So I just started my first year of high school, at a new school. And the very first person to greet and be nice to me is the renowned School Slut. Whom also is reputed to be bisexual. (I have nothing against Gays but am not one) Now, basically,I become her slutty Bi friend. And that is my new rep. When I have never even kissed a guy. Okay, so, I have guys who are openly calling me a slut in class and talking about how I and this girl are 'doing it' together. (when all I did was borrow some lip gloss which I applied in the bathroom and unfortunately that turned into us doing a quicky in one of the stalls) I cannot hang out with her any longer. I havn't told my parents who specifically told me to stay away from 'peopke like her' but she claims to now be a christian and is 'changed' but that of course doesn't change her concrete reputation. I think my rep is still saveable, but I need to know how to get away from her without hurting her feelings. Help?
Wow, I don't think I could help you there since it's kids like that that caused me to escape from the high school I was supposed to be attending and get an in-district transfer a couple years ago. F* them. I mean it. I don't know why people have to be such biotches to each other. ... I feel for your situation, though. I just know if it was me, I'd keep being her friend as long as she was a decent friend to me.
Thanks for the advice. Its just she is that way. And as nice as she is, she's not a good influence and in the end I'll pay either way. Ya know?
I don't really know what to say. The girl at my school who has a similiar rep is a complete out casts, yet she is incredibly nice. As shallow as I sound I am going to have to say to stay away from her. Your new, and also naive considering your just a freshmen. (right?) Reputation in HS is so important, and these years are too important to be going through literal verbal abuse at your school. Simply turn to the jerks who are calling you names and tell them that you aren't that kind of person, and to please stop. Being crude back to them only amuses their twisted jokes. So be nice to make them feel giulty. something like; "What did I do to you guys? That you have to single handedly destroy my reputation all for a little bit of fun? I'm not like that, so please stop." They wont stop until you stop hanging out with this girl though. Good luck.
I think you should call them on their bull****. The next time one of them calls you a slut, turn to him/her and say, "Well, if I'm such an obvious slut, then who have I actually had sex with?" After they can't answer, add, "That's what I thought, now would you kindly mind your own damn instead of gossiping (if they're guys add: like a bunch of little girls)." Oh and try to say this all as calmly as possible.
Ask out the football team captian? Use the reputation and then destroy it by being a 'proper' nice lady!
This is actually an interesting idea. If nothing else, since you dating their captain, the other players wouldn't be very happy about people calling you slut.
Maybe you should forget about what a bunch of wankers are saying, and stick up for the person who was actually nice to you? Just seems to me that if the other people are all such jerks as to be horrible to you for absolutely no reason, they aren't really the sort of people you should be wanting to be friends with. I think that you're looking at this in completely the wrong way. But maybe that's just me.
Be true to yourself, and hold your head high. YOU know who and what you are. Eventually other people will see who you really are too. Do you REALLY want to ingratiate yourself to the cackling hens who have no lives, and therefore can only take pleasure in ripping others apart on the basis of idle gossip? You expect to change the minds of those who never use them? The hell with them. They don't deserve your attention. Being the new person in school is ALWAYS tough. We moved around quite a bit when I was growing up. I learned to be and do what felt right for me, and although I was never one of the "most populars", I had no shortage of friends who respected me. More important, I respected myself.
High School. It should be outlawed. I like what the Spartans did better. Cast their children out into the wild at the cusp of adulthood to prove that they were in fact worthy of participating in creating the next generation. Those girls who hang together in groups for safety and feel the need to give you s**t in order to feel better would never survive in such a system. I bet you and your friend would. Those girls who are making your life a misery are in fact painfully miserable themselves. They have given into and been have been duped by the cycle of garbage messages that will rule their lives from here on out. They have made the choice to be weak worthless sheep all in a herd with their eyes glassed over under the influence of everything around them. Don't be a sheep!! Be a cheetah. So much prettier, don't you think? Look at her. Powerful, self-reliant. Possessed of the knowledge that she is a force with which to be reckoned. To her, sheep are food. Don't buy into the cycle of garbage messages. If your friend is a real friend, don't repay her friendship with betrayal. That's just wrong.
I have to go along with Bazai, Cog, and Wrey on this. Friendship should be valued by the respect you receive, not be the popularity vote of the self righteous. I am just as concerned for your friend as I am you. It seems to me that what was lost was the respect for the gracious treatment she should you. Good luck to you, I do hope you remember to stay true to yourself.
It's not just you. Banzai, Cogito, and Wrey are totally right here --put yourself in this "slut's" shoes. How would you feel if you dont have that many friends, have a terrible reputation, and now you've got a friend, but she wants to leave you to save her own skin. So now you've made up (what could be) lies to keep her as a friend. I would feel terribly alone and depressed. If I were you, continue being this girl's friend. She's nice to you, isnt she? She cares about you? You enjoy being friends with her? Who cares what other people say about you --do you want to be friends with people who would turn on you if you hang out with "sluts" or do you want to be friends with people who accept and care for you just the way you are and regardless of your reputation? If you turn on her, you're succumbing to pressure (which is not an excuse to act for your own self-preseveration without helping out your friend) and acting just like the bitches who are giving you hell right now. I was never in this particular situation, but I got a lot of mean names thrown at me, too. I'll tell you what doesnt work: Appeasing them, pleasing them, and trying to be like them. I'll tell you what does: Developing a thicker skin, and a mind of your own. I would choose to befriend this school slut and go down in the yearbook as the 'other school slut' rather than join in the name-calling and backstabbing. At least I would know who I was --a loyal friend, an honest girl, a respectable person. Besides, the benefits are great. You emerge from these experiences as a stronger person, a better person, and someone who does what she thinks is right. If you really cant stand the jeers, do some damage control. Make sure you dress conservatively; make sure you keep your sailor's mouth in check; act like a "proper" lady --and you dont need to date the football captain to do this. First impressions are not everything, and as long as you dont give them anything to feed off of, your real personality will shine through. If you act like it doesnt bother you and dont give them any ammunition, they'll get bored with you and move on to another victim. People who bring you down like that make me sick. Why would you ever want to be one of them? This is a question of your morals. Are you going to be a good friend, get kicked by 'the in crowd' a couple of times but ultimately emerge as a better person? Or are you going to paint yourself as one of the in-crowders, the same people who threw rocks at you before?
I'm not sure I understand why you're calling her a bad influence. Yeah, being her friend isn't winning you other friends, but that isn't what matters. She may have a bad reputation, but because of what people are saying about you, you should know that a person's reputation isn't necessarily true, especially in high school. You say you'll pay either way, but what about her? Don't you care about her? By dumping her because of what other people say about her, it only confirms that they are right and that she isn't a good person. But you know that she is a good person. You say that you can still "salvage" your rep. In the process, you could destroy hers, and any chance she has of having friends at high school. Not having positive relationship in high school can hurt people in the long run more than you realize. The more you respond to bullies, the more they bully. Like Wrey said, it's the cycle of garbage. If you like her, be her friend. F*** what anyone else says. What a few people say about the two of you won't hurt after high school, especially if it's not true. You dumping her to save your own skin will hurt her for many years to come. So what other people have said about her in the past matters more than what she is now? Even if the reason for her rep is true, which I seriously doubt, why does that matter now? If she was doing bad things and has learned, a good friend will stick by her and keep her from going back to older, harmful ways. Reputation is not as concrete as you think. Eventually, other people will see that because you stuck with her, she is a good person to have around. Assuming that those reasons for her rep are true, whatever she has done, it can't be worse than some of the kids I've known in college. I've known kids who were going down a very dangerous path when they were younger. Now, you would have no idea that any of that stuff had happened to them, or that they had done those things. I've seen horribly abusive husbands become wonderful, loving fathers. Why? Because friends and family stood by them and gave them the support they needed. Do you want to be the girl who saved a friend from that dangerous path, or do you want to be the girl who didn't care what happened to her in order to save your own ass for something that won't matter outside of high school? Again, this is just assuming that those things people say about her are true, and are really all that bad. Think about it. You've said that other people call her a slut, but have not once described and of her actual behaviour. People call you a slut, but you know you haven't done anything wrong. Be true to yourself. If she were a bad person to be around, would you be so conflicted about this? Would you care about how she feels? If you want to talk about this, please feel free to send me a message.
When I was in school, for a while people put nasty rumours out about me like that too. I was called a slut, accused of having had sex with someobody, and of having breast implants to get it. I was 13. Pathetic, right? Right. It was their immature reaction to jealousy. I'd developed alot earlier than most girls, and in all honesty, I hated it. I always felt too old for my age. I always had older guys looking at me funny and making me feel extremely self concious. My clothes were always too tight and I was all over the place. But the point is, I shrugged it off. I told them that they were pathetic for making up rumours and to come back when they grow a pair. They didn't like that - if they're going to make things up about me, then i'll play on their faults. They soon stopped when they realised that I wasn't one to be pushed around, and that if they thought that people saw them through rose-tinted glasses then they were very, very sadly mistaken. Maybe they're jealous of the pair of you, so their reaction is to call you both 'sluts'. Even if she really is like that, you arent - and when it comes down to it, only you can decide who you truly are. Let nobody else decide it for you. If she's nice to you, then stay friends with her - but if her actions bother you then i'd suggest talking to her about it and telling her that it makes you feel uncomfortable. But do it because you care, not because some nasty little kids called you names for it. Just hold you head high. Deep down, they know exactly why they're picking on you -it's all insecurity on their part. People like that never change, so neither should you. Have a good school year!
This is perfect. Whether they are motivated by jealousy or not, which they might be, your response is what matters. When people bully you, whether they continue or not depends on your reactions. Ashleigh didn't give them the response they wanted, showed them that their behaviour didn't mean anything to her, so they had no reason to continue. When a girl bullied me in grade ten, and she said to me, "Yeah, I'm talking about you," I said, "So?" When she tried to make fun of me for wearing the same shirt every day, which I didn't, without actually saying my name, I pointed out that the person (pretending I didn't realize she meant me) could just have more than one of the same shirt, which was the truth. I had five very similar shirts. She ended up sounding stupid and I sounded like the confident one, so she stopped. Those are relatively mild examples in my case, but the same principle applies as long as there is no physical violence involved. The decision you're leaning towards does the exact opposite.
Phatie, You're going to have to make a choice. Either you are going to try to conform to the group mentality or you're going to stand on your own two feet and think for yourself. What you are experiencing now will continue into adulthood. Sheeple (sheep people) tend to continue their immature, rumor spreading ways well into adulthood. I worked in a moderately small office (about 25 people total) at a ski resort here in VT. I worked with 5 other people at a front desk for condos, and there were about 20 people on three shifts who did reservations upstairs from me. I had worked upstairs before transferring downstairs as an assistant mgr. I worked nights until 11pm. We had security guards who monitored all the condo and closed ski lodges. One of these guys wouldn't leave me alone. Finally one night he corners me outside while I was smoking a cigarette. He tries to force himself on me, kissing and groping. I in turn kicked him in the junk and punched him in the face (gave him a black eye too!) He didn't come back around, but did spread a rumor that I had joined him and like six other guards in one of the hot tubs at the condos. Everyone thought this was true, even though I was with the now father of my children, one of which I was pregnant with at the time. Someone actually called my hubby to tell him they thought he baby wasn't his. Caused all sorts of problems in our relationship. I was 18, and most of the people involved in this crap were over 21 and up through 40's. I wasn't the only one that got flack there either. A few other girls did too. High school never ends. So go ahead and mentally prepare yourself for the smorgasbord of never ending jerks throughout life, starting with your freshman year of high school. Tell the rumor spreaders to find some solid proof of what they say, they can't, cause it ain't true! Be your own person. If you like the girl who's rep is that of a slut, at 13 or 14 this seems like kids trying to hard to be like the bad adult examples they have. Shunning the group might seem hard, making yourself an outcast, but it is much better to find one single loyal friend, then be friends with 20 unreliable, back-stabing, fake personalitied people. Do fall into the trap of thinking that a "rep" in high school will follow you, because you'll be a freshman again when you get to college. It starts all over there. Then you're the low man on the totem pole at a job and again, 'reps' are formed. It's all an illusion, because we are all always alone. You can be surrounded by people and totally alone. What grounds us are the close relationships and bonds that we form, its the glue that holds us in society. Be comfortable in your own skin. Learn to like then love yourself. Then it doesn't matter what other people do, think, or say. You know your inner truth, and no one can take that from you. If you like this girl as a friend, BE her friend. A friend doesn't abandon her friend when other's make fun of her. She stands up and tells those people to go "F-themselves." She stays with her friend because there's glue.
I see a lot of your points here, but truthfully, she is this kind of person. She tells me all about the several guys she has slept with over the week. She does stare at me weird, which makes me uncomfortable. So she is all the things people make her out to be. And I dont know if I should be around her. I mean I'm a preachers daughter. (unfortunately) and I have a rep to keep up with. My former best friend is one of the most popular girls in school, (and the prettiest) who is also known for being a slut. I do have other friends, that are 'normal' but this girl seems to follow me everywhere.
If she makes you uncomfortable, or you disagree with what she does and being friends with her is coming back around to bite you, I suggest dropping the friendship. I had a "friend" who followed me around constantly until I told her to go away. She was whiny, clingy, everything I hated.
I have thought about this, but I dont know anyone else in the school, so its a lose lose situation. all my other friends are in different grades...
With the staring at you weird, making you uncomfortable issue, have you tried talking to her about it? Maybe she just doesn't realize that she's making you uncomfortable. As far as being a preacher's daughter and having a rep to maintain, I always thought that a big teaching of religion was to love others and treat others the way you wanted to be treated. I don't think that her being promiscuous means she deserves to be treated like a leper. If she has been a good friend to you, then you wanting to drop her (or wanting to keep her as a friend purely because you don't have any friends) seems really selfish and mean. On the other hand, if she's not a good friend (note: not if she's a slutty friend or a friend with a bad reputation-if she is not a good friend), then regardless of reputation, you should probably not be friends with her. Keeping bad friends around is never a good idea, in my opinion. Anyway...sorry if this is harsh. I have very strong opinions on this subject...
You should have brought this stuff up from the beginning. People can't advise you on a situation if they don't know the whole story. Everyone was responding under the assumption that everyone saying those things was just being a bully that what they are saying about her probably wasn't true. Remember, you said, "They say she's a slut," but did not tell us anything about her other than that she is nice to you. This "rep" stuff you are talking about is comeplete BS, the last thing you should worry about. If she makes you uncomfortable, that's an okay reason not to be around her. A friend is someone who makes you feel good to be around. And like I said before, if she is interested in improving herself, you don't have to be her best friend, but don't dump her all together. You said that she wants to be a good Christian and stop that negative behaviour. People in that position need all the support they can get. If she is sincere about those intentions, you could bring her to your father's church, get her involved in the youth group there. She'll make new friends there, then maybe stop following you around when you don't want her to. It's impossible to say without meeting the two of you in person, it could be that she is so clingy to you because she has no one else. The kind of behaviour you're describing in her, the clinginess and promiscuity, is a classic sign of loneliness and low self-esteem.
PHATIE -- the most important lesson in life is to "be your own person". That means you have internalized a set of values comprising your character and defining you as a unique adult. This process of "internalization of values" produces most of the angst in a teenager's life. Those years are the time when you test, challenge or even reject external values supplied to you as a child by your parents, extended family, church and teachers. It is a necessary conflict so you can learn which of those values will become YOUR belief system. And, when you have settled on a set of beliefs, then the opinions of others will have little or no effect on you. I would suggest you spend some time alone contemplating your values. Also, once you have a strong set of beliefs, then your relationship with this girl will be allowed (or cut off) without guilt because "right" and "wrong" will become clear within the framework of your adult character. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the character, Polonius, said it best; "To thine own self be true." The only problem with this otherwise excellent advice is you have to "know" yourself before you can be true to your beliefs.
Have you told her how you feel about her actions? She looks to you as a friend. Perhaps if you speak to her as a friend, she may listen. She may think she is making herself popular with the boys, but part of her must know how conteptuous they are of her while at the same time they take advantage of an easy lay. You say she is a bad influence. What about you? Will you be just one more person who turns on her and kicks her because it's easier? Or will you be a better person who gives her an honest helping hand? While you are at it, if your father or mother is a preacher, ask them the same question. Would they cast the first stone?
Alright, you should have told us this from the start. I was under the impression that you liked her, but you didnt like the rep you were getting by being associated with her. Is this or is this not the case? You dont 'need' to be her friend if you dont like who you are around her, or if you feel she is truly a bad influence on you. Your original question was how to get away with her without hurting her feelings. While you should not feel as if you 'need' to be her friend if you dont like who you are around her, or if you feel she is truly a bad influence on you, try to help her instead. You did say she wants to redirect her life and possibly convert to Christianity, right? If you ask me, it'd be pretty un-Christian if you denied her that right. It is not your place to judge if there is merit in her statement. Helping her does not mean you have to be close friends with her. Helping could be as slight as giving her the names of some preachers or counselors who attend your perish, and then distancing yourself from her as gently as possible. This could be by not walking with her to class, saying you have other plans this weekend, and letting the conversations be pretty one-sided (her side). Assuming she is not the densest creature that has walked the face of this earth, she will get the hint and move on --eventually. It seems to many of us that you are distancing yourself from this girl because the friendship is damaging your own reputation. For my views on this, see my previous post again. Listen to other users here too, and especially pay attention to NaCl's latest comment. He's a smart guy. Make sure that if you do make the decision to abandon this girl who has clearly expressed her desire to change and be more like you, it's because you truly feel she's negatively impacting you, not because of peer pressure from the 'in-crowd' or from your father. You dont need to be like her; if she wants to change, be her role model. Sorry if I'm coming off as a little harsh here, but you can see that a number of us have strong views on this subject because it's not uncommon and is something we have all experienced in one form or another. Good luck.
