All the girls in my friendship group have turned on me and I don’t know why. What can I do?

Most people will go through a freeze-out at least once – at some point they get left out of a group.

Of course sometimes it happens accidentally: for instance, people forget to save you a seat. But sometimes you can be hit with the ugliest of mean tactics, the Intentional Freeze-out. You know the kind of thing: people turn their backs or walk away when you arrive, ignore what you say, give you dirty or cold stares, make sure you catch them whispering about you.

The central point of the Intentional Freeze-out can be that nobody will tell you why they’re freezing you out. And if you ask, ‘What did I do?’ the answer is, ‘You KNOW what you did.’

It can go on for a lunchtime, a day, a week, or in rare cases even longer. Of course all the time the group is careful not to let adults see what they’re doing. What they’re doing is bullying you.

There can be any number of reasons for the Intentional Freeze-out:

• the ‘leader’ of a group is testing her muscles by ordering the action (possibly you have angered Her Majesty by being more interesting than her, or by standing up to her)
• maybe there’s a rumour going around about you
• you said something and now everybody’s mad
• you didn’t say anything, but somebody’s boyfriend said they liked you
• some girl decided Thursday was International Intentional Freeze-out Day.

Don’t ask, ‘What have I done wrong?’ It could be anything. Or nothing. Ask yourself, ‘How can I find some nicer friends?’

There is plenty of advice on maintaining friendships, leaving friendships and what makes a great friend in the book, Girls Stuff 13+: Your Full-on Guide to the Teen Years.