Has my fear of groups of women finally met its match?

On social anxiety, avoiding other mums, and learning to turn down the volume.

People won’t like me.

Or at least, that’s what I always told myself.

When I was at school I had a boyfriend in the year above. He was popular, well liked. And that meant that I wasn’t.

If you’ve ever been a girl at school you’ll probably relate to what I’m about to say. And if you don’t – well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but maybe you were the villain in this story!

I remember walking the corridors to the sound of Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend” filling the air from what I imagine was probably a Sony Ericsson w810i (how’s that for a bit of 2000s nostalgia?!) while the girls in the year above stood around like a pack of Dream Matte Moused hyenas.

I mean, A for effort.

I have to give it to them. It’s pretty imaginative. If it hadn’t been so soul destroying I’d have admired them for their creativity.

More creative than the various ‘slut’ and ‘slag’ insults they flung my way otherwise. For reference, I was a virgin who had kissed one boy but who needs truth when you can be a mean girl?

Which brings me back to my internal dialogue that says “people won’t like you”.

It sounds dramatic to give 15 year old girls the power to shape someone’s internal dialogue – but at 32 when I try to pinpoint when I started to believe that people wouldn’t like me I always seem to come back to this period of time. And I’ve seen it with others that I love too.

To caveat, I don’t blame these girls – they’re a product of a society that makes girls fucking brutal to each other (I hope this eventually changes but I won’t hold my breath). They don’t keep me up at night and I don’t think of them in my day to day. As Coco Chanel famously said “I don’t care what you think of me. I don’t think of you at all.” (Unless I’m over analysing my thought processes and writing about them on Substack, obviously).

But if I ever happen to think about where my thoughts of self depreciation come from, this is often where I land (though this could just have been the final nail in the coffin).

I was, according to my mum, always what you’d call ‘shy’ (I hate that word). The ‘takes a while to warm up, hide behind my mother’s legs at parties’ shy. But I was so small I don’t think this was due to a fear of not being liked. I think I just would have preferred to be eating prawn cocktail crisps somewhere alone. Like this:

Photos of me and my beloved - prawn cocktail crisps - there is a theme here.

The ‘people won’t like me’ came later.

When I moved schools for sixth form, I had hoped that the niggling those girls had given me would stay where they were. Spoiler! It didn’t. It followed me.

Maybe I’m not that bad company after all!

So, with the voice of Avril Lavigne (sorry Avril, you didn’t ask for this) strapped firmly to my shoulder, I completely avoided areas where there would be groups of girls (sort of hard in an all girls school).

And when I got a boyfriend there (boys were allowed in the sixth form), I waited to be hit with a new rendition of Avril Lavigne, only this time on an iPhone 3 – we’d moved up in the world!

The common room was as you can imagine, completely off limits. There wasn’t a sign on the door that said, “all Year 12 welcome except you Jennie”. But my head had decided I’d rather be, quite frankly, anywhere else.

Go on Jennie, go in.

“hey, hey, you, you, I don’t like your girlfriend”

Stop it Jennie, no one thinks that, just go in.

“no way, no way, I think you need a new one”

Seriously, no one cares. Just open the door.

“hey, hey, you, you, I want to be your girlfriend”

Okay, nope. That’s enough for one day!

One of my friends (who I am still friends with today) made a point of trying to get me in there. It became a bit of a running joke. I avoided it like the plague. Like I’d be hit with the black death the minute my toe crossed the threshold.

And then I went to university.

There, a couple of friends told me that when they first saw me they thought I’d be a bitch – friends who I loved a lot and who meant absolutely nothing by it except to actually tell me they didn’t think I was a bitch at all.

But it only served to reaffirm that voice in my head – the one that said “see, told you no one likes you”.

It didn’t matter that they didn’t actually think I was a bitch upon meeting me. It didn’t matter that they actually knew me and they liked me. My brain was in full confirmation bias – looking for anything that would reaffirm what it thought to be true – that I was unlikeable.

It’s followed me to places of work.

I’ve made some of my best friends at work. But I’ve also completely avoided settings that, looking back, reminded me of those feelings.

My first job was in a school (I know, what was I thinking? Stokholm Syndrome much?!), so the staff room was, you guessed it, off limits.

I had to FORCE myself in there. It was like pulling teeth. Truly. To the point where if I ever did go in I was met with “oh we never see you in here!” It didn’t matter that they were saying it because they were actually HAPPY to see me in there. My brain immediately went to “they HATE you!!!”

I made some of my best friends at that place. Most of whom are now mums too. But the voice told me they were the exception, not the rule.

And now I’m in my new era – the motherhood one. And, I’m sure you can guess where this is going… Everything Mum Club terrifies me.

It’s like the reincarnation of all my avoidances rolled up into one.

The thought of baby classes sent a shiver down my spine.

I did swimming classes with my son when he turned about 3 months in the hope that everyone would be too preoccupied with not letting their babies drown that they’d keep conversation to a minimum!

I probably would have continued going for longer if the lovely female instructor wasn’t replaced by a man who practically waterboarded my baby… But that’s a story for another day!

In March my son’s nursery did a Mother’s Day Tea Party – all the mums were supposed to go and there’d be activities and food. You know the drill. It was my first real taste of this fresh hell.

I'd been dreading it since the little digital party invite popped up on the nursery app. All those mums in one room. *Press the panic button*. I could hear the internal dialogue already…

Look at them all. They probably meet for coffee every week.

They'll wonder why you never chat at drop-off.

They'll think you're stuck up. Or weird. Or both.

But one thing you won’t see me doing is not showing up for my son. I’ve seen far too many videos of children looking for their parents faces in the audience for that!

So I went. And do you know what happened?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Nothing catastrophic anyway. No one pointed and laughed. And no one played Avril Lavigne! Hurrah!

In fact, I met the mum of my son’s best friend, we chatted, we exchanged numbers, we arranged a coffee date the following week. And it was – dare I say it – lovely. We talked about our boys, obviously, but also about how hard it can all be, how wonderful but also how hard.

And now I’ve got a little party invitation sitting on the kitchen side.

My son’s first party invite. A little girl from his nursery who will be turning 3.

I RSVP’d straight away after reading an article on here about how annoying it is when people don’t RSVP promptly for these things (you learn a lot on here!)

When I first saw it I was elated – “oh he’s got a party invitation, he has friends, this is so lovely, I could cry!” and then came the “oh fuck, you’ve got to go. And there will be… DUN DUN DUNNNNN… Mums!”

It's like the school common room all over again, except now it's soft play centres and village halls, and instead of avoiding teenage girls, I'm avoiding other mums.

The irony isn't lost on me that I've basically swapped one group of women for another. The voice has followed me from school corridors to staff rooms to nursery car parks.

But now I have a little boy - one who will hopefully grow up being excited about his friend's parties and other dates in his little social calendar.

I can't just avoid the common room, because the common room isn’t the common room anymore and avoiding mums means avoiding opportunities for my son to make friends, to be included, and to experience the joy of childhood celebrations.

So I’m going to go to the birthday party. I’m going to bench Avril (not in the lift her over my head in a gym sense but in the fuck off you’re not coming sense) and I’m going to have a nice time.

As my son grows older, I am going to have to get comfortable with the voice.

Comfortable enough to not let it take the driver's seat. Because his happiness and inclusion matter more than my fear of judgment.

I won’t be able to silence it completely, but I can turn down the volume.

I can show up scared.

I can go to the party anyway.

And hopefully, there’ll be prawn cocktail crisps.

Chanelling this level of unbothered.