Does anyone know anybody who was a Mean Girl? Have they ever explained why they did it?

Let's go find Laura Darbyshire, my personal bête noire, and beat it out of her.

Somewhere Ms. Darbyshire shuddered in dread, and she knows not why.

I've always assumed it was a power thing - I'd like to have more power. The power to make you scared or feel bad about yourself counts. I gain more power by taking yours.

Yeah, power. When I was mean, it was basically because I could be. I didn't have that dynamic in my other relationships, and so when I did have the upper hand, I was going to play it out, other people be damned. Selfishness, basically.

I didn't have that dynamic in my other relationships, and so when I did have the upper hand, I was going to play it out, other people be damned.

I see this in kids all the time, certainly I see it in my kids. And Franny, like Matilda, is very empathetic and will offer comfort and care when she sees someone is hurting. But she'll also be a beeyotch to her little brother if it serves her purposes.

When I was a little kid I had big sisters looking out for me, so nobody was mean to me unless you count my sister. I saw, and was sometimes subject to, a lot more bullying in middle school and high school than in grade school. My school was non-standard in that the cruelest, most aggressive bullies were members of the D&D crowd. But when I see those guys now, as adults? They are great guys and I really like them.

Does anyone know anybody who was a Mean Girl? Have they ever explained why they did it?

The one I know has no clue that they did anything bad. It was all just harmless "teasing". Just kids being kids. Yeah. She doesn't recall the time I got shoved down a flight of stairs.

bitterness tag, does not close

I think moving around a lot as a kid took me out of the bullying situation as I don't recall ever being bullied or being around others being bullied. Probably because I was always the new kid and by the time I formed friendships, it was time to move again. But I'm remembering my brother was totally bullied (an itching powder incident comes to mind that I'd go ape shit over if it happened to my kid), so there goes that theory.

The one I know has no clue that they did anything bad. It was all just harmless "teasing".

This is often the case. It's a kind of privilege so they're blind to it.

Glamcookie, I moved a lot and was bullied a lot. Of course I was always the youngest in my class, was awful at sports, was fat, and was good at academics. So I kind of had a flashing neon target floating over my head.

I actually was a mean girl to one girl during 9th grade. I have since apologized and she was very gracious about it. My BFF from 4th grade was brilliant but screwed up by her awful family. It was her idea to do the bullying (nothing violent) but I went along with all of it so I am equally to blame. In her case, her parents were both alcoholics and had a scary, nightmare marriage (her dad kept a loaded gun in the house and used to scream out the window and shoot at any animals which went into their yard when he got drunk), she'd skipped two grades, she was somewhat chunky and she had all kinds of insecurity. I only bullied one person for about a month once, but she was kinda mean to me off and on the whole time I knew her. She would sometimes gang up on me with other girls or spread serious rumors about me until people stopped speaking to me for a while. It was not comfortable and sometimes it was very sad, but for some reason I'm not bitter about it.