My second year of uni is going to start next week, and I have been stressing about it all holidays. I have had four months (I know it's a long holiday, but I did a few internships) to look back on my first year at university, and it frightened me how badly someone treated me.
So, last year was my first year abroad, in a new environment and in a country I knew no one. But I was optimistic: I've been stuck in the same routine for 16 years, with the same faces everyday, the same schedule and the same building. So I was finally able to start off fresh. Things went well at first. There are about 100 people in my year, and we are split up into 5 groups. I am group n°5 with 15 other people. Out of those 15 people, there are 5 girls (including me), the rest are really shy guys. You don't get to talk with the other groups, as we don't have the same schedule as them. So you are stuck with your group.
One girl was not very social. I made sure to be kind to her, to always smile, make small talk etc. She appreciated it. But we don't hang out too much. The rest of the girls are my "crew". Mila is very talkative when she is in a comfortable situation, very bubbly and just plain out adorable. Elisabeth is outgoing and shy at the same time, always has a good story to tell you, and can be considered as a true friend. Then theres Claudia, a leader by nature, too outgoing and talkative, and the conversation always seems to be about her. You can be talking about a tree, and it will somehow be about her at the end. And as you can guess, it was with Claudia that I had issues. Well actually, she had issues with me.
Claudia has a personality that I hate: very self-centered, always craving attention and very selfish. But she's also incredibly fun to hang out with. She has too much confidence and can make you feel dumb about something a subject you know off by heart. She will also constantly say "I prefer hanging out with guys" and "I hate girl drama. If you guys ever make any drama, we are not friends anymore" Elisabeth and Mila are constantly trying to impress her, act like her, dress like her. But they seriously shouldn't: her hair is a mess, she wears bad makeup, and her clothes are always wrinkled, ugly and dirty (I was brought up with the motto "dress to impress").
Anyways, we all got along somewhat. Elisabeth was having some issues with Mila; they just weren't clicking and she thought Mila was a bit phoney (which is true). Claudia joined in the rant, and they both started behind Mila's back about her. I was just thinking "are we in high school?". A little side note, Mila and I hung out all the time as we live next to each other. Both Elisabeth and Claudia gossiped in my presence, while knowing I was good friends with Mila. Claudia got angrier and angrier for no reason and decided she had a problem with Mila. She never talked about with Mila, and to this day she still has no idea.
Then came the winter holidays and everything seemed to calm down. SEEMED being the key word here. Mila was getting on my nerves: every time I told her something, she would go repeat to the other girls. She was also making up a lot of stories and constantly trying to be someone she was not. I talked about it to Elisabeth, who had the same opinion as me, and Claudia joined in the conversation saying "girls, I'm really good friends with Mila, so if you talk about her again, I'm going to get mad". Ok... What? Didn't you use to do that not a month ago? Whatever.
I decided to keep my opinion for myself, as apparently I didn't know the girls well enough to see how they would react. But one day, I was pissed. Really pissed. And I am rarely angry. So I talked about Mila to let off some steam. Well from that day on, Claudia would talk down to me, call me names and disrespect me in public. At first, I didn't understand what was going on: she gave me short and rough answers to my questions, or just call me plain out "dumby". I had to talk to Elisabeth to understand what was going on. Apparently, I had pissed off her majesty. And her hignesse decided to punish me. I thought that if I ever got her angry I would get the same treatment as Mila: gossip behind my back. But I have never been so wrong.
She called me dumb, she pushed me out of her way, she isolated me, she looked down at me. The first week I was crushed: how could this happen to me? I'm a sweet girl, that's a bit too shy and quiet, and have never been in the middle of any girl drama (I am not even exaggerating that one, ask any of my friends. I'm like freaking Switzerland). Elisabeth was nice to me: when we partnered up she would pick me, she would sit next to me (even though I knew she wanted to sit next to Claudia) and always checked up on me. She even agreed that Claudia's treatment was a bit harsh. But she refused to talk about it or to get involved. Mila was in la-la land. She knew nothing of what was going on (and still has no clue).
Then I though back to my upbringing and my education, and I thought "fuck that bitch, even though I'm crushed on the inside, I'm going to smile like there is no tomorrow and go hang out a bit more with the guys". And that's what I did. I even got pretty close to her crush (for my defence, it was involuntary, and I only realised afterwards). We tried to make up, but for me, that was the end of the friendship. Someone who treats me that badly doesn't deserve to have me as a friend, and I can never see myself trusting her again.
This brings me back to my holidays: I had a lot of time to reflect on what happened, and I am pretty proud of how I reacted to the situation ("fuck that bitch"). But I was terrified about going back to class because of her. Thankfully, the school informed me that the groups are going to be changed. And I'm going back to school with this chain of thought:
- I deserve better then what I got
- I am going to make sure to find good friends and to watch out what I say around them at first
- I will never forget who I am and where I am from, and never let someone crush me down for that (Claudia was constantly on my case because I was too shy or too quiet. It's not by repeating it constantly that it's going to change anything)
- No one will ever call me dummy again, not without consequences at least.
So there you go, that was my encounter with a bitch. I know it may not have been as an emotional or touching story as you might have read elsewhere, but trust me, it scarred me for life.
XXX
Note: the names have been changed to respect their privacy (and avoid them recognising themselves if they find this blog :D )
