“Mean Girl Syndrome” or “Ephebiphobia” in retirement.

I have been retired for a year now, which I can hardly believe myself!  So I decided it was time to branch out and participate in some additional clubs, looking to make new friends who have similar interests, and trying to enjoy my life to the fullest.  It seems to me, retirement is a time to enjoy all the things you never had time to do when you worked, right? Retirement is wonderful to me; it’s doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it! <Grin>

I am still in the honeymoon stage; I drive through the gates and can’t believe I live here. It’s like living full time at a vacation resort; seriously we really do love it here.  I think that the three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Those of you who follow my blog, or in the very least have read it a few times, know I truly enjoy people watching and observing the people in my community, in whatever social environment I find myself.  I have to say that this months topic I personally experienced, which both hurt and fascinated me: Mean Girls, or cliques, in retirement.  Really! <Grin> It made me shiver as my Spidey senses were once again proven right; here's a secret, I have discovered this place is full of cliques.  Yes really, with 60,70, 80 and 90 year old's.  It seems even women in retirement continue to try and reinvent themselves, and they either let you into the inner circle or they don’t.  I have no idea what makes them decide you are in or out, the only thing I can figure is perhaps you are an outsider because you are not the original people who moved here 10-25 years ago.   I have also noticed that the same people seem to be in a lot of clubs, and the leader of the pack in each seems to be from one of these cliques, and they are always at the center of the club making all the rules etc.

I am so sad to report to you some of them are just unkind, thoughtless women who appear to have a selfish pattern of behavior; you know the kind who band together leaving others out entirely.  One good thing (?) I noticed is that they don’t seem to discriminate between men and women; it appears that no one is off limits to them!

For some reason, I have become fascinated in observing these women within these social situations and within their cliques.  Always shaking my head and ginning to myself as I watch these senior/grown women, vying to be the center of attention.  Reality check, OMG its High School all over again!  

The more I researched this subject, the more puzzled I became, perhaps the experts are correct and we may just be neurologically hardwired to seek out people like ourselves.  It certainly appears so to me, people seem to start forming cliques as soon as they’re old enough to know what acceptance feels like. They bond together based on anything that they have in common; such as music preference, sports, race, gender, the block that they grew up on, or in the case of retirement, the clubs. 

I can attest from my personal experiences that women are naturally competitive, (Ya think?) <Grin> and that may be what motivates women to form cliques at an early age.  With the cliques in high school the only thing harder than getting in, was staying in. Not so with the senior cliques - the hard part is getting in; once you’re in, I am thinking you’re there for life. <Grin>

As you can tell I am trying to approach this with humor, as I am inclined to do, yet I must confess  there are other times, when I am more inclined to be more introspective; the times that I find things like this sad and hurtful, especially when observing the faces of the people they have been mean to. What truly surprises me is that at this age, 60, 70, 80, or 90-years old, well I’m thinkin’ that they should be more worried about what they will have to answer for in heaven than what people here think of them? Just sayin’ (Grin).  It seems to me that they of all people should be aware that life is really short and you should be kind to others.  But alas, not the case, and let me tell you this was an eye opener; these ladies really show rude exclusivity and thoughtless cliquishness every day!  Phew, what is going on here, you may well ask?  Is this reminding anyone of the movie Mean Girls, if so you are spot on!

OK, OK, some of you are saying or asking yourself what is a Mean Girl? It’s hard to pinpoint an exact definition, but I think most of us can agree on the idea that they are “women, who use passive-aggressive or outright aggressive tactics to shame, humiliate, ostracize, or hurt other women, often with the intention of making themselves look better by comparison,” I think it certainly fits the Mean Girl stereotype.  In my opinion mean girls are in short, bullies whose target is primarily other women!

I saw this on the Internet and thought it fitting-here are some signs that you may be a grown up Mean Girl:

• You're never pleased - no matter what happens in your life.
• You always have something to be mad or complain about. 
• You're just never happy with anything. 
• 80-90 percent of your conversation consists of talking about other people. 
•  The past was always the best times of your life. 
•  You find it physically painful to compliment other women. 
•  You look for weakness in others…and you pounce.

It does cause me to laugh when I see senior ladies (I use the term oldies, or seniors with love as I too am amongst their number whether they acknowledge me or not) acting and behaving like they are still in high school.  Seriously, when I worked I found gossip to be entertaining; occasionally I heard the most fascinating things about myself that I never knew. <Grin> Now it’s just darn right sad to see it still going on at this stage of my life.

I observed a group openly talking about going somewhere, they asked me to go, and I promptly declined, while this other lady kept asking when they were going, only to be ignored. I have viewed this type of scenario more times than I would like to tell you about. Then on another instance I observed a group sitting at a table, and the lady asked politely if the seat was taken, and they said yes, when in actuality it wasn’t, I kept an eye on it and no one ever took that seat.  Then there was the lady who stopped by to say Hi, only to have them say Hi, and abruptly turn their backs on her and continue their conversation. So rude!

On another instance I noted that one person really wanted to be on a committee, well first she was in, then she was out; it seemed one of the committee women had a friend that wanted in, or they decided they didn't like this particular candidate.  It was sad to watch the disappointment and hurt of the lady who was originally in only to be told she didn’t make it. Whether you call this politics, cliquishness, it still seems to be prevalent in the world of senior citizens.

So what do you do if you come into this "Mean Girl” adult syndrome?  Well you remind yourself that confident, secure people do not act in a thoughtless and exclusionary way; and that these kinds of people gravitate to one another. When you get right down to it, their behavior is self-hexing, as in Karma.  How you treat people, and what you do to people will always come back to you. And I prefer to live by the rule that no one can hurt me without my permission. I won’t let them taint me, as  I believe that who I am is measured by my kindness; my education and intellect by my modesty; and my real caliber, the who I am inside, is measured by the consideration and tolerance I have for others.  

One last thought that I explored, was, could this be a generational thing, after all the majority of the people could be my parents, maybe much the same as   Ephebiphobia; the fear of youth. First coined as the "fear or loathing of teenagers," today the phenomenon is recognized as the "inaccurate, exaggerated and sensational characterization of young people" in a range of settings around the world. Seriously if you are in your early 60's they refer to you as a kid LOL. 

I think that about covers things. <Breathe and Grin>. My take away on this is: I choose not to socialize with the Mean Girls, giving them very little fodder for their gossip. If this means I am not a participant, then so be it. As with any kind of mean girl, or anyone who bullies anyone, there’s always a reason for it. There is that sadness in them or insecurity that makes them feel the need to exclude, gossip or hurt other people.  The fact is people gossip, because people are inherently insecure, and as a result of their insecurities they talk about other people.  They point out flaws in other people to feel good about themselves.   

It seems this is present at any age or social class. My guess is that no matter where you are in your life, or whatever set of people you’re with, it all still breaks down like high school does. You have social cliques, you have the people you get along with, the people you don’t and the people you are ambivalent about.  I choose to remember that life is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us, so I say “make haste to be kind.”

And so I leave you with the words of Gandhi, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” I thank you again for taking this retirement journey with me, or as I refer to it, “my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’…