Mean Girl
These thoughts were triggered by my ability to be nice and nasty at the same time…
‘Back in my day’…when I entertained the idea of friendship…I had a work bestie. She was really pretty, really shapely, and really down to earth. The ‘friendship’ started after we went to an after work function and around our 5th shot…we fell in love. Our personalities went perfectly together so we went out as often as possible when she could find a babysitter. Those were some of the best drunken nights of my twenties. And the ‘friendship’ was going perfectly until I started dating my first ‘mutually’ abusive boyfriend. One night me and my ‘worker b’ had plans to go to the club but my new bf wanted to tag along. So we met her there. When my ex and I got to the club, I found her immediately. The moment he laid eyes on her was the beginning of the end of that ‘friendship’ because he made it uncomfortably obvious he was attracted to her. She was having relationship issues around the same time so she welcomed his toxic male attention.
My ex was a flirt so it didn’t take much persuasion from my ‘friend’. After a couple weeks of plausibly deniable disrespect, on his part, I decided to distance myself from my ‘friendgirl’ because in my mind she was the problem. Not only did I distance myself from her…I (re)friended another colleague that I had taken a break from in order to spend more time with the one being distanced. These two didn’t like each other. The girl I started back talking to was married and she was pretty too…just not the other girls kind of pretty. So when we got cool again she’d throw little passive aggressive jabs at the prettier girl in an attempt to get under her skin. And because my jealousy was growing towards the prettier one…I joined in one time and giggled. The prettier girl had walked by wearing a sundress and there was absolutely nothing wrong with her body but jealousy makes a person find flaws when there aren’t any. So the ‘homelier’ one said in a loud whisper that could be heard by her intended target…”why her booty look like that?“ I took the opportunity to throw in a chuckle…and we went back to our conversation.
With that chuckle I unknowingly revealed two things about myself. That I was jealous…and that I was a passive aggressive follower. I allowed my jealousy to have me participate in an attempt to lower another woman’s self-esteem because my self-esteem was taking a hit by the fact that my boyfriend seemed to like this girl more than me. I was bothered…and I displayed it passively because this is what mean girls do. A mean girl is usually one deplete of any real confidence but we mask it with our ability to focus on the flaws of those that reveal our insecurities to us. In this example, instead of owning the fact that I felt inadequate…I intentionally tried making someone else think that about themselves. The craziest part is…there was nothing negative to highlight about who I envied…so I allowed myself to laugh at something someone else’s envy made up. But what’s crazier than that is…I think I’m still exhibiting this behavior…in real time. I’m still unnecessarily mean. The more I think about it…the more I realize that even with all the ‘self-healing’ I’ve done…I still feel inadequate. Only this time my boyfriend is life…and I feel like he prefers everyone else over me. Which makes it a lot easier to focus on the reality of others because mine feels like it’s in shambles.
Full Disclosure: That’s why I’m still so good at being mean.
Love,
Choosy
