Everyone is laughing. The lunch table of girls is full of perfectly manicured nails and curled hair. From an outsider’s point of view, the girls are unbelievably happy, giggling in an innocent way.

From the inside, they’re not innocent at all. They laugh and joke about their “friend” who just got up and went to the bathroom until they see her walk back into the cafeteria. And the funny part is that they have no shame at all.

Girls are mean. We all like to think that we aren’t like that. We would never be the person who laughs at the girl wearing crocs, or the one who forgot to brush her hair today. The fact of the matter is, we are all “that girl.”

It may be behind the scenes, but it is always there, discreetly breaking girls down, day after day. We’ve been on both sides of the laughter – the one who is laughing and the one who is being laughed at.

Why do girls feel the need to make fun of others? The common excuse is that it makes them feel better about themselves. But I don’t think that is always true. I honestly believe that some girls, deep down, are just plain nasty.

People are not born mean, however. Somewhere along the way, someone or something made them that way.

Maybe it was a rough childhood; maybe it was a mean girl who taught them their cruel ways. Either way, they have become a person who they vowed never to be.

We all lie. We all cheat. We all deceive and don’t take responsibility for our actions. Although it is sad, it’s a natural habit, a defense mechanism for humans to take care of themselves.

A good representation of teenage girls’ behavior is the movie “Mean Girls.” In the movie, a group of girls make a burn book, where they make fun of all the girls in their school. Although the movie is a bit exaggerated, it is not far from the truth.

To our classmates’ faces, all is sound. The backstabbing occurs when they are not around.

As the girl strolls back from the bathroom, all is silent at the table of preppy girls. She asks what her friends were talking about. Without a second thought, one makes up a lie, simply saying, “Oh nothing much, just a math test that we took this morning.”

Although she sits backs down, she knows that something is off. Quietly she continues to eat her lunch, hurt by the people who she still considers her “friends.”