To think everyone has some mean girl in them?

[StillNoSense]

I'm a victim of mean girls, have been at school and later on in life.

Sometimes though I think mean things about them and about other people though I don't do anything about it, I don't treat them mean. I might just think they are annoying or that colour doesn't do anything for them or I just don't like them but I'd never verbalise it.

AIBU thinking that everybody does this to some degree however small and to say they don't is disingenuous,

Everyone has opinions and not all of them are worth sharing or kind to share.

Yes that is what I mean. I've tied myself in knots feeling a cow for thinking things.

Top tip, inside your head you can think WHATEVER you like.

Exactly!

I would never say everyone with something like this because we don’t actually know what is going on in people’s heads, maybe many people don’t. But what you are describing is very normal. I certainly do it.

Yes I think this is normal op

Dont beat yourself up

I think this is totally normal; perhaps it’s a way of processing something you observed which didn’t sit quite right.
As long as you don’t act mean, don’t worry about it.

You have very little control, if any, over your thoughts and emotions. You can however learn to control your behaviour and how you respond to your thoughts and emotions.

I think its normal to have mean thoughts. Wht makes someone a ‘mean girl’ is voicing these thoughts and actively bullying someone, not stuff you think in your head.

I suppose but self awareness is crucial. So let's say I see a woman in the street in what I consider is an awful outfit or awful hairstyle/make up...I cannot pretend to myself that I'm not thinking that looks terrible. Thing is though I recognise it's none of my dam business and wouldn't treat her badly because of it.

Oh, of course everyone's got a mean girl inside them. Anyone who says they've never had a mean thought about anyone is a massive liar.

There's nothing wrong at all with having an inner mean girl. It's when people let their inner mean girl out that it becomes a problem.

I also think that's it perfectly OK to express your inner mean girl in a private conversation with someone else when there is no chance of that ever getting back to the person you're talking about. My DP recently mentioned a mutual colleague of ours to me as 'Just sitting there passively like a fucking blancmange' which was obviously extremely mean (although also funny, to be fair) but neither of us would ever have said that to our colleague, or even about him to anyone else, and no harm has been done.

Of course everyone has mean thoughts. It's how you behave that matters.

Unless you're in a room full of psychics I wouldn't worry about it.

Everyone thinks mean things sometimes but as long as it doesn't accidentally come out of your mouth then you're fine!
I've never been coldly mean to anyone, I have to be pushed then I can properly lose my temper and when I blow, I blow

I didn’t think that I did until recently. I had recently returned from years living in a different country and had some dinner with some friends from high school. We were recognised by the class bully. I had no idea who she was, and once she got over that shock, she introduced herself as “an Alpha Female”… I nearly wet my pants laughing and when I caught my breath, I said, “I’m so sorry… That sounds utterly exhausting!” and kept laughing.

There’s nothing ‘mean’ about not liking someone, OP. What on earth gave you that idea? And it’s perfectly valid to have an opinion on someone’s haircut — it’s only unpleasant if you vocalise it. I don’t have any ‘mean girl’ in me, no. I find other people terribly interesting, and I’m certainly capable of extreme cuttingness when provoked, but generally I think people are doing their best.

I suppose it depends on your threshold for ‘mean’.

To me, being mean involves taking enjoyment from others’ misfortune, judging them and having feelings of contempt towards them.

I might think that somebody I meet looks terrible, but it wouldn’t bring any sort of emotional response from me, I wouldn’t gain any pleasure or superiority, or feel contempt towards them, so I don’t think that counts as “mean”.

The only times I feel “meanly’ towards others is if I dislike them, usually because they have behaved badly towards me or others I care about, but I think this is probably quite normal and not a “mean girl” trait.

To be a mean girl I think you need to think nasty thoughts about perfectly harmless people. I’m not like that and I hope most aren’t either.

Anyone who does think that way has a self-esteem problem imo.

Not everyone has some mean girl in them. People have opinions and different tastes etc so I may think I don’t like someone’s skirt, that doesn’t make me a mean girl it means me and the skirt wearer have different tastes. It’s what you do with the thoughts or opinions that would define if you were a mean girl or not

Yeh I do this. I can't stand it when people are just mean and say unkind things to someones face or behind their backs, but I certainly think things sometimes!! I think as long as you don't say it then it's just human nature. The difference is not having the intent to hurt someone else's feelings, or just not caring about their feelings.

Mean girls are absolutely prevalent, that’s for sure; as evidenced by what sometimes happens in this forum.

Did you ever see that episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch where she changed Libby into a nerd and instead of learning a lesson, Libby was just as bullying and superior as before, just now towards the cheerleaders and "in crowd"? And the other nerds went along with it? She realised Libby didn't actually care what group she was in, she just wanted to exclude people.

It sounds silly but it was a massive revelation for me because I was in the nerdy crowd and I suddenly realised that as a group, we weren't actually any nicer or deeper than the people to whom we felt so superior. I'm not saying all of us were horrible but the fact that we weren't very fashionable didn't make us better.

I think mean thoughts all the time!! But I never say them. It's just your inner dialogue and we're all human.

I think the vast majority of women have it in them to be a mean girl, but not everyone chooses that option. It’s possible to have the bitch streak but decide not to use it.

I don't agree tbh.

actually contrary to PP I think there can be mean thoughts

Wishing someone harm or enjoying someone’s misfortune is mean - even if you don’t say it out loud

But thinking someone’s outfit is awful is neither of those and is not mean