Mean Girls

I have a confession to make.  A couple of weeks ago, I acted like a Mean Girl. 

I had been discussing one friend with another, and we had agreed that a certain trait of hers bothered both of us.  Now in my mind, this in itself is not a Mean Girl act.  We weren’t calling the mutual friend names, we weren’t making fun of her, or saying we didn’t like her – we were simply agreeing that we both found this particular quirk of her personality hard to take.  The act of two people agreeing that a third person can be hard to take is not a Mean Girl act.  It is a conversation that happens all over the world, all the time, and throughout time.  It is a conversation between parents regarding a daughter, daughters regarding a parent, colleagues regarding a boss, students regarding a teacher, prostitutes regarding a senator…  it’s human, and it isn’t mean.

I became a Mean Girl when I made a snide, in-the-know reference to this mutual friend’s behavior on my friend’s Facebook page.  Once it became a joke at her expense, and behind her back, it became something else.  I was, at that moment, being unkind.

The next day at work, my friend, referring to my snide post, remarked, “I didn’t know you were a Mean Girl!”  I was slightly taken aback, but figured I deserved it.  What I said was meant to be funny, and to make her laugh, but was snarky, and it made me uncomfortable to think of it in that light.

The reality is that we are all capable of being nasty at someone’s expense, and I imagine there are very few of us in this world who don’t resort to it at one time or another.  Turning someone else’s irritating behavior into an excuse for shared humor with a friend not only helps relieve some of the frustration; it solidifies your relationship with the friend, which thrives on the shared experience.  

But the fact that we all do it doesn’t make it right.

I used to belong to an Internet forum for parents of twins.  Actually, the forum was open to a larger community: twins themselves, relatives of twins, those who had lost a twin, or were expecting twins.  I had never thought of myself as the type to join a group about anything – I am not, by nature, a “joiner,” and my tolerance for belonging to large groups of people is low.   But I was thirty weeks pregnant, had just topped 200 pounds, and had been relegated from my job as a teacher to lying supine on my living room sofa.  The Internet was a necessary diversion from too many Discovery Channel movies about traumatic births, and an overdose of novels.  Voila, here was a virtual “room” filled with people – most of them women - who were either lying on the sofa like me, or dragging themselves about exhausted, dealing with multiple infants and children.

So I happily read and responded to posts in the Expecting Forum, avidly drinking in all the birth stories and doctors visits. I frequented the “Corn,” a more restricted site where conversations turned away from parenting to more topical and even controversial issues, and the debate was vigorous, often interesting, and occasionally dramatic.  Debates raged over politics, current events, religion, science; arguments got occasionally heated, but were rarely dull.

I was intrigued by the diversity of opinions on the forum, which was made up of women (and a few men) from a variety of backgrounds, religious beliefs, and areas of the world.  How fascinating to see where the commonalities are, and where the differences lie! I developed respect and admiration for a number of people: those who could argue a point of view eloquently, those who weren’t afraid to be the one opposing voice on an issue, those who were willing to share their thoughts openly.  Those who, even when arguments got particularly volatile, could keep their anger to the issue at hand, and not degenerate into name-calling and other disrespectful verbal attacks.  I admired Cathy, a scientist by both nature and profession, who would fight an anti-evolution argument tooth and nail, but always keep her manners about her.  And Renée, who wrote beautifully, with such spirit and wisdom and knowledge, and could not be intimidated from defending her point of view.  Carolyn Ann – a twin himself, and one of the few men on the board, was often intimidating in his intelligence and the way he attached himself to an argument like a bulldog on an old sneaker, and exasperated me virtually to tears when I disagreed with him, but he became one of my favorite posters for his intellect, passion and perceptiveness.  Despite frequently contrasting views on issues, Cathy, Reneé and Carolyn Ann shared an essential humanity: they knew how to keep a discussion politic, and not personal.  No name-calling, no backstabbing, no excluding or attacking someone personally.  When the discussion ended, no matter how passionate (or even sanctimonious) the posts became, the respect and the shared humanity were still there.

I participated in the twin forum for about three years: from those initial weeks on bed rest through the spring before Rachael and Chloe’s third birthday.  I still look back on those early days fondly: for a non-joiner, it was a successful “joining.”  It got me writing again, and I ended up adding a blog to the forum, and challenged myself to share my thoughts and experiences.  As an atheist who really hadn’t examined her beliefs too closely in years, I explored the religions and philosophies of other members, and was able to define my own beliefs more clearly as I understood and appreciated theirs.

Over time, however, I found myself becoming increasingly disillusioned with the direction the forum was taking.  I was irritated at the number of topics that cycled over and over, and degenerated into the same vituperative arguments each time.  I became aware that there were cliques of members ganging up on those they didn’t like or agree with. Some moderators worked hard to keep things both respectful and interesting: others seemed to be fonder of slapping certain members on the wrist for strong opinions.  Name calling, exclusion, backbiting: it all began to smell like junior high school, and I no longer had the desire to be there.  I was reminded that Mean Girls grow up, and that we often hold on to patterns of social behavior that are not so pretty.

Carolyn Ann left after being called a murderer for his pro-choice stance.  Renée, who seemed to know how to take regular breaks from the forum to pace herself emotionally, was on another break, and I missed her wisdom.  Cathy, tired of arguing the existence of dinosaurs to anti-evolutionists, gave up on the Corn.  Others I respected continued to participate, but I found myself too frustrated to continue, and quietly bowed out.   I’m sure my conclusions at the time were irritatingly sanctimonious, but whatever the experience had become, it no longer worked for me.  “If you can’t join ‘em, leave ‘em,” I decided, and I worked to push the whole experience out of my mind.

Last month I received an email from a member of the twin forum – one I had not known well, but had respected.  Some former members had started a new forum: by invitation only.  By inviting participants they felt would contribute productively, they could build a forum that would allow members greater freedom to express themselves, with fewer rules and less control by the moderators.  In addition to the twin aspect, many of the members were atheists, and shared thoughts about religion and society that resonated for me.

It took me a few days to decide to join – I no longer missed the other forum, and truly didn’t have the time for something new.  But, flattered, I ultimately decided to participate, and looked eagerly through the boards and topics, surprised at how pleased I was to see various names I remembered and respected from the old days.  Slowly I began to work my way back in to the routine, re-learning the posting and formatting, the quoting and the linking.  I was so please to see Renée on board, and to reconnect with other members as well.  A provocative quote from the blog of another member I respected (Anne: “If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire must be not to write.” Hugh Prather) got me thinking about writing again, and I once again began blogging as well.

As I searched through the boards to familiarize myself with the lay of the land, I began to fill in some of the blanks.  This new spinoff forum, I learned, came about as a result of dissatisfaction with the other twin forum.  Clearly, there was a lot of upset and anger over situations and arguments that had happened over there, and a lot of unhappiness with many members.  I attributed the proliferation of angry comments, snide remarks, and multiple put-downs directed at certain members of the “other” board, to a situation that I could not understand: I wasn’t there, and it wasn’t fair for me to judge either the level of anger or its method of release.

But over time, it has grown to bother me more and more.  Interesting and provocative topics are often ignored in favor of multiple pages of rants and complaints about people, and mocking paragraphs about their opinions and beliefs.  There are members who work hard to keep the forum interesting, and who post intriguing topics for discussion.  But I feel too much of the energy and spirit of the board is devoted to angry responses to posts and people on the “other” twin board.  I’m sure that each and every one of the members on the board would look in the mirror, and believe that they have every reason to complain and be angry.  But to this outsider, the tenor of this forum has become every bit as uncomfortable as the other one: just in a different way. 

We are all Mean Girls at times.  I have resorted to muttering unkind comments about a colleague, and then felt uncomfortable about it afterwards, knowing that I have crossed a line by possibly skewing someone else’s perception of the colleague in the process.  Larry and I leave orchestra rehearsals each week frustrated and disillusioned, and spend the drive home (and hours afterwards) criticizing our conductor: a process which quickly degenerates into gratuitous snarkiness, yet somehow, doesn’t feel like it crosses a line.  Is it because our anger remains with the two of us?  If we share it with one friend, or group of friends in the orchestra, does it become unfair?  Or is it only unfair if it is shared with those who might not agree with us?

 I don’t have answers, but I’d like to believe that as adults, we try to draw the line so that our frustrations get shared and our anger gets vented without losing our respect for each other in the process.