‘You can’t sit with us.’ How squads and cliques show up in adulthood

Even though I love the movie Mean Girls, it does reveal some uncomfortable truths about the way we exclude others socially. I also adore Taylor Swift, but her penchant for assembling beautiful people in the form of a ‘squad’ takes me right back to the misery of teenage cliques.

There’s an interesting study out of the US that shines a light on how being excluded affects us on a deep level.

Researchers at Ohio State University got 5000 participants to play a computer game in which they were told to only ‘pass the ball’ to certain people. The players who were excluded ended up with elevated blood pressure and stress hormones. The isolation effect also triggered the part of their brains that processes pain – so being excluded literally causes people pain.

I’m no scientist, but I’d imagine those effects happen because our body recognises the danger of being cast out of the pack. In evolutionary terms, our very survival depended on being part of a tribe so we weren’t attacked by wild animals nor left to fend for food on our own.

There are emotional effects too, obviously. The researchers concluded that when we are ostracised, our self-esteem plummets (boo!). We lose a sense of belonging, which, they noted, is extremely important to emotional well-being. 

I’ve noticed the rise of the hashtags #squad and #squadgoals on social media, and this trend bothers me because it smacks of elitism. That underlying exclusivity really raises my hackles. What you are saying – and this is only my opinion – when you describe a group of people as a ‘squad’ instead of simply ‘friends’ is, essentially we’re a club – you do not belong. You can’t sit with us.

I wrote recently about how a desire to fit in with the tribe sometimes shows up for me (click here for that post). The fear of being excluded is still real, well beyond my high school years. But perhaps that’s because I've always felt like an outsider.

A few years ago I was absolutely devastated when I logged onto Facebook and saw photos of my (now former) best friend’s baby shower – an event I had known nothing about. All of our friends had been invited. To be fair, we had been drifting apart for some time, and I am not particularly maternal so I’m not an ideal baby shower guest. Still, the fact that everyone else in our circle had been included, and I had not, was excruciating. The sting of being excluded by a group of people I had cared about made me burn with shame.

I would like to think that as I become more comfortable with being myself I will become less concerned with how other people perceive me, and consequently how they might treat me – i.e. by exclusion or acceptance. I’m aware that as a highly sensitive, introverted person who works in the spiritual realm, I am even less likely to fit into the mainstream now than I was in high school.

If no one wants to sit with me, because they perceive themselves as better than me or just because they don’t like me, I need to learn to be fine with that.

I’m fairly confident that being excluded does not mean I’m in danger of being trampled by a mammoth. 

I had a dream. This is what it taught me

Recently I had a dream so potent that it has stayed with me for more than a week.

I was walking with some people I used to know, who are very sophisticated and elegant. ­­We were heading towards one person’s home, then they fell into a conversation I didn’t understand, and started to gain pace. Suddenly it was like my legs had a rubber band around them, just above the knees. My legs would only take small steps forward, and I couldn’t separate them enough to lengthen my stride and catch up with the others. I was shouting at them to wait for me but they were too engrossed in their conversation to notice me. 

Soon they progressed so far ahead I lost sight of them, and I didn’t know where I was going. I became hopelessly lost, and got stuck, briefly, trying to climb over a seawall. Eventually they realised that I didn’t know where I was going and came looking for me. I was quite distressed abut the fact that my legs had failed me and that I hadn’t been able to stay with them. “I just couldn’t keep up with you,” I said to them sadly.

I just couldn’t keep up with you.

This is the line that has been bouncing around my head ever since that dream. I wrote it down in my dream diary when I woke up, but I didn’t really need to – the meaning is so obvious. When I tried to follow other people’s path, I lost my way. 

Wanting to keep up with other people – specifically, people I perceive to be cooler, hotter, more successful – is an old pattern of mine. It’s that whole ‘fitting in’ strategy we adopt in our teenage years and often results in us overspending on material goods in adulthood (keeping up with the Joneses, in other words). It can also result in us painting the picture of a perfect life on social media – and Brisbane model Essena O’Neill, 18, certainly did a brave thing this week by admitting her Instagram shots were faked in order to cast herself as someone to envy and admire.

For me, the urge to keep up with other people is problematic for several reasons. The first is that it’s based on comparisons. It involves me assessing other people, concluding that they are superior to me for whatever reason, and putting them on a pedestal. This is unwise, given I have no idea what is actually going on in people’s lives beyond the surface. Are they good people? Who knows! Are they happy? They probably have the same problems as everyone else. Are they better than me? Well, no, actually – since life is not, whatever Nike would like us to believe, a competition. I love this line in the 90s hit Sunscreen Song: "The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself." 

There’s another problem here. Worrying about what other people have, look like and appear to be doing takes my focus away from where it needs to be: on my own growth and development.

This dream has been a wake-up call (literally!) that I need to address the way I compare myself to others, and also the way that I measure my own value. This is not a new lesson; I’ve referenced my struggles with comparison and self-worth in many previous posts. But just like those angel cards that keep recurring in the daily readings I do for you guys, these messages will keep coming up until I can truly take them on board and move on. The Universe will not stop throwing these messages at me until I learn the lesson.

I can’t keep up with other people, and I don’t need to. I am enough. 

The outsiders

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the bravery that’s involved in standing out and being different. Maybe it’s not brave for some people, but for me it sure feels that way. This is an ongoing challenge for me, because when I reveal that I communicate with angels I’m instantly identifying myself as different. And that’s not something I’m comfortable with.

The desire to fit in and blend in is a long-held safety mechanism for me. 

It goes back to primary school when I was bullied, which is when I learned that being different was a weakness, and consequently made you vulnerable. My strategy was to put my head down and hide as much as possible in the hopes no one would notice me. This was the genesis of the crippling shyness I am still occasionally shackled by (although I’m working hard at ensuring that I don’t let it hold me back as much as it has in the past). Even though this was decades ago and my safety is no longer at risk, that lesson, and the terror that encases it, has stayed with me. I know that there is no actual danger in owning my spiritual side, but still, I struggle with this. Another contributing factor is that I grew up in conservative New Zealand, where anyone who doesn’t fit the married-with-2.4-kids-and-a-white-picket-fence-in-the-suburbs model (and doesn’t want to) is regarded with some suspicion.

Instagram is littered with a trillion inspirational quotes urging us to be ourselves, to be who we truly are, to own it, to Be yonce (whoops, that doesn’t really belong in there, but it seems wrong to delete it). Case in point, this gem: ‘Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?’ Trite but true. And yet...

I’m acutely aware that what makes each one of us different is a key ingredient in our recipe for success. Last year I attended a discussion with Karen Walker and Mikhail Gherman (of the fashion label Karen Walker) about being outsiders and how they used that to their advantage. They said they didn’t go against the grain with their designs because they saw a gap in the market – they did it because it was who they were. They couldn’t do or be anything else.

This morning at the gym, among a sea of Lululemon singlets and sleek yoga pants, a guy strolled onto the treadmill with lime-green hair (like, tennis-ball colour), lollipop-pink socks up to his knees, and blue and white polka-dot shorts. At first I thought he was ridiculous, then I checked myself and realised that his non-conformity was something to admire. My initial discomfort was a response to my own fears about standing out. Which have nothing to do with him, and everything to do with me.  

The more market stalls I do and the more widely-read this blog becomes (which I’m told is destined to happen, eeek!) the more I’m going to have to own my spiritual geekery. Which means standing out. Which is terrifying. What I find interesting is that even though I know the worst-case scenario (so I might get judged by people who aren’t open to spiritual concepts... so what?!) isn’t actually that bad, the stranglehold that Fear has over me is still very strong. Unravelling that is going to take a lot of time and self-talk, I suspect.  Luckily being different is a vastly less dangerous now than it is in those merciless primary school years. I just have to keep reminding my subconscious - the part that wants to protect me - of that.