Games People Play

I consider myself to not only be a rugged individualist, but also a strong feminist. I believe in honesty, playing your cards straight up, and not playing games.

Yeah, so then why do I find myself teaching my eleven-year-old some twisted version of The Rules?

She was very upset last night...it seems BFF decided to go out with my daughter's Crush on the very day my daughter confessed to BFF about having said Crush. That morning, BFF had made comments like, "How can you like Crush? He is SO ugly. It is inhuman that you could like him." By 9:30, my daughter got a call from BFF saying she was now dating Crush. Adding insult to injury, my daughter's other BFFs are going out with Crush's BFFs. Can you say feeling left out and unliked?

Follow so far? (If not, don't feel bad...my husband is still confused by this story.)

As she sobbed to me well past bedtime, I passed on the following bits of wisdom:

1) Chicks do this all the time. This is just the beginning, so get used to it. I don't think BFF meant to hurt you as much as she just wasn't particularly thinking about your feelings. And as much as you say you will never do this to friend, you will. I have, we all have, much as we hate to admit it.
2) Sometimes you are going to be the odd woman out, romantically. Sometimes you are going to be the only one with a boyfriend. Both suck equally as much, because it is hard to balance friendships either way. When you are the one with the boyfriend, be sure to continue to stick with/pay attention to/hang out with your friends. When you inevitably forget, it will be hellish trying to earn their trust back.
3) Don't ever let a guy think you like him first. Guys like to be the pursuers. If you are too blatant in your affection for them, they just stop trying. It's no fun for them anymore and they move on to their next "prey." So even if you are filled to the brim with liking someone, play it cool. PRETEND YOU DON'T CARE.
4) Sometimes, the best revenge is looking good. (I honestly said these words, and this morning put them to the test by performing a full waxing/blow drying/make-up applying triage. She still looked sad...but much more put together than usual.)
5) The people who peak in 5th grade...or 8th grade...or even high school don't have very much to look forward to. Not to mention, they have a loooooooong way to fall. I know this is of little comfort now, but when you are a successful adult kicking everyone else's ass career-wise, relationship-wise, and looks-wise, you'll be happy the pinnacle of your life did not happen in your tweens/teens.

I'm not sure how to reconcile what I value with what I think reality is. When I review my advice to my daughter, it seems like it must've come out of a Good Housekeeping magazine article from the 1950s. Yet I can't deny the fact that I wholeheartedly believe everything I told her last night. When you come right down to it, this ass-kicking, axe-wielding, do-it-yourself, put-every-ounce-of-sweat-grit-and-desire-into-everything-you-do mama is just another perpetuator of gender stereotypes.

I guess the bottom line is this: Yes, I believe in telling the truth and not playing games...but the fact is, sometimes you gotta play the game just to survive in middle school.

Feel free to share horror stories.

Comments

[Brendan]

Well, I think your advice is pretty right on. Especially about the people who peak early--I remember teaching high school and watching kids who were obviously suffering and just wanting to tell them that they'd be so much happier than the popular kids when they were 30. Cold comfort when you're 15, but there it is.

But, as a man, I have to take issue with #3. If you pretend you don't like people in order to appear alluring, what you're actually doing is screening out the guys who will be respectful of your feelings. See, those guys have gotten your "not interested" signals and actually paid attention to them--because they're nice and respectful that way. So what you're left with is the guys who don't give a shit how you feel. And then, at a certain point, you start complaining that men are assholes. But all the non-assholes assumed that when you pretended you weren't interested, you actually weren't interested.

I'm just sayin'...