Dear Prudence,
   Throughout most of my youth I wanted nothing more than to be accepted and to fit in with the "popular" girls at school, no matter how mean and horrible they treated others and myself. There were many times when I felt like they were letting me into their exclusive group until I later realized that they had other intentions.

   One of these times started after school in 8th grade as everyone was waiting to be picked up. My friend Katy, who had just recently become one of the popular girls, had a super fun idea. "How fun would it be to pretend that we were in a fight Darling?" Hm well, I guess it could be fun? So she asked that I start shouting for the others to hear and act as if we were arguing. I did my best and gave a very convincing performance. I think I really added the special and final touch when I gave her the bird right before jumping into my mother's car. I didn't really understand why we were pretending to fight, but I didn't really care to understand, I just felt so excited that Katy had asked me to be a part of it. My feelings of excitement and absolute coolness soon wore off later that evening. I got a three way call from Katy, Kim and the queen bee Jane. They immediately started yelling and accusing me of being a mean and hurtful girl as Katy pretended to cry in the background. Wait, what? Why is Katie doing this? I couldn't find words, lost it and started crying until my gracious mother grabbed the phone and asked that they leave me alone. I was so confused and hurt that Katy would turn this around on me. As a 13 year old girl, I felt that I really had done something wrong and I tried my hardest to "make up" with Katy publically so my reputation wouldn't be completely destroyed. I didn't realize until much much later that she was simply using me as a pawn. She had played the poor victim card to get the other girl's sympathy and to feel loved and accepted by them. Sometimes I wonder if maybe they were all in on it for their own entertainment.

   I wasn't one to hold grudges, especially against the cool crowd, so I still stayed friends with Katy. Only thing was, we were kind of secret friends. We would hang out on the weekends and play with her rabbits and ride my scooters to the park but once that school bell rang, she pretty much acted like I didn't exist. We sometimes talked during high school but we gradually went our own seperate ways.

 I learned a lot from that friendship looking back now as an adult. I've become more sensitive to people's intentions and have tried my dang best to be true and honest in my intentions with others. I've learned to carefully choose the people who surround me and am so blessed now to have such incredible and true friends standing by my side at all times.



                                                                                         Still a little confused,
                                                                                                                  Darling