Cattiness

Cattiness makes me feel awkward.

This morning my Phonetics class was canceled.  This left me with an unexpected coffee break, which I proceeded to take without delay in the school cafeteria.  I thought I'd sit and do some reading, maybe write a little bit, sip my caffeine, and then head on up to the library to do some printing of pages.  However, on my way to an uninhabited, sunlit table I was stopped and invited to join a different table. 

Me?  Invited??  To sit with other students???  Why, of course!

So, I picked up my coffee and parked at a table with other sophomore voice students, several of whom I'd met in an assortment of classes.  These are the popular, chic, pretty students (I hate to revert to high school terminology, but in many ways, that is where I am).  

At least that's how they carry themselves.  I'm not in awe of them or disgusted by them- mostly I'm intrigued by them.  They must spend so much time in the morning putting all that makeup on.  And by *all that* I simply mean that they always look very coiffed, with makeup and outfits and shoes and hair. . . and they invited me to sit with them?

At any rate, I sat down and tried to engage in conversation.  The general questions that everyone asks came up- 

Where did you transfer from?  

. . .

Ooooh- so you're like, way older than us?

To which I smile (hopefully demurely) and try to explain in as polite a tone of voice as I can muster that yes, I AM quite a bit older.  I usually hope that this does not come off as calling them infants, though sometimes I hope it does.  Today my intentions straddled both hopes.  Soon, though, I was fairly forgotten in lieu of more salacious topics.  

Maybe I felt more aware of this behavior because I was not part of the active conversation.  Or maybe it's because I don't really know the people that were talked about (well, I could point them out, but I've never had a conversation with them).  Or maybe I am growing up a little bit at a time.

At any rate, I felt very weird sitting at the table while a great number of other students were picked apart for all sorts of things.  It really seemed to me that their greatest offense was not being there for this conversation, and that if they had been sitting at the table then they would have been treated quite civilly and without the slightest hint of meanness.  

It made me sad to see how much energy these students were wasting on lambasting others- energy they could have spent in self-direction or musical pursuits or in finding the shared humanity in these other students.  Instead, they let their insecurities feed on the insecurities of others, which is just a painful (and pitiful?) sight to behold.  

I wasn't exactly sure how to extricate myself from this situation.  I felt suddenly as though I were in high school again, having received an invitation by the popular girls to sit with them only to find that sitting with the popular girls is both glamorous and abysmal.  I kept thinking about leaving the table, but I didn't want to miss out on new friendships.

And that's when it hit me- I don't want friends like this.  

I'm sure that each of the people at that table has the potential to be a lovely person, and I'm not saying that I reject them wholly because of today, but there's no reason on earth why I should put myself in the middle of such silliness just to meet new people.  People I don't want to be surrounded by anyways!  

As soon as I realized this I excused myself to go to the library, which is where I am at this very moment- constructing this love note to you, my generous internet audience.  

Wait, are you generous??

Currently Reading: Full Frontal Feminism