The Fiery Fury of Fake Friends in Middle School
“MAYBE IF YOU WEREN’T SO FAKE AND TOXIC, YOU WOULD HAVE MORE THAN ONE FRIEND!”
I sat at my desk during a uncharacteristically silent study hall. My typically alive middle school classroom was just the sound of a few fingers pecking keyboards, shuffling papers in unorganized backpacks, and the occasional student entering the room to ask a question about an upcoming assignment. It was a refreshingly calm day after the first few frenzied weeks back to school from winter break, and I allowed myself to breathe in the momentary peace.
Many students were working at their computers, so I opened the tab in my browser that allows me a glimpse into their screens — generally used to make sure students aren’t playing games or looking into non-school related things like memes or YouTube. God forbid a student spend an ounce of their free-time during the school day relaxing!
I scanned my screen for any of the usual offenders and found, to my surprise, that almost all students were working on an assignment. I noticed, however, that three of my students’ screens all looked to be on the same thing, a shared Google Slides presentation of some sort. Without access to their cell phones, I suppose, these three best friends got crafty. A modern day instant messaging forum for the new generation.
My mouse hovered over the top girl’s screen, and I clicked to enlarge it. Instead of the kinds of messages I would have expected — who likes who, what to wear to school tomorrow, which Stanley cup they should ask their parents to buy them for their upcoming birthdays — I found a jumbled mess of all-caps rage. Poison dripping from their cracked-nail polish fingertips.
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID, DON’T EVEN PRETEND YOU DON’T. YOU’RE SO FAKE.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE EVEN TALKING ABOUT. YOU’RE THE ONE BEING FAKE RIGHT NOW BY NOT TELLING ME.
WE DON’T WANT A FAKE, LYING FRIEND. TELL THE TRUTH. WE ALREADY HEARD WHAT YOU SAID.
On and on their messages went, a jumble so disorganized that I couldn’t distinguish who was who, much less who was supposedly fake and who was not.
I glanced up from my computer to look at the three girls, each on opposite sides of the room due to their usual constant chatter during class, and was surprised to see neutral facial expressions. If anything, their body language indicated that they were struggling with a math problem, not having an outright silent battle in the middle of study hall.
Goodness gracious, I thought, sitting back in my chair. Why couldn’t these girls save their petty drama for later, or better yet, actually talk it out instead of battling online?
I rolled my eyes, frustrated with the messy fight I would no doubt have to handle. Why couldn’t these girls solve their problems in rational ways?
I sighed, closed my eyes, and flashed back to the front room of my parents’ house, the computer room of my middle school years. I sat at the family computer, my bottom growing numb and eyes reddening from sitting and staring, messaging two of my closest friends.
“Allie,” my mom called from the kitchen. “It’s time to get off of the computer and join your family for dinner. Tell your friends on Facebook that you will chat with them later.”
I yelled something unintelligible back at her and continued staring at the screen.
Fake friend, liar, mean girl, we can’t trust you anymore, one message after the other populating the screen. All fire. No remorse. No holding back. No use in defending myself.
I can’t remember what I had done, even if I knew what I had done, not that it mattered. All that mattered was that my world was shattering. I couldn’t imagine getting through a family dinner, much less getting through an entire school day without some sort of resolution.
Next, long after I was supposed to go to bed, came the text messages. One after the other, my Samsung Intensity vibrating incessantly. I couldn’t part from the constant arguing, name calling, fear of being without a friend at lunch the next day. Upon hearing my parents’ footsteps creak up the stairs past midnight, I hid my phone under my pillow and prayed they wouldn’t check in on me and ask what I was doing.
I shuddered, back to the present, and glanced back at the screen. Promising myself I would intervene if things got worse (use of cursing, threats, anything beyond pettiness), I watched on, a growing ache in my chest for what unforgiving torture it is to be a middle schooler.
What could I have done? I suppose I could have “accidentally” turned off the internet for the class. I could have called the three girls up to my desk to solve it once and for all. I could have sent them individual messages to stop and work on something. But still I sat, frozen at my desk, counting down the minutes until this study hall would end, hoping for the best.
With a minute left until the bell, I called for all of the students to find a place to stop in their work and make sure they had all of their belongings before leaving the room. I watched the three girls and saw it immediately, the girl who had been “fake” and thus targeted that class period. She stayed behind as her two supposed best friends paired up and left without her.
I called her over to my desk.
“Yes?” she said, shifting the weight of her books onto her hip.
“Are you,” I began to ask, unsure of how to phrase it. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah!” she said, and smiled her usual cheery smile at me.
I blinked, thrown off by her reaction. “Okay,” I said at last. “Just checking. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Bye!” she called as she skipped out of the room. “Have a nice day!”
The next day, I expected to find that little friend group in shambles. Dark circles under their eyes, evidence of late night text-fighting, invisible walls between them, weapons drawn.
Instead, the three girls came into class together arm in arm, giggling as they set down their materials to run back into the hallway for a moment of socialization before the bell rang.
As I pondered their situation, how quickly they were able to come back as if they had not been ready to end it all twenty four hours prior, I flashed back once again to my middle school self.
The heat of the fire that coursed through our messages extinguished by an apology, a silly joke, an understanding that we could get angry with each other, but that we were better together. Our emotions rose from highs to lows like a hormonal ocean tide, but our friendship withstood the waves.
Middle school drama, especially middle school girl drama, seems to stay the same throughout generations. Three way phone calls, IMs, and apparently collaborative Google Slides all serve as a means for arguments that no one would dare have face to face.
While I may not be able to understand it anymore now that I am adult, I can appreciate its messed up beauty in my students — my weird, drama-filled middle schoolers. They offer me an insight into myself that I wouldn’t be able to tap into otherwise.
