Friends in High Places

Now Playing: Both of Us by B.o.B ft. Taylor Swift (I wish I was strong enough to lift not one, but both of us)

'It's not like you don't have any friends'

After the clique broke up, this is what a lot of people said to me. 'You have me', 'it's not like you don't have any friends', 'we don't all hate you'...etc etc etc.

There is a marked difference between having friends and being in a friendship group. Friends are there for one on one time; friends are there to walk you to classes and to snatch a few moments of conversation at the lockers. They're online, somewhere, after school.

In high school - and primary school - there is this absurd emphasis on who people sit with to eat. Really. It's actually ridiculous, if you think about it. And yet people become such bitches defending who can and can't eat a sandwich in their presence. People you are happy to talk to about homework, to laugh with in form...suddenly you don't want to know them once everyone congregates.

Recess and lunch is always the hardest times when you don't have a clique. I eat a lot in class and then spend most of my time just floating around. What else can I do? Occasionally one of my friends will see me, turn around and smile...but then they're in that little clique bubble and it's like they can't see me, can't feel me. Pretty much all of my friends are like that.

When you have friends in high places much of your friendship happens outside of school grounds, school hours...and everyone feels uneasy because nobody really knows what's going on - you suddenly go from a vaguely familiar face to...who knows? Friends? Best friends? Secretly dating? I think it's the confusion that gets most people.

I don't get along with groups of people. I don't really fit in well with the power dynamics...I'm too much my own person, and too much of a private person, to really mesh well with groups. My friends are people I love individually, people I see totally separate from where society puts them...and nobody seems to understand that.

I'm tired of the open hostility, though. I'm tired of the rumours, of the whispers, of people talking when they think I can't hear. Do you really think that someone like me can break up cliques? Of course not. Don't worry. You'll still see the same people every day stuffing their faces, and I won't be one of them. I know I can't be a part of that. So stop treating me like the yellow peril.

Today I did a little experiment - bad idea, I felt like shit afterwards - on how long I could stay around a clique before they started getting edgy. Biology nerds, if you ever want an accurate representation of what happens to a virus when it gets too close to a white blood cell, look at the nerd who gets too close to the popular clique. Actually, nothing happens, but just look at the body language, the words that come out of their mouths. And look at how the one 'friend' in the middle of this clique does nothing. Less than nothing.

I hate how people change when they're with their 'friends' - am I less of a friend? You don't have to become an asshole to be like them, you don't have to become an asshole to me. I know you are better than that.

If I could tell past me what to do when all these friendships rose out of nowhere...I wouldn't say to run away. I need these people, and I love these people. But I would warn myself...it gets hard. I would warn myself not to get too starstruck, and to think about whether it's really worth it, whether you really need this friendship or if you're strong enough to battle it out yourself - what nourishes you destroys you. It gets hard when you realize that for all intents and purposes you're still alone, when it counts. Friends or not. And that nothing can replace the comfort and security of belonging to a friendship group. And that's why you can't forgive the people who took that away from you, no matter what. Because for me, it's not in the past. Every day it hurts.

These are the only friendships I have left. I wish people would just let it go. Why should cliques or the petty playground politics of high school tell me who I can and can't be friends with? Everyone tells me to be different, that it's okay to do what you want, be your own person. Yeah...unless you want to be friends with nobody. Being individual is licence for people to treat you like scum and tell you what to do. They didn't tell me that bit.

It is hard to believe people when they say that we are 'best friends' or 'great friends' or 'close friends' when you can see how easily their behaviour changes depending on who's there and who's not. It is hard not to feel like that your relationship is only something that you want, and only something you work for. I wish I was strong enough for both of us. But I'm not. I'm wearing thin.