Why do people form cliques?

[Guest kitkat]

Well I don't know exactly what group I fall in either. I don't think I fall into any of the groups you mentioned specifically. Maybe I'm a mixed breed to some extent. All I know is I try to please God, myself and others the best I can to my ability and I think that is what pleases God in my opinion.

If I want to do something, as long as I feel it's in line with God's will, I will do what I want to do, without worrying about what anyone else thinks. Only I do care if I do offend others and I try not to, but sometimes to no avail, but nevertheless when that happens, I try my best not to let it happen again and do what I can to make up for it. I am sensitive about some things, but who isn't? So if someone says something that sounds out in left field, I question it and most of the time, with good reason to question it and I'm saying this to show that I am genuine with what I have to say about this subject.

Before I posted this thread and even before I found Worthy Boards, the questions and comments I posted about cliques had been something I had wondered about and wanted to ask for a long time and I feel I got some great answers here.

We're all different and I don't feel the need to be involved in a group either.

I have some great and wonderful friends that I wouldn't trade for the world, that stick by me through thick and thin and I thank God for them. Like I said before, they're not the type of people that are into cliques and what they stand for and neither am I.

In reading this thread, I felt that each and every response to my post that was made, was done so with genuine feelings on the parts of those who expressed them and that there was no phoniness shown by anyone with what they said.

Everyone that posted contributed something that was helpful, informative and at least it helped me to know that I wasn't the only one that had a genuine dislike for cliques.

God bless and nite nite,

Kat

[2bba]

delete

[irishcowboy]

a person could also look at it and say that no matter who you are or what you say, you are in one clique or another......

remember years ago, young people were all wanting to do their own thing..... only they were all doing their own thing the same way..... the same bell bottom pants, the same tiedye shirts, the same elevator shoes, long hair, sit ins, sitouts..... we was all doing our own thing....... in the same way.....

it is no different now, with the " generation X " thing going on, everyone wanting to be different, but seems they are all different in the same way..... cliquish....

we all had our own clique...... even the nerds had their clique, the outcast ones,

there were the jocks, the cheerleaders, the chess club, the honor society, the drama club, the speech club....... even the Campus Crusades, Youth For Christ, you were either in or not, some of these clubs/groups/cliques were of a persons own choice, others were exclusive and had to be either tryed out for, or invited in..... some you could join with out having to qualify.....

even now, there are cliques, even if a person says they are not part of one..... they are...... not all cliques are bad..... what groups do you belong to?? they are cliques..... whether or not they are good or bad, depends on the members, depends on the intentions of the cliques......

some are really loose, where people come and go as they please, some are really tight where the turn over rate of its members is low.....

if there are three people that are going out to eat, and two of them continually hog the conversation, or continually talk about things they only know about and the third one does not, then they are excluding a person from their "clique"

are there people that want to be with you? that would like to hang around you and when they come around, you tend to brush them off??? you have just excluded them from your clique.....

this week we are having our VBS, monday we had 92 children age 4 - 11, tuesday we had 113 children. at snack time, every child has a snack, and if the snack is something they can not have, then we also have substitute snacks for them so that they are not left out of the game, one child can not have any sugar, so, for tonight the snack is icecream, and there is sugar free icecream for the ones that can not have the sugar.... the first night, was popcorn, some children dont like popcorn, thats ok, we have peanutbutter and cheeze crackers.... every one has snacks..... one does not like lemonaide another dont like fruit punch, and others would prefer water, that is cool...... we want all to feel welcome.... not only feel welcome, but to know they are welcomed and loved.....

most cliques do tend to limit their membership, even home churches are a clique, for they have chosen to exclude themselves from others,

or as in the case mentioned earlier, taken those that have been excluded from other cliques and started their own, not unlike those boys at columbine high school, being outcast from other cliques, began their own clique...............both of these cliques began the same way, people being outcast from society ( so to speak) and began a group they could belong too, one went sour, the other thriving, why????? same thing going on, group of people being rejected outcast, form a separate group of their own and go on a killing spree, another group virtually the same, turns out doing good, saving people rather then killing people...

so, not all cliques are bad cliques..... some cliques are actually good cliques....

mike

[irishcowboy]

Yup, there

[BoldlyProclaimingChrist]

[

You did it again. You spoke the truth! And for that I admire you and love you!!! We need more people here, speaking the TRUTH like you do.

Thank you John and I admire you and love you as well. :hug:

[stilllearnin']

Cliques, I have always felt on the outside of them, but I have come to realize a couple of things:

(1) I really think that a lot of times teenagers form cliques because they are so insecure, being part of a group helps them not feel quite so much like they are alone on center stage.

(2) I don't think most people even realize they are in a clique, they don't think to themselves, hmmm, guess I'll go form a clique. they just get caught up in spending time with people they know and people they have things in common with.

Edited July 29, 2004 by stilllearnin'

[followerofjesus]

I think cliques are formed because its human nature. The dangerous part of them is when they get caught up in the trap of group thinking,pleasing men & not whats pleasing to the Lord.

[Guest JohnSC]

Thanks Kit Kat.

I believe that the person holding the 'power'' in the clique is requred to say something bad about a person in order to hold that power over the others. The others go along, because if they don't, they run the risk of becoming the target.

I think that in human behavior, there are natural leaders and natural followers. To be able to tell if a person has Christ in their heart and thus treats their fellow brothers and sisters with compassion should be fairly easy to determine.

I had originally written something similar in my previous post, but deleted it for brevity. I believe you touched upon the angle of that type of clique that makes it appear so distasteful to us, in how it so strongly exhibits 'human master/authority and human slave/submissiveness', which are all disfavorable character traits. Without a quality foundation in a person's character (such as love or compassion), the results can never equal or exceed the quality of the foundation.

As BoldlyProclaimingChrist also spoke of, I can relate to not having fit-in with popular groups. Growing up, I usually wore cowboy boots (terribly uncool back then), a semi-dress shirt with the tail out, blue jeans, almost never hung out with anyone from my schools, and looking back upon it now, I was perhaps as non-cliqued as a kid could get. But of course too, I was just plain weird (and still am).