by Meredith Mulhern

It’s Activity 1, and twenty-five or so girls are crowded into Mrs. Prentiss’s room. The group of girls is clustered in a corner, laughing, talking and eating parts of their lunches. Every girl participates in the fun, except one.

She’s sitting just outside all the commotion, and her earbuds are wedged tightly into her ears. Her eyes nervously flit back and forth from her netbook screen to the group. She sighs and turns her music up louder to tune out the laughter, and maybe even her negative thoughts.

Although we may not all realize, exclusion occurs all the time here at STA. Exclusion can range from purposefully not inviting someone to hang out with you and your friends, or it can be as simple as shutting a classmate out of a conversation. It may not seem like a big deal at the time, but to the girl who’s being excluded, it can ruin her day.

There are two sides to exclusion: the perpetrator and the victim. Both include very different mindsets and feelings. For example, being a perpetrator seems like no big deal. Say that the perpetrator purposefully doesn’t invite one of their friends to sit with them. The perpetrator thinks, “I’ll just avoid her during lunch, it’ll be fine!” But hey, guess what? They’ll care. They always do. I’m pretty sure there’s a 99.999% chance that they’ll care. It’s also awkward when the victim brings it up. So, do you have a good excuse on why you didn’t invite them? No? I’m not surprised.

Now for the victim’s side. They’re the ones home on Friday nights watching Netflix … Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. That sounds like a pretty good night, right? But think of it this way: is that night of Netflix still fun when you know your friends are out having fun and they purposefully didn’t invite you? No, it’s not. Instead you may be feeling hot tears stream down your face because this isn’t the first time that this has happened, or you may just try to block it out, but the angry and negative thoughts keep squeezing their way back into your head.

Being excluded sucks, but we’ve all had it happen. In fact, everyone has probably experienced both sides, so I think you can all relate to what I’m telling you. When you’re being excluded, don’t you just wish that someone would be nice enough to reach out?

And that is my challenge to you, my fellow Stars. Reach out, be nice! Make an effort to be kind, in fact GO OUT OF YOUR WAY. It doesn’t matter if you’re friends with them or not. Make new friends, include everyone. Imagine this: You see a friend of yours walking alone to a free that you know will be spent alone. You’re standing in the hallway talking about your plans for that night with your other friend. The girl walking to the free gives you a sad smile, but you ignore it and exclude her anyway. Would you like that if that happened to you? No. Invite the girl walking alone to come along with you. Being nice doesn’t have any consequences unless your friends are against of inviting new people along. If they are, then you need to do some re-evaluating, honey.

If we all made an effort to be nice to each other, then we could make STA so much closer. Who knows, we could change someone’s life. This is possible. I know none of you want to be the reason that someone kills themselves. None. Of. You. A simple “Hi!” in the hallways can brighten someone’s day so much.

None of us have a reason to be mean. We don’t know where all of our classmates come from or what their situation in life is. We can’t judge just because they look different or they’re into different things. They could be going through a lot, and exclusion could make it worse. So let’s all be nice. Just try it out. I’m pretty sure you’ll feel great.

We’ve all been hurt by some form of exclusion. I know I have. Whether it’s a girl telling you you can’t play with her at recess in kindergarten because she doesn’t like your shoes, or it’s in high school and your friend suddenly cuts you out of the picture. I know, it sucks. That’s why we should all make an effort to accomplish our goal to be nice. STA is a sisterhood, anyway, so shouldn’t we start treating each other like it?