What happens to all the mean girls

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My daughter was talking about the mean girls in her school and it made me ask what she meant. I mean I knew what she meant but wondered what her experience of it was. In her words: they are dismissive of the girls they don't like; talk down to other girls; laugh and bully them to make others do what they want.

Just out of interest…
Are you a mean girl? Were you a mean girl? What made you change?

This. I had the displeasure of one trying to bully me at parent drinks on Friday night. She was pretty shocked to discover that I stand up for myself and I'm apparently not who she believed I was. Sad little idiot.

As @hownice writes "...,..how sad someone must be to give any headspace to be mean to people...."

I totally agree but I'd replace sad for unhappy in their life.
If you are happy you don't have time to be mean to others.

There was a gang of "mean girls" when I was in secondary school. Fortunately they only ever once targeted at me. Started shouting at me for going out with someone from the class (we were 14 😂).

They all ended up having children really young 15/16 and have turned in to really nice people who now say hi to me in the street!

Does her name rhyme with Grinch?

And @Hjgfer when you're saying people 'come across as dyslexic and adhd' it's always best to be mindful of your own spelling and grammar first.

I shall await your explanation anyway.

They have learned very early on how to use people and do it for the rest of their lives (mostly).

The ones from my school have all ended up working in the beauty industry, hair dressers, that sort of thing. None of them are doing anything overly ambitious

This is really true about the mean girl I knew in secondary school who then went to same private school as me.

Years later she's now some sort of alternative therapy guru who actually tried to give me her first session free as a sort of prize and she obviously hoped I'd sign up for this!

Thing is, I know she also sells makeup in a department store. I'd never shame her but if I were the wrong sort of person, I certainly could, by making a scene.

ha! same as this one I know! Only she thinks (because she wrote me a lovely message on Instagram about how special and important her clients were compared to little old me!) she's doing so well yet she was trying to 'gift/give' me a first session, hoping I'd sign up for more. no thanks.

I was accused of being a Mean Girl recently, which surprised me.

Received a friend request on FB from somebody I went to school with and, although I was a bit surprised (I'm 43 and hadn't really thought about this person for a lot of years) I accepted.

Within minutes, I received a PM, saying 'oh, I didn't think you'd accept my friend request, I always thought you were a mean girl!'

I was a bit taken aback by this, because in my opinion, I wasn't a mean girl and I certainly wasn't a bully (I despise bullies).

Worst case scenario was that I was a bit aloof (too good at standing up for myself to be bullied and too weird to fit in with the 'cool set', so I spent a happy few years doing what I wanted).

I had about three good friends at school that I remain friends with to this day, so I can only assume that this girl thought I was being mean by not letting her in to my 'set', although I didn't do it deliberately and I'm sorry she felt / continues to feel that I did her wrong.

The ringleader of the bullying girls at my private school is now a QC. She seems fine now as far as I can tell, but I no longer mix socially with her.

I remained civil with her at school, though other people were mocked and ostracised by them.

Ah, a QC. That's a position with power, I suppose. The ones I remember were very interested in appearance and tried, fairly unsuccessfully, to make it in acting or reality TV, anytning to be famous.

In my experience, many become psychologists/counsellors 😳

I wonder why there isn't the expression 'mean boys'?

It’s ‘bully boys’ isn’t it?

I think the mean girls phrase came from some American ‘comedy’.

Came back to add two more, one a nurse who works for a cosmetic surgery company, another became a midwife.

I think that there are bullies who are mean boys as teenagers, kids etc but from what I've seen/heard, boys on the whole generally fight or have a disagreement, then its resolved and that's that. Not all the time mind you, I've known bullying boys/men keep up a bullying agenda against someone.

But in general men don't seem to be 'mean boys'. Some gay guys I've known have been 'mean boys' but even then, a few of them do the drama for the time it occupies them and then happily move on.

Well I have noticed (just my experience) girls always tended to pick on other girls the worst. So maybe I didn’t notice the mean boys so much because they were busy picking on boys the most.

It’s not like anybody is pretending there aren’t horrible boys though - I’d say the huge majority of fictional bullies and mean kids are boys from books to films to TV etc. Just as this forum is mainly populated by women their memories may be more of being bullied/ostracised by other girls.

The mean girl at my school (who was cruel to me for 5 years) died of leukaemia in her early 30s. I can’t say I was all that fussed. The logical part of me says that it could happen to anyone, the illogical part of me wonders if all the nastiness came to the surface somehow and karma got her. Yes, I know that’s ridiculous, please don’t have a go at me. I know leukaemia can happen to literally anyone, even good people. She just hurt me so badly.

Half of them have multiple children by multiple men never married and living in social housing mere streets away from their original family home.

The other half married up, a few children and doing alright. Own companies/sahm. Some have become more living off the land eco types.

The mean boys are the local druggie pub heads.

The smartest boys all married foreign women and tend to live aboard now.

The smartest girls seem to all work in supermarkets with a nice husband, pretty children in new builds.

Depends if they are from working class, or middle class families.

Oh goodness this thread has given me a lightbulb moment. I too knew a clique of mean girls at school who looked down on the rest of us as second rate losers. The trouble was it was a boarding school so there was no escape in term time. I have all my life had difficulty making friends (though I think ‘I get on OK with people I meet eg in volunteering roles (I’m retired) and neighbours. But friend - as in people you confide in and who have your back, no - except one, who has since died. Looking back I am now quite sure that all my inability to make friends and my insecurities stem from these girls at school. So for example I never think anyone wants to spend any time with me (though DH says that isn’t so) so when they do I’m uncomfortable, thinking they’d rather talk to someone else,

Sorry, this has been a bit of an essay. Please skip!

I definitely wasn't a mean girl (hid from them for dear life!) But I'm now a high school teacher and find it interesting to view mean girls in different light. A lot of these girls have genuinely very low self-esteem or self-worth and so seemingly hide it by being loud and bitchy. But they also love to have someone who cares about them - in my case, as a teacher, they look to me for praise and affirmation although this only works with teachers who are bothered to build a positive relationship with them.

What happens to all the Mean Girls ?
Some, sadly grow up and rear mean girls and mean boys because their children were never taught empathy.
How could they have been. Their mother didn't have it.
Children learn by example in their home.

The mean girls at my school didn’t do well academically and as far as I’m aware they’re still in our working class hometown. They were when I left for Uni. All very cliché. One or two who I knew when we were kids had potential early on to go to Uni but now work minimum wage jobs. Perhaps they’re happy, who knows.

Interestingly, I had potential to be a mean girl, as in I knew a few of them at the beginning of secondary school and hung out with them, but then I joined a friendship group of girls who were more academic like me. I genuinely believe that’s what saved me from becoming a mean girl and ending up with the kind of life they live.