Trying to understand the ways of "mean girls"

Part of being a good predator is knowing your competition. Know their strengths and weaknesses before you enter the ring. Whether you're a boxer or a lioness on the African plain, you know better than to strike before sizing up your enemy. Let's say you are neither of those two, but rather just your average female out for a night with the girls, are you out just to have fun or are you plotting to disembowel your competition?

Whether we like to admit to it or not, women have become increasingly competitive with one another from middle school to old age and the finish line to this ridiculous race is still far out of sight.

Watch a group of college-age women at any bar (guys this one should be no problem for you) and you'll see that they study each female that walks through the door; passing judgment, covering envy with snide remarks and challenging the newcomer with looks of death from across the room. If a woman is considered a non-threat, then she is all but ignored. It's those that pose serious risk to the competition that get the attention and if you study long enough, you'll notice that we women follow the age old rule of keeping our friends close and our enemies closer.

The longer the night rolls on, the closer we'll try to get to the exact object of our hatred; complimenting her outfit while waiting in line for the bathroom, commiserating over the lame boys trying to get our attention and, when we're really drunk, befriending this girl simply so we can capitalize on the attention two pretty girls get when they take shots together. I smell desperation and it stinks.

When I first met my college suite-mate who, go figure, later became a best friend, she said she thought I was a bitch the minute she saw me, before I'd even opened my mouth. She said, "I figured you were way too pretty to be nice."

I'm not trying to toot my own horn, that's a direct quote from someone who's been one of my closest friends for many years. And it made me feel good about myself in a way, I've realized over the past 10 years that men aren't the only ones in life judging based on looks. Women do the same, and they are far harsher about it.

If you are attractive, you are not only a bitch but you are likely pretty stupid as well. If you aren't attractive, the exact opposite applies; you're probably the girl we want to sit next to in calculus and you're probably just nice enough to let us cheat off of you in the hopes you'll make a new friend.

Feel like you're reading the script for the next tween drama to hit theaters? Same here, but this isn't fiction -- it's the reality of life for women from age 12 to senior citizen these days and it's really quite sad.

I don't have a lot of female friends and I really wish that wasn't the case. I need girlfriends in my life because if all you have is male friends, when they finally realize you're not planning to ever put out, the phone calls and invites fade away rather quickly and life becomes pretty lonely.

I'm not trying to be mean, but it's true. I'm speaking from experience. I do like having a lot of male friends; they don't get caught up in drama, they are usually very decisive and you feel like you're walking around with a bunch of older brothers willing to defend your honor at all cost. It's a safety net of sorts. If you aren't dating any of these guys, then you can still flirt with the cute bartender, but if that doesn't work out you also know you have a ride home.

What I miss is someone to talk to about all the things guys really hate talking about, someone that understands because we have a primal connection that men cant touch and what I don't understand is when women decided we hated each other so much.

You hear about these middle school girls ganging up on each other and either violently mistreating their victim or making her life so miserable that she does the job herself. I hated high school, every minute of it, and I hated a lot of the girls I went to high school with, but it never even crossed my mind to take out my teen angst against them in a malicious or violent manner. When I recently worked for a local business,I was the victim of such hatred and to this day I cannot understand what I did to deserve it. Vicious lies spread throughout the company about my personal life, despite the fact that I'd never done anything to deserve this kind of treatment. Some people never manage leave high school or maybe some just never get over their adolescent jealousies.

I don't know what I'm going to do to try to gain more female friends, but I know that being on the receiving end of unwarranted hurtful behavior based on things I cannot change about myself has opened my eyes to what I won't be doing. Sure, I know I won't always get along with everyone, but I've always tried to judge people on their character rather than their looks. Maybe I too need to step it up a notch and I would encourage the rest of you to do the same. Give and you shall receive... we shall see.

*As a side note to my earlier column about anal sex and with the recent death of Farrah Fawcett, I felt it necessary to mention that Fawcett died of anal cancer, which has rather recently been linked to repeated receptive anal sex, the HPV virus(which has also been linked to cervical cancer) and (as if you needed another reason to quit) smoking. I'm not a doctor and of course many of these studies can be proven inconclusive, but if you are participating in anal sex, you may want to consult with your physician about these findings and know your health risks.