How did you feel when you first realized you were part of a clique?

So, in the interest of spurring this devolution, are you saying a defining characteristic of cliques is their unwillingness to interact with others?

I think the line between being unwilling to associate with certain people versus not preferring to associate with them can be a pretty thin one.

the technical term for this person is a NERDOCK.

The early days/weeks/months of being in a clique are great, esp. if you've come into it from a long spell of social-life frustration for whatever reason. it can give way to stagnation after a while though. you start wondering if you've become too insular and exclusive, and a part of you may even wonder if there are 'better people' you should be seeking out/spending more time with.

i'm proud too of being part of a couple of cliques although sometimes i notice we're perhaps being too cliquie and can understand outside peoples hostile reactions towards our groups. I tend to play devils advocate a lot in those situations.

untill all the freshman started talking trash about me.

then I got really paranoid and defensive.

I think the line between being unwilling to associate with certain people versus not preferring to associate with them can be a pretty thin one.

I think this line can change hourly. One of the great things about having a group of friends to hang out with is that you have an extended area of comfort. Even in times of disagreement over things, you know that those folks are always going to be willing to be with you. That can be an amazing thing, especially when you are in need of them.

A problem arises when people move from cliques into clans fighting for primacy. High school sees this in a huge way, and a lot of people who reached their social peak in high school really never move on from there. A lot of the rest of us learned in high school that no one group's parties are ALWAYS the best, and its usually better for your social life to be able to hop from clique to clique.

All of this is anecdotal, of course. Man is not a solitary person (even Neil Diamond). We are a social being, and accomplish the most in groups of like minded individuals. Hence, I think there is an instinct to move towards cliques.

i hope you're not talking in terms of age here greg :~)

I started law school about two and a half years ago, and I got to see the formation of adult cliques in a setting not unlike middle school - all the same classes at the same time with all the same people all the time, lockers, bad in-house cafeteria food, and, instead of hormones, you had grade competition.

There was sniping at each other during exams, entire treatises of mockery written about classmates, and just generally poor behavior from 21 - 28 year olds.

And, now, two and a half years later, its SO much less that way. I actually had a conversation with a guy who was my "rival" first year, and we were like "Yeah, that was stupid. We totally should have just been studying and drinking buddies."

It was because of the same space which we both occupied - similar personalities, etc. - that we felt the need to consistantly play King of the Hill with each other and cut each other's knees out whenever we had the chance.

No; in fact, I think that this rider on the definition of the word "clique" is a defensive mechanism used by some to demonize groups of people they admire who don't want anything to do with them. (I have no idea if the dictionary agrees with me or not.)

(HA, I just looked and m-w.com includes the word "exclusive" in its definition so OH NOES I AM A HIPPY.)

my school's administration hates the clique phenomenon (even though in college they're definitely not exclusive), so they're changing the housing system to make sure there is a more even "demographic mix" around campus by basically randomly assigning small groups to areas of campus. this makes me mad, as it means instead of having a good room due to being a senior next year, i may have an awful room at the farthest end of campus, away from most of my friends. but hey, at least i won't be...hanging out with my friends in a CLIQUE!

Oh God. I'm so glad I went through school before they instituted that at my alma mater; apparently some kids complained that all of the black kids were segregating themselves out and all of the gay kids were segregating themselves out and all of the jock were etc etc etc, so they started just "randomly" assigning people to upperclass dorms, completely disregarding the fact that athletes liked living in the dorm closest to the athletic complex and the artistic kids liked living in the dorm closest to the performance venues/art galleries etc etc etc. School administrations can be so fucking stupid.

then, having gone to stay with my slightly older cousin for a couple of weeks and hung about with his big group of mates, i came back home with one mission in mind: be part of a defined group. we'd have FUN. we'd go out and sit on walls listening to music, and maybe eat chips and smoke tabs. rock and fucking roll. we'd be like the crips or the bloods. or maybe just richie cunningham and his pals. either way, fuck it, i wanted to be a part of something.

like a tool, i started hanging around with some guys who i'd known for years, just as they all got into ... role-playing. goodbye social-butterfly existence; hello being instantly redefined as a geek.

it took me two years to undo the damage.

since then i've always tried to avoid being part of any one defined group. i know certain fellow posters who know me - stet, for instance, and alext - will mock and laugh and point to ceratin friends with whom i've been drinking and muttering darkly about life for the past 12 years, but ... i still wouldn't say i'm part of a clique. i have different groups of friends, some of which overlap. i love them all dearly and i wouldn't have it any other way.

(I had another theory but realized that posting it would be mega-alienating so um never mind.)

I am so spending my entire night on ILM...

Well, yes. Most people function better as part of a social group than they do by themselves; even most of the self-described "loners" who post here have built up a gigantic online social network. It seems somewhat sociopathic to operate otherwise. (That, btw, was the off-putting theory I didn't mention earlier; CAMERAS READY PREPARE TO BRISTLE.)

(xpost: I don't think it's possible to be a cliqueless social butterfly, because who are you interacting with if there are no cliques involved?)

and dan, no, i think you're absolutely right. personally, i'd never define myself as a loner: just as someone who doesn't like other people to define them as a member of a particular group. there you go: for me, a lot of it is about external perception.

I think the lack of a desire/need/instinct to be exclusive is prolly where the line was drawn for me. I certainly would never describe myself as a loner - quite the opposite, really - and, with few exceptions, any consciously exclusive behaviors I have made simply because of who someone was associated with or wasn't, I have very quickly regretted. What a shitty way to shut yourself off from new friends/experiences outside of your regular routine.

See, this is one of my faroritist things ever. I love being circumspect and getting people to expose their innermost opinions. Almost all clever people know how to mask those parts of themselves that cause offense. When they feel that they are safe, they'll tell you the things that actually make them interesting, whether that's frightening interesting, horrible interesting, twee interesting, or whatever.

I do absolutely understand the desire to be exclusive of people who cross a certain threshold of irritation but (outside of the aforementioned example where I ignored both of the parties whining about the situation) I've never felt like I've been part of a group of friends who attempted to mandate who I spent time with or what activities I could find interesting. In fact, people who've done that to me have rather quickly ended up on the "too irritating to countenance" pile until they've stopped.

Those folk who seek to limit us should be limited instead - and by limited I mean shut out of your life entirely. Seriously - fuck those guys.

One clique, two clique, red clique, blue clique, my clique and your clique should be one clique...

The vast majority of human beings flit from clique to clique, particularly once they figure out their interests.

honestly we were the undiagnosed ADHD/OCD/bipolar/aspergers kids and we all knew it, fuck the rest of campus.

The oddest thing about adulthood is the way people somehow are able to blend together despite all the things that made them so socially disparate in school. Which brings another interesting point - are cliques formed just out of lack of a specific occupation?

I realized a couple weeks ago at a party on Capitol Hill that at social gatherings my college friends and I still always end up in a little circle talking amongst ourselves.. So yeah, I guess that could be a bit clique-y.

*cough* LIVE JOURNAL *cough*

Damn, I would never go back to high school if you PAID me.

in high school, i was a kind of all-purpose nerd; computer geeks, music people, whatever, i got along with them all. on the other hand, i knew a couple of music students who literally only ever talked to other music students. they were closer to each other than i was to my scattered friends, and i had to recognize that when the chips were down, i wasn't really part of their group -- because i didn't need them as badly as they needed each other. they were in a clique, but when the chips were down, i wasn't really in any clique.

also i think dan your singing group thing is different because you can actually be a confirmed member of a singing group. most cliques are nominally informal, even though if they're really exclusive, you can pretty much tell who's in and who's out.

"What voice part are you? Oh, you're a baritone." *blanking commences*

er yeah the hk student thing - when we all got there everyone was all mixed up together all the time, then after a month or so we (we = rabble of 15 or so hyper-idealistic overseas kidz) noticed that at mealtimes you'd get tables of hk students and tables of overseas students, so we decided to, y'know, Do Something About It. so at every mealtime we'd take our tray and each of us would go sit at a table of hk students and start chatting - we all talked to each other in class! and other activities! and it worked fine then! why not relaxed socialtimes too? - and it SO didn't work. then we knew why our second years just rolled their eyes when we tried to ask them about it. apparently the exact same thing happens every year. perhaps they were one giant clique.

I think it's still really interesting that the whole thing seems to dissolve when we grow up and get jobs. Though to be honest there were definite cliques in the lower ranks of the military (and no the cliques weren't always straight across branch of service lines, especially not after we all completed training and started our real jobs) which seemed to have a lot in common with schoolyard politics.

i was never really the clique type. i mean i had my tight group but we weren't REALLY a clique, we were just really good friends. i still hung out with lots of other people.

I've never been involved with this clique thing either. Practically everyone I've known who's been involved in a clique has been a tosser who desperately wants some way of thinking that they're "better" than other people. Cliques are for diques...

But if a clique is just a group of friends, then that seems a bit unfair...

Isn't anyone who hangs around regularly with a group of more than two a member of a clique?

Request for Discussion: New Board entitled "I Love LBZC"

yeah but there seems to be some coolness issue too, like "you can't hang out with them"

Don't think it's necessarily an elitist thing, if the people in a particular group all know each other really well and have a rapport going, then an outsider won't automatically fit in no matter how inclusive they are. Sometimes it's just an issue of familiarity.

That's true of any group, but I think that cliques make an active attempt to discourage newcomers from fitting in or even joining.

I kinda distrust groups in general, well people in general, so I can never believe that a whole group of people ALL like each other and so assume people are kinda pretending and so assume the whole thing is bullshit. I always have these one to one friendships, which makes parties a drag. I would like to just be friends with a few guys where we sit around drinking beer and talk about fuck all, and don't really talk that much anyway, and sometimes we watch a movie on someones playstation or something. But I don't. And in practice, I probably wouldn't want to.

Does one pronounce it "cleek" or "click"?

I have no idea if I ever belonged to one. I have no idea about anything related to myself or my life.

"It is pointless to deny that cliques don't exist"

'cleeks' or 'clicks'?

clicks.

*whew*

I'm pronouncing it right.

Cliques mad exist. Throughout my life, I have consciously or not consciously stayed on the sidelines of everything interpersonal. "The only way to win is by not playing."

i haven't read this thread so excuse me if this has already been covered but isn't a clique pretty much just a group of friends who have similar interests? wouldn't that make anyone with more than 1 friend part of a clique?

I think it's still really interesting that the whole thing seems to dissolve when we grow up and get jobs.

No one knows how hard I pray this is true.

Kevin, that's pretty much exactly what I said in the introductory post. I don't think exclusiviness is an integral part of the definition of a clique; oftentimes it happens because of defense mechanisms that led to the formation of the group in the first place but I think it becomes less of a factor with increased maturity/confidence/acceptance of self.

I am part of my office's editor clique, and sometimes we have knife fights with the web layout clique.

does lol britpop zing culture sprout from a psychological phenomenon similar to the one that motivates today's youth to frequently "put on" for one's city?

lbzc appears to be an outgrowth of english class warfare.

click = US, cleek = elsewhere

http://news.filefront.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/heathers_5.jpg
What what?
No cliques for me, I have an ever rotating and changing group of friends with a couple of core 'BFF's' but we don't even live near each other most of my friends now are either politically founded or peeps that I met in some club/rave. Either way, I don't think I'd work in a clique (and I never have), homie don't play that.
I notice that a lot of people who are in cliques use them as a sort of buffer for their own personal issues, they can get away with a lot of bullshit that they wouldn't have the stones to do on their own. I dislike the loss of individualism, sure there are friendships that are complimentary or come about because the two people are really alike but that doesn't mean you have to start wearing members only jackets and knifing peeps that stray onto your turf. Or something.

I know right, good point.

i'm in about 10 different cliques. that's because i'm awesome and everyone are thusly very willing to accept me into their exclusive little cliques despite not being very cliquey.

I have Been in :

a clique based around me
a clique where I had to 'keep up' to keep in
a clique where I was always informed without having to chase
a 'second string' clique member

What was best? Umm, can't decide.

some of the 'closedness' or exclusivity of a clique is probably based on fear that any new introduction will change the comfortable dynamics of the clique.

When good cliques go bad: when the people who were the interesting ones move on, and all that's left are the prescriptive ones.

see ilx for details

oh is that where they've gone?

.. he asked knowingly, ho ho.

they've moved to borad 88

88? I out of loop/clique. Only got to 77.

it's invite only innit

thx for posting that picture verona