Mean Girls and Me
The best part of being middle aged might be growing up.
I have found that, for the most part, women are nicer to each other after fifty. Just when Mother Nature takes all sorts of things away from us, mainly estrogen - and all it controls, she gives us each other and perhaps a shot of empathy. Which is a relief because women start competing at an early age for friends, men, careers, fortunes, kids (and all they want their kids to do) until, eventually, the competition is over.
Just like the game Wonder Ball (“The wonder ball goes round and round to catch it quickly you are bound, if you’re the one to hold it last the game for you has quickly passed”…a terrifying game) or Hot Potato or musical chairs, it’s over.
We’re out.
Of the breeding pool. Of the entry level, the middle level and most likely the top level as well. Time to let the next group of young lunatics have at it. Let’s just enjoy each other and learn from one another. Lean into “calm down.” Pick our heads up and look around. Relax.
I’m not saying “give up!” Or to give away all your nice stuff and turn into a troll! No, not that. This isn’t about joining some cult (send me all your money). But haven’t you noticed you are less interested in “acquiring” these days? Sure, you like a special thing. A nice thing (I just bought new sheets). A new skill. A new friend. But the days of needing a ton of furniture, needing a wardrobe for the many different types of events life threw at you…has slowed. It’s the reverse of a vacuum cleaner. We sucked and gobbling up everything in our path, we aspired! And now, a switch has been thrown and it’s the opposite. Pthooee!
Out go the forty LL Bean tote bags, the too-tight little black dresses and perilously tall heels, the copious amount of kitchen stuff (the ice cream maker, bread maker, three sets of mixing bowls), maybe even the family house. Out go the many titles you bore with pride: Class Parent, VP of sales, the many charities you aren’t really interested in but it seemed like the thing to do, and the ton of time they require.
Bear with me, there is a point to this….
Out go the people you only knew because of one of these things you did you don’t want to do anymore. Out go the people you never really enjoyed anyway, because you know what? It doesn’t matter anymore. You don’t need anyone who doesn’t spark joy (at least occasionally) unless, maybe, they serve on the board of the retirement home you really want to get into (or get your parents into), but you have a preexisting condition. But that would be sad. And, lastly, or firstly…..
Out go the mean girls. They cannot hurt you anymore. They do not matter.
It’s not a brag, but, I was a magnet for mean girl in my youth. Sometimes I earned it, but usually, I was convenient. I didn’t fight back. I was far too chicken and embarrassed. No one rode to my rescue.
We never forget those who were mean to us, do we? What made me think of mean girls? Well, I happened to run into one recently, and despite still being mean, I don’t care anymore. I’m FREE!
A Mean Girl
In the past, I let her be mean. I didn’t want to cause a scene. When she saw me and acted like a total jerk, (puckered facial expression like she sees and smells something she doesn’t like when I appeared) which she still does, I’d slink away wondering, “What is this woman’s issue with me? I’m so funny and delightful! Just give me chance, you’ll love me!” No dice.
When I’d hear she would be at an event I was attending, I felt dread. What shitty thing will she say to me and about what and in front of whom? Because she definitely will. Oh, the possibilities. This went on for….decades.
Then…
Recently, my husband and I arrived at our favorite restaurant, rushing in from the pouring rain.
We were wet and laughing, shaking the umbrella out, pealing off our wet coats. I hadn’t looked around and then I did.
Of all people. Little Miss Lemon Sucker.
“Brain to face, brain to face! Stay neutral, continue upbeat emotion! Ignore witch! Repeat, ignore witch!” I was smiling, but my eyes weren’t. I just looked at her until she looked away and acted all sweet to whomever she was with. I felt a slight shift in advantage: mine.
Hilariously, we did not acknowledge each other. We’ve known each other for over twenty five years, it’s ridiculous not to acknowledge each other. In the more recent past I am the one to say “Hello, X.” because I know she won’t. Very bold, I am. But, I really wasn’t up for pretense. So, when I needed to get to the coat closet and she was blocking it I said “Excuse me,” and she sort of got fluster-sweet like “Oh yes, excuse me!” What was that I thought? What a bunch of bullshit that was. She isn’t that kind of person to be fluster-sweet. Then I realized she was at a work event. She’s still her.
For me, it was a moment. A moment of “meh.”
I do not care anymore. I do not need to go to your book club or your charity events from which you excluded me (but invited all of my friends to) because I don’t want to go. I haven’t wanted to go for years. You just didn’t notice. I good, as the kids say.
But, we have some close friends in common (see below about women sharing friends…badly), which is a full on wonder to me-but there it is and I guess it takes all kinds, but, anyway. One of those friends is no longer friends with this mean girl (my restaurant mean girl) because she told my friend a lie and then told her what a jerk she was after being confronted with the lie.
She is the type of person who says crummy things to you in front of others. I remember a small event we both attended and she fully dismissed everything I said in front of this small group. She did it in a way and with a look that was so full of disdain I had to wonder why she was even talking to me at all. The others did notice. It definitely made me feel awful. I let it. Why did I let it? That was about twelve years ago.
But, now, with my new super powers gained in menopause, I do not care.
I think the best part of being “middle” aged might be growing up.
Do you have a midlife mean girl?
I hope not. Did you have adolescent mean girls? I think most of us did. Or, were you a mean girl? You know if you were. Are you sorry?
The difference between a mean girl and an idiot:
People know when they have done things to hurt people. They know if they did it on purpose. Different from saying something stupid that upsets someone, maybe permanently. That’s life.
We say and do stupid things. Most of us. When I look at the friendships I have lost in a lifetime, two, it’s fifty-fifty that one of us pushed the other to the point we really were sick of each other. Forever. That can be hurtful and upsetting for years sometimes. But, it’s not bullying, or being a mean girl. It’s just unfortunate.
Mean High School Girls
Looking back on high school from your fifties is complicated. Unless it was documented, like a yearbook photo, it’s pretty much gone. Whatever your memories are, they might be wrong.
As an adult, I have bumped into people from high school and our impressions of each other were completely different from how we each remembered the experience. So, who knows about the bullying I felt I experienced? Except in my case there were notes left in people’s lockers and I sure do remember that.
I wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, at least on paper. I was cute and could play sports, well enough. But, everyone else could play sports and they could read and do their homework, which is the part I lacked. I lacked self confidence and I really wanted a boyfriend to make me feel good about myself. Being cute, lacking self esteem and wanting a boyfriend were grounds for the older girls to make sure I knew my place. Mission accomplished.
The mean girls took to writing sexually explicit notes, signing my name to them and putting them in boys lockers. Use your 1983 imagination. These notes, unknown to me until the next year, were then passed around. The effect was to be turned into an Untouchable because who wants to be friends with, or date, a dumb, slutty underclassman? I wouldn’t for one.
I transferred schools and life got markedly better. But the mean girls won that round. I remember exactly who they are. Always will.
Mean College Girls
When I went to college I made a bunch of new friends and my closest buddy was a sophomore. We were both from Massachusetts and I adored her humor (Kliban, Larsen), fashion (John Fluevog, Barney’s) and music (Big Audio Dynamite, Chaka Khan). She was and is super fun. But.
She had a close friend from their freshman year, let’s call her Katy, and she wasn’t too happy about me.
It was clear that Katy didn’t want me to join their established gang. I thought, why not all hang together? I learned that some girls don’t like to share their friends. This didn’t make any sense to me. It still doesn’t.
Katy really hated me and got all her squash playing friends to hate me. But, I had squash playing friends, too! So, we did all end up at the same parties and she just had to suffer me. In the end, Katy really blew her friendship with my friend. I am not sure what she did to push my buddy over the edge. Was it: when she stole my bike? When she threw a drawer through my window? The way she behaved when I was around?
Who knows. The lesson is: don’t be a jealous asshole to your friends’ friends.
Mean Twenties and Thirties (and even 40s) Women
The twenties and thirties can be pretty brutal for women with aspirations. Career, marriage, etc makes people do crazy stuff to get ahead. It’s a difficult time of life to know what you want and then when you get it, to appreciate it. Some people don’t feel this way at all about the period of young adulthood. I did.
Here we circle back to the beginning of this piece. The mean woman at the restaurant. She was one of two mean girls I recall during this period. The other mean girl is now a good friend. Why was she mean? I do not know. I wasn’t the only one getting her ire (“oh, you’re here?” sneer) and I chalked it up to “because she can.” In reality, looking back, I think there was some tough stuff going on in her own life and she dealt with it by being really rude to people who appeared to be happy.
Also:
we shared a very close friend in common. What I said above about some women not happy sharing friends? That. It was really hurtful at times. Now, it’s like nothing ever happened. You really have to be particularly awful for me to be unforgiving.
The Mean Woman at the Restaurant fits that category and I believe it’s permanent.
Meet me in the comments!
Do you have a mean girl in your life? I hope not…but do tell!
MEAN GIRL STORIES from you:
My ex boss who is now dead which is too bad but boy was she a mean girl pretending to be a cool girl, a girl’s girl, a pal. I worked for her at a massive publishing house and adored her. My oldest sister had been killed in a car crash and she was the same age. She flattered me and bribed me and gaslit me until she fired me for accusing her of lying which she had. Her last words to me were:”Now you can go write your novel.” Which I did. A year later it came out and she was fired. Four novels this fall.
I’ve mentioned my experiences in some essays. I learned what a kyke was when Robin Maguire labeled me one in 9th grade. One recent article was devoted to Mean Grandmas in my mom’s gated community.
I was a very vocal feminist and environmentalist in the 80s at school which attracted a whole group of kids. They even started a club called the Anti-[MY NAME] Club. In the years after school, I bumped into them individually - one even turned up at a yoga class I was teaching - and they all apologized which some variation of ‘You were right…I get it now!’
Some Mean Girls change.
Anonymous
In 1992, four friends and I had just seen Basic Instinct (if you haven’t seen that this story will not make as much sense). The next night we were all going out and Bonnie (the ring leader) pretty much demands that none of us would wear undies in case later on we wanted to pull a Sharon Stone.
We all agreed but later I privately told Bonnie that I would definitely be wearing my undies, two other friends also told her that. So we all go out and all of us except one girl, Lisa, are wearing undies, she assumes we aren’t.
The evening is great and it seems like Bonnie has forgotten her plan and we leave a club with a bunch of guys we know from high school to go Matt’s parent’s house. It’s a gorgeous summer night and Matt’s parents have a beautiful pool so we decide we are all going to strip to our undies and bras and have a midnight swim!
So fun, except Lisa doesn’t have undies on and Bonnie is egging her to come in the pool knowing she doesn’t have on undies. Lisa has a miserable night with the guys trying to pull up her dress and her missing all the pool fun and her choice is to be a prude or seem like a total skank that doesn’t wear undies.
I feel badly I let her be tricked.
ICYMI
A nice chat between strangers
Terri Weeding and I “met” on a Zoom with the goal of either recording a session talking about her Maven5Q (published last week) answers or, if the energy was off, just chatting. This is how I work with my Zoom interviews these days. What happened was not planned and that is what made it effortless and comfortable. A safe space chat. After I listened to it I asked Te…
I always wondered how mean girls became mean. I raised 4 girls and if I knew they were being mean girls, I would have been mortified. Didn’t our values—empathy and kindness —sink in? Oh, wait. Now I get it. Those girls must have been raised by mean girl moms. Great post!
Thx for sharing your personal experience. It’s awful how it can affect one’s self esteem growing up. But how fab that aging gives us the I-don’t-give-a-crap-anymore quality.