Queen Bees

[Anonymous]

If your Queen Bee is the primary organizer and initiates plans, they can sometimes be the glue that keeps a friend group going, but if what you're talking about is something more "Lord of the Flies" then I'm not sure that's a healthy dynamic for an adult friend group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:However, even if you do genuinely like queen bees, sometimes it seems odd that everyone in the group (including yourself) tries to stay in their good books or sings their praises at a higher note than of others.

This is the problem, though -- if you have a bona fide queen bee in your group, people will work to ingratiate themselves with her. They will compete for her attention, and that competition becomes toxic because people will feel compelled to try and put themselves above others using tactics like gossip and exclusion. It always goes wrong.

Sometimes the queen bee encourages or participates in this behavior, and that's the worst possible situation. But even when the QB stays "above the fray," she's usually flattered by the attention and can exploit it in ways that make it worse.

It never ends well. There are always casualties.

Yup. There is nothing toxic in this group but there is an inner circle, a middle circle and an outer circle. Everyone feels the need to infiltrate the inner circle by associating themselves with the queen bees.

[Anonymous]

I doubt there are going to be any casualties but obviously some sense of dissatisfaction ligers beneath the surface. One straightforward lady commented on it and I realized she isn't wrong but had no idea what to say to her and I'm pretty sure she can directly say it to the queen bees if she felt a need so I don't feel a need to bring it up with queen bees.

[Anonymous]

Most people here are using Queen Bee to mean a person with mostly positive characteristics. My understanding of the term is different and describes someone who hurts others to reach the top.

Generally, I avoid friend groups or am very choosy with what groups I join so as to avoid this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most people here are using Queen Bee to mean a person with mostly positive characteristics. My understanding of the term is different and describes someone who hurts others to reach the top.

Generally, I avoid friend groups or am very choosy with what groups I join so as to avoid this.

+1

I have had many friends who are organizers and connectors and I've never thought of one of them as a "queen bee" even though they definitely played an outsized role in those social groups because they were more likely to host or reach out to people. I think everyone appreciated their contributions and it was never problem.

To me a "Queen Bee" is someone who makes people compete for her friendship and attention and "rewards" some people and "punishes" others based on how good a job they do of kissing her a$$. I have only encountered this one time in my adult life, in an extremely toxic workplace with someone who later turned out to have a personality disorder and was accused of harassment by multiple people at the company. A Queen Bee is a problem, not just someone who gets everyone together for a mom's night out every couple months or throws a great 4th of July party for the neighborhood in her backyard.

[Anonymous]

Women are funny. A guy.

[Anonymous]

I don’t have it amount my friends, but that is intentional. Enough of that nonsense growing up and then working in an all-female office.

I see it among my kid’s friends. He has both girl and boy friends. Some girls…ugh. A couple are co-Queen Bees and they’re a nightmare. I talk to my kid about it as I see and hear things occur, just to try to help him understand because he’s often left baffled by their behaviors.

I also see it at my kid’s school, among some parents. It’s laughable that adults still behave this way. I spotted the QB during my kid’s first week and the first ”welcome new parents!” meeting. No desire to socialize with the Queen and her minions. Smile, give a moment of fluffy chitchat (our kids will be classmates for years to come, after all), and move it along to those I actually enjoy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my local social circle, queen bees are very nice and helpful and everybody sees their value in group's social lives but the sense of a hierarchy or center and periphery is obvious to everyone.

Is this a common observation? Do you've queen bees or king bees in your social groups?

Wannabe Queen Bees and I ignore them. The more I ignore them, the more attention they want from me. I could care less about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Women are funny. A guy.

Are you sure these are women posting on here, and not a bunch of 13 year-old girls? Because I've never encountered actual adult women who act like what's being described on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Nope. All my female friends are mature adults.

[Anonymous]

I guess by your definition that’s me but really I’m just the only extrovert.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think I’ve ever observed this among adults.

Same. But I don't have circles. I have a very limited number of friends and I've never seen anything like that.

[Anonymous]

This is so weird to me. I have a circle of five very accomplished female friends and none of us is queen bee. Some people are better amor worse at planning and executing and those people organize things.