Mumsnet Talk

there has been quite a few threads during my time on MN,both in AIBU and in Relationships complaining about cliques,usually in a 'school run' context or on-line.

I'm not denying that the school-run is a fairly un-pleasant social phenomenabut what really is a clique? do they exist? Arent they just friendship groups? ANd what even are they? Its not a club with membership. Itsjust friends who have friends in common. the more friends you have in common the more centralto 'the group' you become. It follows that if you are friendlywith oneor two people,then you would appear to be on the periphery. You may or may not be invited to social gatherings depending on who organised it and whether you are freinds with that individual.

Friendships exist because the people enjoy each others company/have a laugh/have interests incommon/support each other. People are not friends so that they can make the people they are not friends with feel excluded/uncomfortable/miserable. Having many friends doesnt mean you are a complete bitch, it normally indicates that you are quite a nice/friendly/happy/positive/caring person.

What do the people who moan about 'cliques' want the other people to do? Stop having friendships so they feel better about themselves? Limit their number of friendships? Only be friends with them? From my POV the ones berating cliques are doing it from anenvious stance, because THEY want to be included? So if they were included would a clique then be deemed acceptable?

I don't write this as someone in the middle of a big friendship group BTW

yanbu

Very well said

Might be the gin me, but I took ages trying to work out what a social phenomonabut is

I think when you look at social psychology and the 'us'/'them', 'in'/'out' groups, they do exist and they serve a purpose.

They exist from a few individuals up to countries of people, and are fine if you're in the us/in group or don't care about the shit that goes on between people.

But being on the outside, isolated and excluded and desparately lonely, it can be pretty dire I think.

Especially when you see it happening with really young children.

Cliques exist. Some are harmless exclusive groups. Some aren't.

Most friendship groups aren't the same as cliques.

They do exist. Been in one, out of one, and on the receiving end of one.

I have a few friendship groups, they're tight, they're exclusive but these tend to gather away from the school gate and if we ARE there, no one is excluded.

Totally agree.

We have moved around a fair bit and so I've run the gauntlet of starting new schools a few times.

It is very easy to stand on your own in the playground feeling conspicuous and left out, however IME if you push yourself forward a bit, it is relatively easy to become part of a friendship group, as one person will introduce you to another and so it goes. Its not easy to do so (I am painfully shy but force myself otherwise I would know no-one.

zigzag sticky space-bar!

so they are a proper 'thing'?! what differentiates a friendship group from a clique?

how are you on the receiving end of one???? what dothey do?!

maybe I dont feel it - Im as happy to stand on my own, as I am to chat with people

I think a clique is a friendship group which treats others badly /looks down on others / makes them uncomfortable and is not nice to new people?

Part of problem I think is that some people do make themselves exclusive. These people are usually tossers.

Another part of the problem is being British - we keep that good old impenetrable wall/ distance between each other, and so we imagine that 'if I approach this group of strangers, even in a friendly way, they will glare and humiliate me'. When in practice, the opposite is true.

And if they do glare, you have proven to the rest of the world that this is truly a bunch of tossers.

blimey...ithinkmaybe iamjust reallylucky then. I have never in my adult life (that I can recall) comeacross a group of people who behave like that

It's the using the school gate/ toddler group to organise things without any feeling for those they are not inviting that hurts.
In this day an age of FB and telephones it is quite unnecessary. Please just chat about it quietly as you walk down the road not loudly inside the school grounds.
I know most of the mums only want to talk to me when they want something, that's fine, but behaving in ways they'd reprimand their own children for is not.

or im really thick skinned

Have you got all night bejeezuz? It took me a while to realise I was in one, but the over riding factor was childish, mean, gossip that caused a lot of hurt for people. Both in and out of it!

I had words with one of my friends about the way she treated someone, suddenly 7 out of 11 people weren't speaking to me. A clique is not a group of friends, particularly, its THE BORG.

Best out of it. I live in hope that for everytime someone says cliques don't exist, one will die (not the people the thing itself).

a bit Borat like!

sorry -x posted aldi

I don't care what people say about wiki, I love it but this is what it says about ingroups and outgroups

I think it reinforces the ingroup to have a outgroup/scapegoat, not very nice for the one on the outside, but it bonds the others together.

See I probably would have agreed with you until a few months back as I thought I was in a friendship group.
And I thought that I had been lucky in not coming across a group like that.
Unless of course I am just a miserable cow (all of a sudden after 2+ years) and not worthy of being part of the group.

Until the in group turns on itself Agent but thats fun to watch.

thanks zigzag

Most people belong to multiple social groups. Commonly encountered ingroup members include family as well as people of the same race, culture, gender and religion. Research demonstrates that people often privilege ingroup members over outgroup members even when the ingroup has no actual social standing

I dont think favouring your family and friends makes you a bitch though

i think probably the term 'clique' is used too often, to describe what is just a friendship group, that have no malicious intent

what happened fluffy?

i amstill finding it hardto believe it isnt just peoplebeing over sensitive

like startail - I would never think to arrange socialising with my friends in hushed tones,in case someone I wasnt friends with over heard me and was upset thatthey werent invited (that said, Im not loud!)

well said OP i've many a time tried to say what you've said.

I don't consider myself anywhere in the school playground other than there to collect my child. If i'm not in the mood to chat, i'll stand alone. If i fancy a chat i'll speak to whoever i'm stood next to!
But i have ended up in several conversations with people whom ( i always conclude are feeling insecure) who whisper to me about the clique over there.

??

why? i wonder, because theres a group chatting and laughing? does that constitute a clique? So if tomorrow i fancy chatting to those people does that make me a clique member?

Ah those obsessed with cliques... they're a bit weird by and large.

I think you wouldn't notice them unless you've been stung by them, you'll only know you've been stung by them if you've been involved with them, or one of them, or you were tried out and deemed unsuitable and unceremoniously dumped.

I'll talk to anyone. Not fussy.

I've taken the opposite tack to you Aldi and don't talk to anyone.

It's worked for me

I totally agree with you OP and have often thought the same when reading threads about "cliques"