Every teen girl knows the story: Cady, a girl who you'd think would be a complete outsider given her love of math and her African culture, moves to the States and fast befriends the evil, "popular" girls. Of course everything falls apart at the end when Cady attempts to date the group leader's ex, but you know what? She still ends up pretty darn well liked at the end. Very unrealistic. Or was it?
Don't get me wrong: the ideas of popularity were not unappealing at the time. I had plans to talk to everyone and become well-liked, thus becoming famous and then popular throughout the process. I had even read a chick-lit piece by Meg Cabot entitledâ¯How to be Popular.â¯I don't remember much about this novel, but I do remember how a teenage girl makes a mistake that ruins her social career: she spills a drink on a popular girl. Boom, social life over. Then she finds a book, also titledâ¯How to be Popular,â¯which lets her in on some secrets that propel her to the top of the social ladder. She even---*gasp!*--- meets some close friends along the way! I don't remember how it ended, but you get the idea. It was inspiring at the time. I had even picked up some cool tips and comeback lines from theâ¯Cliqueâ¯series that I could try out. (Did I invite you to my barbecue? Then why are you all up in my grill?-type things.)
This plan to be popular failed epically when: 1) I ended up at a school with about 70 students where everyone knew each other, and 2) I realized I sucked at talking to people. I went in with the notion that I would just go start talking to others.
But when it was time for orientation activities to begin, I realized I was kind of doing my own thing and not talking to anyone. When we had hall meetings in the lounge each night, everyone would sit around talking with one another while ignoring me completely. Somehow, I was fine with this and didn't do a thing about it. I guess I figured that I'd make friends eventually; that I could make them any time I wanted to and just didn't feel like talking to anyone right then.
So much for that theory. Besides, I didn't click with the people there.
Anyway, Felton Academy, which I discussed earlier, was a fleeting time in my life. Even to think of it now, it seems like someone else's life. Parkington was a whole new adventure that had a bit more influence.
But don't be jealous of the author who has this cool, posh experience. Think of every boarding school story trope you know. Then, throw most of them out the window.
First of all, there were few girly girls here. Nobody much cared about what they wore---boxer shorts under the navy blue school sweatpants was the popular look. The ideas of school dances were shot down hard when they were brought up. Some girls were troublemakers. Others just didn't care about or struggled with academics. Cliques weren't a huge thing, though some groups were tighter than others. While the real estate on our street was quite expensive, we were largely surrounded by dairy farms and golf courses.
It wasn't hard to be intimidated by groups of girls running to greet each other after a long winter break. The second I stepped into my new dorm, I was met by three girls walking arm-in-arm. One was an African American girl named Steffy, and another was a South American from Bolivia called Rina, with somewhat of an accent. The girl in the middle was the one that originally said hello to me. Her name was Chelsea and she was the epitome of popularity: small brown eyes, long blonde hair, and coming straight from Greenwich, Connecticut. Somehow, she actually seemed interested in talking to me.
We began talking on a somewhat regular basis. When I was still in the friend-finding stage, sometimes I would sit with them at breakfast, although awkwardly as I wasn't always sure they wanted me there. I mean, I was the weird new girl.
Alas, sometimes they would turn me away. I have one horrible memory of them asking me to leave when nobody else I knew was around one evening at dinner. I got up from the table, looking around for anyone I knew, to no avail. What was I supposed to do? Sit alone like a weirdo? Join a table of girls who I didn't know and who were in the middle of a conversation? They eventually took pity on me and let me sit down after standing there for about three minutes. I still cringe thinking about that.
I would have to join a friend group, or suffer the consequences!
One day at breakfast (I was allowed to sit with them that day), she offered to give me a makeover. On the way to my first class, another one of their friends asked if she could have one too. Chelsea replied, "No, you don't need one!" One of my worst qualities is that I tend to overthink things, and that quality went into overdrive as I pondered what she had just said. T
hat evening we went to her room after dinner along with her posse, and her Korean roommate. We did my makeup, which I think consisted of mascara and eyeliner. Plus, she gave me a fashion tip: wearing a white tank top that peeks just beneath your shirt makes your outfit look more put-together. Truth: I still keep that one in mind today. They also gave me a lesson in the fact I Was Too Nerdy For Them. The whole time, I struggled to have fun because I was stressed out for fear of being late to study hall. We were deep into our makeover and who knew how much longer we'd go. The school was strict, and would give dinner crew to anyone who was a millisecond late. So that proves just how cool I was on the inside! I was just this Quaker school student mixed up in a world of more edgy kids, and it was strange.
Thankfully I did make it to study hall on time and we continued being friends, even outside of the campus. One night on a weekend away from school, we video-chatted on Facebook late at night, a day before I was going to visit my grandparents. I don't remember what we talked about, but we had fun. We even took a group photo together by making duck faces and sticking our fingers toward our faces in what we thought was a cool manner. A few days later, Steffy posted the pics on Facebook, like we were any old group of friends. The next day, my dad warned my grandma that I might be somewhat tired that day because I had spent the night talking with my friends. I felt amazingly cool, not to mention social.
Not only did we do makeovers, but we talked about boys. We also talked about sex. That was not one of my better moments because I didn't even fully understand the mechanics of it all.â¯Chelsea asked me if I knew what happened as every detail I retained from my sixth-grade health classes left my brain for La La Land. I bumbled some answer about yes, and no. Steffy went into further detail, ever so nonchalantly. We were just a bunch of girls having a sleepover party (minus the sleeping over part).
Naturally, this led to me telling all about Ben from the last chapters and my attempts to reach out to him through email. I showed them a picture in my eighth grade yearbook, and to my relief, they agreed that he was cute. One day during spring break, I got a message from a guy in my eighth-grade class named Charlie. Charlie had been in my class and was somewhat of a goofball. We rode the bus together and he knew about my crush on Ben, and he brought me some good news...he had a phone number just for me, from Ben! I couldn't believe it. There was my opportunity...if I was brave enough to take it. Mostly I just stared at the phone, wondering what I should do.
I finally did it when I got back to school, in the safety of my dorm room. I dialed the number and held the phone to my ear, my heart thundering and my fingers itching with temptation to hang up. But it wasn't Ben on the other end. It was an automated nerdy-sounding guy with a nasal voice. He explained how even though somebody was breaking up with me, things could always be worse and that I should be positive! So the guy I liked ditched me? Well, it could always be worse, nasal-guy said! He could have stolen my money and burned my house down! Then there was an ad for a chance to win $50,000.
I promptly burst into tears.
How could Ben have done something so mean to me? All I wanted was friendship! Well, maybe more, but not that I'd let him know that. "I don't want $50,000! I just want Ben!" I cried aloud to myself.
There wasn't much more time for dwelling, though. It was almost time for study hall, and I was meeting my friends there. It took me a little while to dry my tears and we were ten minutes late, but thankfully the proctor took mercy on us, or at least didn't notice. For some reason we were the only ones in the room that evening, because everyone else had gotten permission to study elsewhere. So we spent the time devising plans-could I possibly go see him over a break? Could I just move on? The idea of that made me want to cry again, but after a good boy-bashing session I felt much better. That's what friends were for. Our plans were for naught--- after some thinking and realizations, I believe that Charlie had given me the fake number. Still, it was nice to have support.
Unfortunately, things only went downhill as good as they could be sometimes. Despite boy talks, I felt like this group was superficial and was starting to see it more and more. Chelsea gossiped a lot, like any cool girl might do. Whenever someone came to visit the school, there would be instant chatter about whether the visitor was "weird" or not. In history class one day, when she made a joke about someone bring two-faced, another girl chimed in, "You mean like you?" I couldn't help laughing, although Chelsea frowned. Was that the way I was supposed to talk about my friends?
They all talked about each other behind their backs. I was never included in their gossip-fests unless I was on the other end...which I probably was sometimes.
But again, this was a small school. Nobody took them seriously. At one point, we were on a school field trip and they were trying to get me to join them in singing that "Jai Ho" song that was so popular at the time. I feebly joined in, not sure what I was supposed to be doing or singing. They were into it; I was hesitant for fear of looking silly, and they caught on.
"Are you afraid of us?" Chelsea asked.
That's when I knew. Sheâ¯definitelyâ¯wanted to take over the school. I told them no, and she replied something like, "Well, it seems like you might be..."
"Ha ha. Are you kidding me?" I turned away and went back to my iPod. I don't know if they believed me. Awkward...
I had a decision to make. Should I continue being friends with girls who thought I was afraid of them? Eventually, this decision would be made very easily.
The year is my sophomore one; I'm sitting in my dorm room with my roommate and best friend Danielle. We met when we were assigned together when she became a transfer student (guess who didn't have anyone put them on their potential roommate form at the end of last year?).
Okay. Sub-story. We were all gathered to pick roommates near the end of the year and we had to pick our top 5. I decided to put down Steffy, and Hayley--- a friend of theirs who, in my opinion, was far too nice to be friends with them. Chelsea asked me who I'd chosen and I told her. The knots twisting in my stomach were my first sign. Why didn't I listen? They gathered for a brief conference about the horrible-ness that was me requesting them as roommates. I heard every word. They clearly didn't want me. But hey, look at where that put me...with a best friend for life to this day.)
Anyway, back to sophomore year. Danielle's on her computer, I'm on my bed doing something or other. Then she calls me over.
"You might want to see what Chelsea wrote about you..."
She pointed to a Facebook photo. The photo showed me and Steffy on two separate ends and was posted on her profile. My photo was one I took on the night we stayed up video chatting; me dressed in a feather boa I still had from Ben's bar mitzvah party. Steffy's was something I don't remember. My blood boiled when I saw the comments.
Chelsea: "Um, what is this?"
Steffy: "Just something stupid I put together jajajaja." (Supposedly this was "Spanish" for hahahaha. It was a catchphrase of theirs.)
Chelsea (along the lines of this): "i don't even know. she doesn't cling to us because she's busy with her roommate."
Then one of their other friends named Victoria---who left after freshman year--- replied: "Lol you mean she actually has friends now?"
So some tropes were true. Laughing at girls who didn't have friends was a thing.
Angry, I logged out of Danielle's account and into my own. I clicked into the photo and wrote an angry, somewhat actually well-written photo attack on them. I let them know how low it was that they'd make fun of someone for having no friends, and told them that I really had no interest in being friends with them any longer, and didn't see why anyone else should.
It got worse. Before most commenters could even see what I wrote, Stephanie deleted the entire comment chain, mine included. I can only hope that they saw and felt some touch of wrongdoing, if slight.
Our "friendships" quickly dissolved without much incident soon after. If they hadn't already. Danielle and I had already been bonding quite a bit. I mean, when your "friends" think that you're afraid of them, nothing good comes from it. Nobody else cared about them anymore either, if they even did to begin with. They faded into the background even more after Chelsea got suspended for some reason.
After that, it was easy to see that popularity didn't really exist. When class elections came around, the Bolivian girl, Rina, decided to run for vice president. You could tell that they knew they had this in the bag. I mean, who wouldn't vote forâ¯them?â¯When a girl named Natasha won instead, the girls all gathered in a frantic huddle, wondering what on Earth went wrong. They were popular! They had it in the bag!
Unless, of course, they failed to learn that popularity and fame really can't manifest themselves when you go to a school of 80 people. Whoops!
Luckily for me, more friends would be coming my way. I was already beginning to get along with my first roommate, Cindy, who came from Taiwan. And you know what? I was much better for sticking to that group than for trying to get as many friends as possible. Because I actually had fun with these people. We didn't gossip or set out to hurt each other, partially because I established myself as someone who wasn't into that. It wasn't like we never talked. Chelsea even said hi sometimes, and I said hi back. Because that's what you do. It was nothing more, nothing less.
So this brings me to the cliché: it is so much more fun to have a few close friends than lots of fake ones that you don't really fit with. If Danielle was a comfy sneaker, Chelsea and the others were fashionable but clunky boots that give you blisters on your heel. I surrounded myself with people like Danielle and had a much better, happier social life because of it while everyone else was getting into petty drama. Other girls started dorm fights (and once, tried to get us involved); we ignored them and watched 101 Dalmatians. They spread gossip; we shared secrets.
If popularity even became a thing at Parkington, it wouldn't have mattered. I liked where I was too much.