I was a Mean Girl

Social media’s been buzzing lately after videos of students from my high school’s rival school went locally viral. In the videos, the girls are singing explicit songs you wouldn’t really want to hear school girls singing. A former schoolmate of mine shared the video commenting on how severe and ridiculous the punishment would have been if these girls had gone to our school. Alumni have commented in agreement and the conversations took me right back to lunch times in the quad.

There was one conversation in particular that got me. Girls from the year below mine were talking about the inappropriate songs they made and used to sing. As I read through the string of camaraderie I was reminded of how my friends and I did the same. Sometimes another school would produce the song and it would spread via Bluetooth or we would make our own.

Back then I was awfully bashful so I would provide backing vocals and beats.

I knew if I commented and tagged my old group the conversation would be different. We just aren’t friends anymore.

We were that group at our all girls school who seemed tight-knit but we never actually were. We weren’t a group of friends but we were groups of friends who sat together. We were loud and rowdy but intelligent. By the time we finished school, at least half of our group were either prefects or school monitors. We had the power.

Most of us never got in trouble for anything even though we were bullies. A couple of us were caught, one of them being my best friend who was the gentlest of the group and got caught in the crossfire.

Our friendship was toxic. We intimidated the other students. If someone in the group liked you, you were fine but if someone in the group didn’t like you we wouldn’t do anything (most of the time) but everyone would know. Even amongst ourselves it wasn’t until the last week of our school years that I found out one of our friends, a girl in the group, had been badmouthing me after she’d misinterpreted something I’d said months before. I wasn’t always the victim. I participated in blacklisting others in the group when it was convenient. I went with the tide as long as I had my closest friends around me.

When I left school, out of our group of 14 girls, I knew I’d only be talking to 3 or 4 of them a year after finishing. I still do now.

Thinking back to it, we were young, dumb teenagers. We wanted security and acceptance. We also wanted power. So we came together and it worked, but we were rarely ever safe. Secrets could be shared in a minute and reach the ears of the juniors by lunchtime. Rumours were sparked and spread. You needed to be smart at all times to watch your back and the backs of the people on your side.

I’m not sure where we went wrong or what lie we swallowed to get where we did. I think we were so busy trying to fit in that there was no space for vulnerability. We didn’t share in each other’s struggles. We helped however we could, but there was little intimacy. Weakness was shoved to the ground and it was a tough exterior that helped get you through.

I wonder now how we rarely ever put down the weapons and the facades to just be friends. I had been hurt in previous friendships so I was just trying to figure out what friendship looked like. I found it in glances, in the gems I’m still friends with to this day.

It was that age-old story of women fighting each other, competing against each other, back biting and such. I actually envied the other groups in our class and in the years below and above because I could see what was missing in our group.

I’m not sure how many people I actually got to know. I didn’t know their stories, their hopes, their struggles, their aspirations or disappointments. I only knew the information that was safe to share.

I look at my friendships now and for a number of reasons I haven’t stayed as close to the people I love as much as I’d like to. It’s part of growing up I guess. I am, however, much happier with the few friends I have because I trust them all; to varying degrees of course but I know that with all of them I am safe.

What would I change about that time?

Nothing.

Maybe I need to check myself on this one. I’m not proud of it but because of it I’ve learnt so much.

I would tell my 18 year old self to never forget who she is and how she felt throughout the year. To pay attention to the friends who were there through it all and the ones who were defending her when she didn’t know she was under attack. To seek God, be humble and not be so hard on herself. That it’s okay to cry, be hugged and apologise; to stop trying to be who she believed everyone expected her to be and be who she were made to be instead.