Mean Girls

Girls are mean. Not exactly in a cat-fight kind of way, but more like the bitchy comments they say to each other or the negative responses they give out when other friends are doing better.

I remember when I was in high school I had this best friend (notice the past tense ‘had’) and one day when we were walking together to English Second Language class, her arm linked to mine affectionately, she casually asked me what I scored for the final English test. When I told her I got an A+ her whole face changed rigid and she snorted out, “Easy when you’re a teacher’s pet.” which shocked me to the core and I had to say “Excuse me?” to which she immediately plastered a fake smale on her face and go, “I was joking! Relax!”

But I recognised that face already and I knew what it meant. It was the familiarity of a girl not liking her friend for doing so much better than her – as if the whole thing was a competition. I didn’t notice it before but the signs became even more visible on other occasions when we were both out to the city and she bumped into some of her friends, instantaneously she stood right in front of me and started talking with them for ages, and not once did she ever introduce me to her friends, which was very rude, I must say. I am glad to say by the time we got to college we stopped talking to each other completely – which was done on her part. One day she just snubbed me off for no reason. I didn’t bother confronting her because I hadn’t done anything offensive to her and being friends with her was tiring me out – what with all those mind games and the invisible rivalry between us. So I was glad to discover that by the time we got to third year in university she had gained so much weight that she looked like the female version of a Michelin. I in the other hand had scored a boyfriend while she desperately moped around the campus and eyeing every guy she met.

But that was just one mean girl of which I had encountered during my adolescence. There are other mean girls who are not aware of the mean things they say to each other. Girls who say negative things when you are happy. Girls who make you doubt your big decision instead of supporting you. Girls who only want to be friends with you when they want you to do them a favour (I get this a lot), and girls who refuse to accept who you are because they discover that you’re not the person they thought you were.

When I finally met my ‘The One’ after so many failed relationships in which I had to keep dissecting and analysing together with my bestest friends, I was so happy and obviously the natural thing was to tell the good news to them. So I was deeply disappointed when one of them retorted disbelievingly, “How do you know if he’s The One?” when all I wanted was for her to be happy for me, because I held her opinion in high regard. Especially because she was actually getting married at that time, which was why it seemed odd to think such question would come out from her.

I am sorry to say that sometimes they feel like they have more in common with me back then when I was single, lonely and frustrated out of my wits because of the fear in becoming a spinster. We were chums when it came to talking about guys and why they were so difficult and made us so miserable. It was like Carrie and The Gang or Bridget Jones and her chummies.

So when I stopped saying, “No man would ever want to spend the rest of his life with a sad old spinster like me”, and instead sang about, “I am so happy I finally meet my other half”, they said that I had changed, and that perhaps I shouldn’t be so sure about it so much. As if it was so unnatural of me to be that happy.

When I stopped feeling cynical and sceptical about life, my friends and I stopped having anything in common. When they were cussing about relationships and getting married off, I was talking about dreams and goals and retirement plans. When they were wondering why men were so complicated, I was wondering about my purpose in life. I felt a huge gap between me and my friends, and I had the sinking realisation that none of my friends knew who I really was nor the person I was becoming to be.

People do change – all the time. It happens even to those who claim that they don’t. There are those who can accept these changes as phases in life that we all must go through, but there are also those who refuse to think that we can ever be someone different.

I refuse to have a bleak outlook in life – even if it meant becoming an unfamiliar person to those around me. Because at the end of the day, who is going to tell me to get up and do better, if not myself? It saddens me to say that sometimes, even those who are closest to you can kill your dreams as much as those who are strangers to you.