Recently, I was reminiscing with some old school friends over drinks. We talked about the teachers we had crushes on, and rolled our eyes at the extreme lengths we went to to shorten our skirts.
Then a few of our group spoke poignantly about the intense pressures they felt at school, one of the top all-girls’ grammars in the country.
‘It wasn’t all bad,’ I said fondly. ‘Well, you would say that,’ shot back my friend Jo. ‘You were a bully.’
The word felt jarring and alien. Me? A bully? I laughed it off, because I thought she must be joking. We were still friends, all these years later, after all. But something about her expression told me she was serious.
When I think of a school bully, I picture a burly thug waving his fist and stealing someone’s lunch money. I never did anything like that. But the more Jo and I talked about it, the more I had to accept that I had been involved in causing pain and hurt and humiliation to my classmates.
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but at school, I was a Mean Girl.
The 2004 movie came out just as I was leaving sixth-form, but its depictions of the savage hierarchies of teenage girls rang very true for me.
From the age of 12, I was part of a 15-strong gang of girls who were known as ‘La Clique’, and we could be vicious when we decided there was someone we didn’t like.
The more Jo and I talked about it, the more I had to accept that I had been involved in causing pain and hurt and humiliation to my classmates
When I read Shona Sibary’s piece in the Mail last week about the enduring effects the bullying she suffered at the hands of a fellow pupil had on her, a fresh wave of guilt washed over me. I’m on the other side, but the shame of how I acted makes me feel sick to this day.
At the time, I didn’t consider myself a Queen Bee-type. If anything, I was filled with self-loathing and constantly anxious that I wasn’t pretty enough, clever enough or popular enough with boys.
It was probably these insecurities that made me act the way I did, desperate to fit in and not be cast out by the popular girls. I was too terrified to speak up when we did something I knew was wrong, for fear of losing my status or having the pack turn on me.
Further evidence of my Mean Girl status was confirmed when I dug out my school yearbook. All the photos showed me and my friends arm-in-arm, often in matching outfits, captioned with phrases like: ‘You can only be friends with us if you’re thin and pretty.’ I like to think we were being ironic, but deep down there was truth in it. We were intimidating and we revelled in it.
As an adult, it’s been painful to acknowledge the fact I wasn’t a very nice person at school. When Jo first confronted me, I reassured myself that if I was a bully, it was only of the verbal kind. But, looking back, that’s not quite true.
One of my friends Sarah, who was very well-developed at a young age, reminded me that we created an elaborate ritual, complete with songs and dance moves, that involved pressing heavy dictionaries into her chest in an attempt to flatten her breasts. We would shove balloons down our scratchy blue V-neck jumpers to impersonate her.
From the age of 12, I was part of a 15-strong gang of girls who were known as ‘La Clique’, and we could be vicious
The 2004 movie Mean Girls came out just as I was leaving sixth-form, but its depictions of the savage hierarchies of teenage girls rang very true for me
We were, of course, just jealous we hadn’t grown boobs ourselves yet, but she’s subsequently said how painful it was (both physically and emotionally).
‘Jokes’ like this would often escalate into physical intimidation. We regularly shoved ‘Little Maria’, the smallest member of our group, inside a locker.
We would pretend to attack each other with hockey sticks, once actually doing it, and drawing blood and smashing a few orthodontically-aligned teeth. Someone would cry at least once a day. We didn’t have the term ‘body shaming’ back then, but we were masters of it.
It was dog-eat-dog, and while I took part in the nastiness myself, I was a victim at times too. I remember one girl telling me to sit under the table during English class and when I dutifully did it and asked what was going on, she told me ‘I hide things I don’t like’.
I was also painfully thin as a teenager, and other members of my group would force me to eat sachets of butter in the lunch hall, while they chanted and laughed. Barbs, cruel comments and name-calling were all part of the fun.
Except it wasn’t fun. It must have been deeply traumatic and upsetting for those involved.
I know at least one member of our group had therapy as an adult because of her experiences at our hands. I couldn’t believe it when she told me; I apologised tearfully but knew that the damage had already been done.
If I were to analyse what made me act that way, I think it was probably the heady combination of wildly raging hormones and intense boredom. We were bright and ambitious, but with very few avenues to express ourselves other than all this game-playing and back-stabbing.
School was dog-eat-dog, and while I took part in the nastiness myself, I was a victim at times too
For me, I’ve no doubt my chaotic home life was also a factor. After my parents’ tumultuous divorce, my mother left when I was 15. Exerting power over my classmates was one of the few ways I could feel in control.
I’ve since had plenty of therapy myself, and I hope it’s made me a kinder and more empathetic person. I’m thankful I went to school in the pre-Instagram age, as I dread to think what kind of devious cyber-bullying I would have got up to if we had been living online. And how the record of it would live forever, for everyone to see.
I don’t remember teachers ever getting involved or trying to discipline us. It all felt quite lawless, like Lord of the Flies armed with Impulse body spray.
Although I like to think I’d never go back to my old ways, I sometimes catch myself regressing.
One glossy magazine I worked at was just like being back in the classroom. Everyone in the office wanted to sit on the ‘Top Table’, where a gaggle of powerful women poked fun at those beneath them in the pecking order. I had to fight the urge not to join in when they belittled a more junior member of staff’s ideas, or didn’t invite certain people for after-office drinks.
I’m not proud of it, but I can’t deny I still find gossip pleasurable and a sure-fire way to quickly bond with others.
I’m still friends with most of La Clique — in fact, a few of us recently went on holiday together. When we do talk about our school days, and the times the jokes went too far, everyone is sheepish. We all agree it was deeply weird. I’m sure, like me, they’d hate to think of themselves as the bully.
These days, when we spend time together, there is much less bitching. But our WhatsApp group still demonstrates some of the same old gossipy antics, where supposedly supportive messages are really anything but.
‘She’s so brave to be getting divorced, I could never do that to my kids,’ was one recent example. When I was younger I would have joined in, but now I don’t respond. If I do engage, I’m left with an emotional hangover that takes days to go away.
Sometimes I look at my daughter, and I wonder if this toxic behaviour in female friendships is innate or learned.
She’s only three, but already I overhear her and her little friends telling a new girl who toddles over ‘you can’t play with us’ or loudly announcing that someone is ‘not my best friend’. I would never send her to an all-girls’ school and I hope she finds her teenage years calmer and more compassionate than mine were.
But something tells me that the cruel dynamics of teenage girls will never change. Emotional manipulation, gossip and isolation seem to be par for the course. I watch them on the bus sometimes and can see subtle signs of the full-blown war they are engaged in.
It can be something as simple as body language that leaves one member of the group completely frozen out, or a comment that makes everyone howl with laughter – everyone except one girl.
I can, at least, tell my daughter that the Mean Girl years do get better. And the person you become to survive them will be better too.
Names have been changed.
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