To wonder what the hell is wrong with cliquey women and mothers ?

[Humpy84]

I’m from Australia ~ might be relevant in case I say minor things that don’t add up.

At park with DS almost 3 and my lovely friend and her children. Park is very spread out and kids running wild. I noticed immediately a girl that I went to school with from ages 10 to 17 who was very pretty and popular.

It was a cohort of 100 girls, many very attractive girls but probably only 20 who were in the cool group. Mainly due to being extroverts, very loud etc.

I tried to catch eye contact of ‘mean girl 1’ but she seemed to be in her own world. Her friend, also in my year at school, ‘mean girl 2’ arrives. At this point our children are playing in close proximity and MG 1 and 2 and Becomes awkward. I think about saying hello but am transported to high school and feel like I’m 12 again and that they should say hello to me. I am usually confident and say hello to everyone, don’t care if I’m the first one to say hello but this is so different. There’s just a general feeling that they don’t want to say hi and not making eye contact even when I try to. It’s a very friendly city and most girls from our school will say hi, even younger ones have said hi.

Fast forward 45 minutes of awkwardness and eventually my child is climbing on top of a fire truck that their children are on and bellows for me, Mean girl one and two are now an inch away from me and can’t ignore me, both say hello loudly and overly friendly. Completely fake and i feel like I’ve just walked into one of those clothes stores where they do the hard sell.

A five minute banter ensues and I am asked where I live within minutes. Mean girl two asks me my sir name and claims that she can’t remember. This is hilarious to me as they used to pretend to forget your first name as little girls and would repeatedly ask about 50 times to prove you were unimportant. I find it completely amusing that they’re still doing this. They wrapped up the conversation quickly and the dynamic felt exactly the same as when I was a teenager, like I was on borrowed time, they ended promptly and did a loud goodbye and “see you at next swings” like a couple of game show hosts.

I’m not at all upset about this exchange. I find it amusing if anything, these girls are not more charming, funny successful, glamorous etc, they’re both very thin but all in all just normal albeit loud and arrogant.

The rules of these cliques is so arbitrary and I find it so weird but also interesting. I would love to know what goes through their minds. Why are women like this ?

I was walking the dogs recently when a white van stopped beside me and the guy inside greeted me enthusiastically. I had no idea who he was, so I asked, and it turns out that we were in the same year at school.

I must be a terrible person

OP, I'm sure it wasn't a nice experience but it does sound like you've made a lot of assumptions about the interaction you had with them. I'd just avoid them if they make you feel like this.

Sounds like you've made a massive issue in your head about nothing.

They said hi, they made some small talk - they really don't owe you any more than that.

I don’t necessarily want to stop and chat to someone just because I went to school with them

They sound like they were ok in the park. I think a lot of it’s in your head. I also don’t know why you wanted to speak to them/ for them to speak to you. If they weren’t nice to you before why would you want to spend time talking to them now. Just avoid people who’ve proven not to be nice to u. If u have to talk to them just make it very short

One of the most valuable life lessons my mother taught me!! There will ALWAYS be a “queen bee” type, no matter where you go, school, college, university, work etc, don’t pander to them but be nice, involve others, and if you are ever in a place where you can’t identify the queen bee then make sure it ain’t you!! I will be passing it on to

Posted too soon, I will be passing it on to my DD!!

That's not a valuable life lesson, it's a shite, misogynistic one.

Their own massive insecurity means that as soon as you start treating them like that they'll read you as being higher up this ridiculous social hierarchy that only exists in their heads and they'll want to win you over. I mean the big disadvantage there would be that you would then have to talk to them...
This with bells on.
Works a TREAT

I think about saying hello but am transported to high school and feel like I’m 12 again and that they should say hello to me
So roughly translated from your OP: You didn't say "hello" and neither did they.
Then they did say "hello" but not in the way you wanted.

They probably simply didn't notice you. You say girl 1 was "in a world of her own" and then they'd met up and were probably just catching up together and not worrying who else was there. Have you never had the experience of someone saying "saw you at X yesterday" and thinking "I never saw them"? I've even walked directly past someone I know well when I've been thinking of something else. Not deliberately ignoring, but just not registering.

I agree Youngandfree there will always be a Queen Bee (doesn't have to be female, ergo, not misogynistic)

Don't pander to them, be as pleasant to them as every one else....because, if someone relies on power over others for a positive sense of themselves, then that's their weakness.

@chamenanged you can construe it as misogynistic all you want but it’s true!! 🤷‍♀️

I think one person's queen be is another person's vague background noise, to be honest -- it's like vampires. You have to invite them in.

When we moved to this village and I was getting to know other parents at the school when DS was in Reception, I used to hear mutterings from some other mothers about someone they actually referred to as the Alpha Mum. Thinking I must not have encountered this stand-out person she had a name like Louise or Becky, and there seemed to be loads of them about and on the various school mailing lists I asked one of them to point her out.

Of course it turned out that the person these other mothers had been talking about with fearful deference was a blamelessly ordinary woman I had been vaguely aware of in the playground purely because her shoes never seemed to fit her very well. She seemed perfectly nice on the rare occasions I ever spoke to her, albeit someone who had a kind of social tunnel vision, as she'd grown up in the village and stayed, and all her friends were old school friends who'd also stayed and had children around the same time. If you really wanted to feel ignored and excluded, I'm sure the materials were there, though.

Sorry, queen BEE, not 'be'.

Check out the posters here agreeing that these women must horrible, bitchy, cliquey and immature. There isn’t a single thing in the OP that indicates that was the case.
Two women the OP is not friends with and has no connection to other than being in the same school years ago, did not say hello to the OP at the park. That’s it. Now I had a shit time at school but even I can view this objectively as a complete non-event.
Nothing happened here. The only unusual thing about it is OP’s perspective on it...and her subsequent outrage that anyone would question it.

There was no pressure or obligation for them to greet or make conversation with the OP and they didn’t. That’s fine.

• @chamenanged you can construe it as misogynistic all you want but it’s true!!* 🤷‍♀️

Such a weird lack of self awareness to firstly believe that you'll struggle to get on with/be liked by a minimum of one person in every setting, and then conclude from that belief that the problem must be some kind of inherent social more.

The lassie has had a somewhat unpleasant experience in the park, she's looking for a bit of backup, if you don't want to give her it, why not just leave her in peace?

Just want to clarify Toomuch as one of the people you quoted, that I was not trying to get at the OP I was trying to help. I had a terrible time at school and had anxiety problems, about 85% ir more of my time was focused on what others thought of me.

Then at some point I realised that the my thoughts weren't necessarily fact and that slights that I perceived might not actually be real. Maybe so and so didn't 'blank' me, maybe they genuinely didnt see me/felt awkward/were in a rush -and if they did blank me fuck 'em.

That's why I said to the OP you can't tell what's in other people's heads. We all as humans (women in particular I think) spend far too much time worrying about what other people think of us. But its optional, you can choose not to care. CBT helped me with this and I think mindfulness is good too. I still worry far to much about what people think, but I'm able to leave the house now so I'm definitely doing better with it.

"Please don’t post pointless and defensive responses and detract from my question by poking holes and attempting your couch psychology and character assisantion. If you’ve nothing productive to contribute then don’t !"

You can't insist that people only post if they agree with you, that's not how AIBU works.

In fact, your sensitivity to anyone offering a different perspective suggests that you are indeed someone who sees slights where none are intended and does nothing to further your cause.

Do you really see posts saying you may have misinterpreted the exchange as 'character assassination'?

My own post was borne from the sheer number of times friends have asked me why I walked/cycled/drove past them without acknowledging them . Never intentionally of course, just in my own world. But it makes me fret about all the people I've similarly ignored, the ones who didn't challenge me and give me an opportunity to explain!

I'm sorry that your interaction with these women upset you. If they were genuinely intentionally ignoring you, and being mean when they asked where you lived, and lied about forgetting your surname, and were being overly friendly for nefarious purposes, then you should view them with pity because I can't imagine two grown women colluding to behave in such a way, their lives must be exceedingly empty and unhappy if that is behaviour that gives them pleasure and purpose.

I had an "acquaintance" (this one was male) once accuse me of blanking them and not saying hello to them in a shop.

1. He is An unpleasant & entitled arse imho
2. I had just found out my father had died so not much up for any type of interaction at that time 😢

I had never been aware of the who is the "first to say hello dynamic", is the first to say hello the winner of the loser? so I have found this thread enlightening thank you

Honestly OP I actually don’t think they did anything wrong here. I’m pretty much in a world of my own with other people and the not saying hello until you were nearby doesn’t need to be a slight.

I also am horrible at remembering names from old school friends and I could see myself recognising a face but not name. It doesn’t mean it’s an insult in this context.

Honestly, if they weren’t nice to you at school I think you might be understandably viewing a perfectly normal interaction as a slight.

I mean this kindly, but you are far too invested in what should really be the very fringe of your life. I'm sure that neither of the women you describe has given this exchange any air time in her head whatsoever.

I'm afraid I agree with pps who have said that to someone looking in from the outside it does sound like you are imagining slights where none exist. It's a kind of confirmation bias thing. You imagine it will be so, so it becomes so in your mind, and once you've invested a bit in this "narrative", it becomes difficult to disengage and admit you were overreacting.