“Now, where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial because you got everybody there. You got your freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, JV jocks, Asian nerds, cool Asians, varsity jocks, unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don’t eat anything, desperate wannabes, burnouts, sexually active band geeks, the greatest people you will ever meet .. and the worst. Beware of The Plastics.”
If you didn’t know where this quote was from by the time it got to “JV Jocks,” then you clearly live under a rock… one that is situated in a barren forest far far away from a TV. The fact that I am trying to make you feel bad about not having seen one of the cutest movies ever (Mean Girls) is beside the point. The point IS about high school cliques, which Janis Ian so conveniently laid out for us in this Tina Fey classic.
One thing I started to realize in my mid-20s is that you can grow out of high school but high school will never grow out of you. All of the cliques, all of the judging eyes, and all of the embarrassing moments have a tendency to stick with us. They might be less prevalent, but they find a way to rear their ugly scarring head when we least expect it.
Unfortunately, “The Plastics” have snuck their way into every district, every school, and every grade level. There were always those “they-think-they-are-so-popular” and “have-tons-of-money-to-flaunt” girls. Sometimes it would be comprised of one Regina George, and in worst-case-scenarios there were many at one time. No level of burn book comments could help one vent about the nastiness that comes when dealing with plastics.
Recently I came across a bunch of females who were not friendly, I know what you are thinking, “Call the whambulance and tell me something I don’t see everyday;” but for myself I haven’t experienced the cold shoulder in quite some time. Normally people join together in drinking bliss, not drink and dismiss.
Either way I wondered why I left with a strange feeling. It struck me that I was back in the day of trying to suck up to Regina George. Here I was trying to be personable and approachable and ended up feeling vulnerable, allowing those around me to belittle me with their piercing, judging eyes. You think you come such a long way to build up your confidence and discover who you are, and it could just take one look, one cold comment to knock you off your bar stool.
In other situations I have seen there is a similar pattern of people giving credit to high school as the place they developed their insecurities. For example, in reality shows like VH1’s Tough Love, a girl who used to be overweight is now in Britney Spears circa “I’m a Slave for your Shape.” And no matter how good she looks now, she will on occasion have a breakdown thinking she is “fat.” She says she will never forget the days when people would make fun of her for her weight, and she will always feel like the “fat girl.”
It even happens for guys too. Guys sometimes have to defend themselves against bullies growing up. Even though someone might be a warm person and a kind spirit, he will always instinctively protect himself if he feels at all threatened. One phrase, comment, gesture, or dirty look can really make guys feel sensitive pushing them into a conditioned response of being “on-guard.”
No matter what clique or stereotype you fit into when you were in high school, somehow those club subscriptions turned into lifelong memberships. The best we can do is be proud of how far we have come and how quickly we bounce back when we get insecure. We finally have learned how to battle the Army of Skanks!
