my character is not shaped by what other people think I am. We give people power. As Dr. Phil (whose methods I really disagree with in almost all cases but I think he is really right about this one thing) says, we teach people how to treat us. In other words:
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