The illusion of confidence: what I learned from being friends with the "popular girl" at school

We often talk about how confidence is the key to success and how raising confident children will set them up for life. In our adult lives, we encounter bosses and colleagues who seem so confident they appear all-powerful and untouchable. But outward confidence can only get you so far—a lesson I learned from a little girl at my school—let’s call her Amy—whom I met when I was nine years old.

I was the new girl at a small suburban school in an affluent area. There were about 26 children in a year group, which on the surface sounds good but in reality meant having a very limited number of potential friends. (I still think it’s problematic how we force children to socialise at regular intervals every day at school—it can be stressful and exhausting, especially for neurodiverse or introverted kids, who end up spending every break-time feeling like social failures or diluting their personalities to fit in.) At my new school, with only a handful of children, there was a strict social pecking order, and Amy was queen of this little world. She was one of the most confident little girls I’d ever met—she was a child actress and attended stage school on Saturdays. She spoke and carried herself like an adult—radiating charm and charisma, knowing all the right things to say. In my eyes, she was a rock star, and we all followed her around like eager groupies.

Initially, when I arrived at the school, she took me under her wing. It was the year the film Clueless came out, and she would say we were like Cher and Tai. She was, of course, Cher, the popular princess, while I was cast in the role of Tai, the clueless country hick Cher takes pity on—yet it never occurred to me to take offence. I was too busy basking in the reflected glory of being chosen to be her friend.

Spoilt and overindulged children often aren’t the bratty Veruca Salt types portrayed in books and films. They initially seem kind and generous, but their generosity can be fickle. Amy viewed friends like collecting dolls (her dad bought her many, many dolls, along with the latest Nintendo, a quad bike, trips to Disneyland, and whatever else she wanted). I was just the latest shiny new thing in her world, and she would toss me aside and pick me up again at will, as she did with many of the others. She was never outwardly mean about it; it was just generally accepted that this was the way things were.

When we all moved to a new secondary school—which was much larger and more socially diverse than our small primary school—everything changed. Amy, no longer the big fish in this new, larger pond, struggled to have the same power and influence she had at primary school, where everyone fawned over her. She wasn’t as adept at commanding attention in this new rough-and-tumble environment, where there were around 200 children in a year group instead of 26. The children (and teachers) had no time for her entitlement and tendency to treat people as possessions she could pick up and dispose of when she got bored. Her confidence and stage-school charm soon wore thin, and she became bitter and frustrated. She was no longer the powerful rock star figure I had seen at primary school; in her place was just a flashy spoilt brat with a fragile ego.

Towards the end of the second year, her surface-level sweetness and cool-girl charm dropped away, and she became spiteful and petulant, with many of us in the firing line—myself included. (“I was only friends with you because I felt sorry for you!” was one of her choice one-liners.) She had morphed from the warm-hearted Cher from Clueless into Mean Girls monster Regina George. Her behaviour became so erratic and unbearable that one by one, we broke off and found new friends. She moved between various cliques and her popularity soon dwindled until her parents quickly pulled her out of our school and into a smaller, fee-paying establishment where she presumably thrived.

The first thing I want you to take away from Amy’s story is this: a person is only as influential as the environment they are in. Someone’s surroundings can dictate how much power they have or don’t have. The queen bee or chief bully in a workplace probably isn’t as powerful without their little group of minions to puff them up. Similarly, you might feel like you’re inherently annoying or dislikable or “difficult” at work, but this could be more about the toxic environment you’re in rather than a reflection of you as a person.

I was never raised as a confident child, instead relying on seemingly confident people like Amy to validate me, all while being treated poorly, and feeling like I didn’t have the power to speak up. I’ve learned over the years to develop and nurture an inner confidence that doesn’t rely on being “picked” or popular. Surface or stage-school confidence is great, but it isn’t the key to success—it’s having grit and not giving up on yourself, even when those around you aren't all cheering you on. Your confidence should never depend on how well-liked you are. And for all you know, drop them in a different environment, and that Mr or Ms Popular at work might not be as confident and powerful as they seem…