Dear Clique,
I’m officially leaving you. There are many reasons for this, but the main reasons is – It’s just time. I’m sure there will be anger and questions, so if you must know…
I’m tired of being fake
Nobody envies the overly edited clique selfies. We know none of us look like that in reality and the photos aren’t fooling anyone. Other people still see us in public and think we are ridiculous. You’ve shaved off entire chins, shrunk the size of waists, made upper arm fat disappear, and faces so blurry as to be unrecognizable trying to make wrinkles disappear. Just stop.
The same “Chin down, ladies!!” pose is used, camera held high in the air angled downwards so nobody looks fat. The selfies must always include as much cleavage as possible. As a result, pictures we took yesterday are indiscriminate from pictures we took three years ago. Same poses, same people, same bad photo editing. Ad nauseum.
Why do we always have the camera out? What are we capturing? Fake smiles, fake poses that we can morph into pathetic representations of ourselves to post on Facebook to PROVE how cool we are and that we have more fun than, like, everyone else? If we had the best damn time of our lives and didn’t take photos every second – Did we REALLY have a good time? This speaks more of creating appearances for other people that aren’t there than actually, you know – listening to what our friends are saying, enjoying moments and making true memories.
Life revolves around what everyone else on Facebook, Instagram, etc. thinks
Do we seriously have to live our lives for the benefit of the viewing audience and form our whole Code of Friendship based on Facebook quotes on pretty backgrounds that were likely made by a depressed teenager in her bedroom with a photo editor?
I’m talking about invented platitudes like:
“If someone seriously wants to be a part of your life, they will seriously make an effort to be in it. No reasons. No excuses.”
So really, Karen – If your friend has her own life outside the clique and doesn’t have time to chime in on your every Facebook post then she’s “Not a good friend”? Get out of here. Or…
“The best sign of a healthy relationship is no sign of it on Facebook.”
This is typically only posted by the miserable and passive aggressive upset that nobody wants to pen an ode of devotion on their own Facebook wall.
I get that. When you’re miserable, seeing happy people sucks! But to “The Clique” – These platitudes are life. They are everything! A vast, obscure depository of wisdom quotes from sources such as Marilyn Monroe dispensed as passive aggressive offerings whenever one of their girlfriends pisses them off. Then watch the posts about “haters” who are “jealous” of them fly. It’s so wonderful that we have Facebook and Instagram to tell us what true friendship is. How else could we make up our own rules and then scream at anyone who breaks our invisible rules?
The way you treat others
I can’t condone this. I never could. I kept my mouth shut and I feel like crap about this. I would see other girls who were ridiculously more pretty than any of us want to join our circle… And you would chase them off. You’d call them “Thirsty” if they had too much cleavage showing in a picture. Forget that that’s your modus operandi for just about every photo session – Becky showed cleavage. If Becky’s cleavage is nice and her waist is a smaller circumference than the Queen Bee’s to possibly gain credible attention for her boobs, then Becky, obviously, must die.
Not literal death. It’s a clique, not a death cult. But I’ve seen you and your followers gang up on any chick who just wanted to be “part of the girls” in a merciless attack. Any woman prettier or smarter than you is a threat. When Queen Bee got called out on this, she said, “OMG, like…Are you trying to say MY friends are not pretty? Girls! She’s trying to say you aren’t pretty!”
These are grown, adult women who actually say “You can’t sit with us” unironically. It’s hilarious, but at the same time really sad and pathetic. I’ve always considered the movie ‘Mean Girls‘ to be more of a cautionary tale, not a parable to be seriously emulated by sad, adult women.
One of the last straws, for me, was seeing you try to break up a couple we know with vicious rumors because they dared to be happy together. Why would you do this? Other than the fact that you are miserable and want to bring everyone else down with you?
The very reasons we get together
1) To gossip
2) To drink
When I look back over the years I have spent with you – This is pretty much all we’ve done and I really enjoyed neither so I stayed on the outskirts of the clique with a foot out the door. I’m at the stage in life where it’s just sad to see pictures of grown, responsible adults drunk every single weekend doing luges down their friend’s cleavage. Every get together is about getting drunk, snapping stupid selfies, taking shots and cougaring it up until someone pisses themselves or pukes.
I like to have an occasional drink still – With dignity. But getting together to talk about whoever isn’t there has never really appealed to me.
You’re all about drama and exclusion
Your idea of a good time is excluding someone from “The Clique”, having a party, spreading gossip to make sure everyone hates Public Enemy #1, taking selfies so those outside the clique can see how much FUN we have together. You want to make people want to join you just so you have the satisfaction of rejecting them. How sick and sad is that?
When nobody is biting, then you start eating your own and playing The Exclusion Game with any member of the clique who seems ambivalent about the Queen Bee letting them be a part of such a wonderful friendship.
The friendships drain me rather than uplift me
Drama and gossip. That’s all it ever is. And it’s not “venting gossip” where a friend was hurt and wants to vent to another friend. It’s malicious gossip. It’s manufactured gossip you create to ruin lives and hurt people. I’m done. I’m an intellectual person – I like talking about things like career aspirations, social issues, current events, the latest book or movie…Not about who anyone thinks Susan slept with last weekend. Short and sweet – We have zero in common and I’m sorry I even allowed myself to be part of your sick world, Sea Witch.
In “The Clique”, if you try to talk about “smart stuff”, you get made fun of. You’re only allowed to live in your Barbie world and be a Barbie girl. Made of plastic. But it’s not fantastic. Why hang out with people who leave me with feelings of shame, embarrassment, guilt, or being pissed off the next day?
The Queen Bee
There are certain things one must like to be part of this clique. It’s part of the control model of the Queen Bee. She wants to know everything about you so she can exploit it, if needed. She gets you drunk, gets your secrets, takes screenshots and stuffs them into the hole where a heart should be.
She wants to know all your insecurities. She worms her way in and would be the one to show up at your house when you were sick, to offer you a ride when you need one, etc. It’s not out of the kindness of her heart (She doesn’t have one). It’s so she has something to use against you later. She controls some by her fake kindness. She controls others through fear.
When you cross her, the retaliatory gossip is fierce. She treats you like an opposing politician and tells others dirt about you. If she can find none, she makes it up. She doesn’t care who she hurts. Then she accuses you of doing all the things she is actively doing.
Because I just don’t like the example you set
Looking back over what I’ve written, I realize that I really don’t like anything this group represents. Not a thing about who you are pretending to be is who I would want to be. The shame is that some of you were completely different people before you got involved with The Queen Bee. You were kinder, gentler, nicer people. Some of you were on better trajectories to success that have been halted by a life of continual partying and making embarrassments of yourselves on social media.
I have spent so much time living in fear of The Queen Bee and worried about what you all thought of me. But none of that matters as much as what I think about you. I can’t see a single thing uplifting about people who get together and drink, gossip, sleep around, and bully other people just trying to get through life themselves. None of this is me. I don’t think any of this is you, either. I think you’re better than this, but it might take a while for you to realize the world you are living in is a lie.
No matter how old you are, you can still fall prey to a Queen Bee and a clique of women who are going to do you more harm than good in the long run.
But no more of that for me. I’m making a firm stance to start being around positive, uplifting people who are so busy talking about ideas that they don’t have time to talk about the personal lives of other people. These are hard pills to swallow. But I hope others realize they are better than the lives they’ve been leading for others on Facebook.
Sincerely,
An Outsider
Smarter Loving 