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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What’s the psychology behind middle aged women who act cliquish and gatekeep friendships? Who can’t be polite at kids’ games, and try to establish some sort of hierarchy? I don’t get it.[/quote]

I can turn it around on you:

Why do you think you’re entitled to friendship with women you don’t know? Sounds pretty delusional, to me. Like a guy who thinks he should be able to get the phone number from any woman he sees.

Honestly, there are only so many hours in a day. Once you have your chill and really tight clique and a routine with them, why waste time or energy making new friends? You’re content and in a good space. Looking for more friends would seem thirsty and suggest you’re not happy with your current friends. And broadening your friend group just waters down the actual bonds, you know; if not also invites additional drama and stress.[/quote]

What you are missing is that the gatekeepers work to prevent friendships with OTHER people.

When I’ve encountered this, the whole problem is that I don’t want to be friends with the gatekeeper because they are gossipy (I hate gossip) and feel transactional and seem to lack boundaries. Those are all huge turn offs.

But then if I start to become friends with someone else in the community, the gatekeepers will try to prevent it from happening, through gossip and exclusion, because they feel threatened by a relationship that doesn’t flow through them. They sense my dislike and it makes them mad.

The gatekeepers are the source of stress and drama. Without them, people would form friendships or not but everyone would make their own choices. The gatekeeper fears that if this happened, they wouldn’t have friends, or “enough” friends, and it terrifies them. So they seek to control everyone to guarantee their social circle. Often lots of people complain about the gatekeepers and don’t even seem to like them. Yet they exert control through social tactics. [/quote]

Well said.  The funny part, is the gate keepers do not really have as much control as they think they do, and people do not really like them, on the whole because GK are not good people, they are just a nuisance - always looking for agreement and cheering on - so tiresome!  As long as you are a "yes" person, you are "in" - the moment you speak up for yourself, forget it.  Who needs that?  Besides, their parties are more of the same, so they suck.  You really are not missing anything. [/quote]

On the contrary - gatekeepers absolutely have as much power as they think they do, which is why these dynamics happen. 
Are they not good people and secretly disliked - yes, you are right about that.
But do they have power over everyone else who’s worried about being on the “outs” otherwise at their neighborhood or school or whatever? Absolutely, unfortunately. Sheep gonna sheep. [/quote]

But that is just it. Gatekeepers only understand sheep - they don't understand non-sheep.  People who do their own thing and have their own friends (sometimes, finding their own people after finding out how immature and stunted the gatekeepers are - a blessing, truly!) are non-sheep, so that is foreign to the gatekeepers. Gatekeepers are stunted to about age 13 - they will never have the mindset, brains, capability, or general where with all to see beyond about that age, socially.

No loss - they are doing the non-sheep a favor. People have moved to avoid less.  I would move, if I ended up in one of these toxic neighborhoods - the cost is practically nothing, compared to living amongst a bunch of grown women who can't think for themselves, and want to drag others down with them. [/quote]

So I live in one of these toxic neighborhoods, and I would gladly move, but there is a huge cost. I’d have to give up my low interest rate, home selling and buying expenses, the fact that housing prices have drastically risen since I purchased, and moving costs. Then there is no guarantee that I won’t end up in another neighborhood with some sort of crazy gatekeeper. My only hope for my current neighborhood is that another queen-bee type has moved in the past several years, and her social striving and climbing has been almost entertaining to see. She is currently “besties” with the main gatekeeper, but based on both of their personalities, there will be an implosion of that. Hopefully, sooner rather than later.[/quote]

+1 it’s really easy to say you’d move in theory but here in the real world, moving is more complicated and involves a ton of factors, and also, if you’re really so above the queen bee, why move when you like your house - are you going to let the queen bee have that kind of power over you? 
I stayed in my own neighborhood with psycho queen bee dynamics and like this pp, i too at this point just gleefully await the inevitable implosion. [/quote]

I think people are saying that if they were given the choice (assuming there are options, not everyone has options) people in these situations would move to a neighborhood with fewer stunted SAHMs (not all SAHMs are stunted, but there are enough examples here). [/quote]

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