I was the Mean Girl

[Trilby]

I must have been.

I've connected lately with some old, old high school chums and a couple women I knew from my first early marriage (age 24) - so a long time ago.


These women are, to the letter, bitter, petty, jealous, self-absorbed, mean and knife-twisting. They are, or they grew into, the Mean Girls.

How could I not see this when I was a teen? I was lead around by the collar - I was so terrified of having NO friends that I accepted whoever or whatever came my way and so much as said, "Hey, asshole, wanna get high?" and I was so low down I couldn't stand up and tell them to fuck right off. They gave scant support then and now you can't get them to shut up about their shitty little lives long enough to take a breath.

I was with the Mean Girls and I didn't even know it. Why can't we live life backwards and be wiser when our bodies are good and you don't need advil every fucking day just to take a walk? My mind is better, my attitude is better, I am NICER than I was - but my body is wrecked and I don't trust or like so many people anymore.

I was talking to a woman I know b/c she dated my first ex hubby soon after we divorced and now I see her at meetings. We are friendly and even supportive of one another but yesterday she started talking smack about what my ex-in laws had said about me TWENTY FUCKING YEARS AGO when I was divorcing their son. WHY did she feel compelled to bring that up? I told her I had another call and got off the phone.

I try to be friends with people but they always end up being fucking assholes.

[Sundae]

You know that they don't think they're Mean Girlzzzzz. Which makes you better. Whatever choices you made as a teen, you're not making them now and are all the better for it. Hey, hanging around with them then might have be taught you how not to behave as an adult...

Re the woman who dated your ex, hmmm. You certainly did nothing wrong in that situation. She might have been an arsehole, but that wasn't your fault. It might have been that she was simply a person who could not keep her mouth shut and consider whether what she is saying is useful. I've done it before. My Mum certainly does it.

Like when we got the coach back from Cardiff and the first thing she said to me after a 3 hour journey was "Those people behind us were really cross with how you pushed on in front of them!" They had a point, I hate people who push in. But one was on the phone and one was faffing about so I honestly thought "best get on and make sure Mum gets a good seat so she can stretch her legs out." I was more pissed off with her feeling the need to blurt it out at the earliest oppirtunity when I had no need to know and these were people I would never see again. But I accept she meant no real malice. And I have to live with her regardless...

And anyway, you have friends here. We don't all turn out to be arseholes. Right?

[Trilby]

right.

Nobody here. Just gf from high school and early 20's. NOW I TRY (but, alas, I do fail at times) to think before I say something to someone and if I can't be nice I try to be neutral. I see women in meetings that I've known for a loooooong time and we hated each other then and we tolerate each other now for the sake of "fellowship" and all that but we still really hate each other. There is a woman in a meeting I go to who was Miss Suzy Cheesecake/Head Cheerleader/Miss Popularity and I see her, talk to her and she's really, really NICE and supportive and not a bitch at all (like I thought she was without getting to KNOW her in HS) and then I look at the girls I hung around and they were all back-stabbing bitches. albeit with cool black eyeliner.

I just hate looking back at all the wasted opportunities. I could've been with NICE girls. I could've been NICE myself. Instead I was judgmental and dismissive and haughty. all the things I accused the cheerleaders of being. How ironic.

[Trilby]

PS - miss Cheesecake did marry well. Very well.

She's got a full tennis court and swimming pool in the back of her million dollar home. Didn't keep her from being an alcoholic, but it does tend to help when you've got a cache of cash to help keep the blues away. Naturally, she's beautiful STILL.

[Undertoad]

Not naturally, that's her job in order to keep that million dollar home. One of my miss suzy cheesecakes in HS is 250 lbs now.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Not naturally, that's her job in order to keep that million dollar home. One of my miss suzy cheesecakes in HS is 250 lbs now.

She treated her body like a temple and I treated mine like a tent.

jimmy buffet.

Now we both get to sleep in the bed we made.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Trilby

There is a woman in a meeting I go to who was Miss Suzy Cheesecake/Head Cheerleader/Miss Popularity and I see her, talk to her and she's really, really NICE and supportive and not a bitch at all (like I thought she was without getting to KNOW her in HS)

Maybe. Or maybe she was a bitch in high school, or at least hung out with a crew of backstabbing bitches, and now she regrets not hanging out with the super nice misunderstood girl with the black eyeliner. Her life isn't perfect, I promise. (I mean hell, she's at meetings, right?) You are where you are. It doesn't matter where anyone came from, just go hang out with the nice cheerleader girl some more.

[Trilby]

Is the 250 lb. former cheesecake a former cheerleader/marching girl? or just a cutie with no clout in hs? you know the type. Cute, skinny, but with no real sticking power.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Maybe. Or maybe she was a bitch in high school, or at least hung out with a crew of backstabbing bitches, and now she regrets not hanging out with the super nice misunderstood girl with the black eyeliner. Her life isn't perfect, I promise. (I mean hell, she's at meetings, right?) You are where you are. It doesn't matter where anyone came from, just go hang out with the nice cheerleader girl some more.

that's a possibility. I didn't get to know her because I was already sure she was a goody-goody. She probably still goes to Mass. I don't know. She's got eleven years clean. More than I have. She sounds lucid and wise in the meetings. Real life stuff - even if she DOES have a tennis court,etc.

I'm having some sort of minor meltdown this morning. Imma go take my advil and see if this two day headache won't fucking go away. thanks for listening to my whine.

[Undertoad]

There are two of them actually. I didn't know a lot of people for a long time in my HS because I moved there in 10th grade, and then moved again within the HS district in 11th grade, and that plus having a graduating class of like 700, kind of limits how well you know the players.

But one I knew was a nice girl cheerleader and did have clout, and by the 10th reunion she was unrecognizable, doubling in size. And another was a seriously sexy flag (marching band type flag), big hoe, two abortions by Senior year, now has hips the size of a timpani. (Her upper half still looks kinda good!)

I'm sure I fit into some of these categories of people who got fluffy big so I am not to talk.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Trilby

I try to be friends with people but they always end up being fucking assholes.

It's cuz they're people. Stick with plants/pets, you'll be much better off.

People suck.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

It's cuz they're people. Stick with plants/pets, you'll be much better off.

People suck.

I have been told not to isolate - it's "bad" for alcoholics they say. So I go out and interact and TRY to make good choices but I always fail. I end up with users and other frogs in the swamp.

[xoxoxoBruce]

You chose us.

[Aliantha]

It's interesting seeing where people are now compared to what they were in HS. Most of the group I hung around with are pretty successful, but they were always going to be. It's sickening really. lol Sure they all have their every day issues like the rest of us, but they're mostly married with a couple of kids, good job, supportive husband blah blah. It's nice to see rather than sickening really.

I've also gotten to know some of the kids in HS that I never really associated with much at all because I thought they were 'the mean girls'. Turns out one of them at least is pretty nice. We've become quite friendly over the last couple of years and it's pretty funny to sit around and talk about what sort of misconceptions we each had of the groups we hung around with at HS.

There are quite a lot who turned out not so well. A few in jail and almost 10 of them dead out of my final year of about 300, so not fantastic odds considering we're all only turning 40 this year.

Some of them I still find intimidating because they're the ones who tend to seem to be in charge of everything, even via FB if you can believe that. I'm sure those same people probably think I'm still the 'quiet girl with the nice hair and good looking boyfriends' (which is what people said about me at our 20yr reunion) that I was in HS. I guess they'd be wrong, just as I probably am too.

[Aliantha]

I should also add that I've come to really like the new you Tril. I'm sure i'm not the only one who's seen a huge change in you over the last couple of years. I don't think you're a mean girl, although when I first arrived here, if I'd had to give you a label I might have said that.

I really appreciate that we can both join in the same discussions here without trying to scratch each others eyes out these days. I hope you can see the change and be proud of what you've achieved. I hope also that maybe i've grown and changed a bit too, and so maybe part of the improvement in things between us is because of that also. xx