I’m getting the sense that you have been emotionally wounded by individuals claiming to be Christians.
This has been my perception of how cliques in school worked. Generally a clique was an association of like-minded individuals. The Jocks were into sports and were often considered popular (though not always the case). The Band Geeks had a common interest in music. There were sometimes an overlap between the Bandees and the Theater Kids. I sat at the misfits table, which was made up of kids that were outcasts of these various other groups. These were kids that I would not consider a friend, and whom I had very little in common with, except for the fact that we did not fit in. This was our uniting factor.
All my cousins were jocks and I would have probably been too (don’t hold this against me), had I cared about my grades enough to not be made ineligible to play sports. I was pretty good at sports (in gym class I dominated), but I was not good at education. I was labeled as having a learning disability (basically I was a slow reader and it took me hours to do homework). Teachers would make me stay inside during recess to do work. My life became nothing, but doing school work all hours of the day and night.
My best friend in first grade was very good at reading and education came easy to him. He couldn’t wait around for me forever, so he made other friends.
The biggest problem I saw when it came to cliques was a sort of social hierarchy and when someone of a perceived lower social group tried to move up. This would sometime work if the individual was from a group one tier lower, but if an individua was from one of the lowest tiers and tried to fit in three or four levels higher, this is when it was not goof for this individual. They would be bullied or ridiculed out of the group pretty quickly. The sad part was when the individual couldn’t see why they were not fitting in. One kid thought wearing cool shades would automatically make him cool. Maybe he got this idea from a Rom-Com where the nerdy girl gets a make-over and suddenly becomes the popular girl. Or maybe it was the individual’s empathetic mother trying to help her child fit in. Or maybe it is a father who was popular in high school and give his son or daughter a few tips on what he thought made him cool in high school. But, it inevitably failed, because every human being is different.
I often joke that when I got off the school bus (at home), I was the coolest kid in my school (in my own head). But, when I got off the bus at school, the reality was that I was kind of invisible (except in gym class, where I shined ; )
I am a parent now and as much as I would love for my children to be like me, it just isn’t going to happen. There will be ways in which they are similar to me, but I have one child who is more like my geeky side and another that has developed my love of sports, which is okay. The most important thing I hope to instill in them is a love of God, and a respect for others.
Just like how I was the coolest kid outside of school, when you graduate High School, cliques do not matter. You are that cool kid outside of High School. Grades do not prevent you from laying sports. You can peruse music if that is your thing and be really good or really bad at it and it really doesn’t matter. The one thing that remains true is that “readers make leaders.” If you like acting, then you will be reading scripts. If you want to become a politician you will be reading bills and teleprompters and junk (at least I hope you read the bills if you are elected to office!)
Let me ask you this. Are you still in School by any chance? For some, life will always be High School for them. But, that is the choice they make. You can choose to not live your life as though you are in High School. Who cares what others think of you. It doesn’t matter anymore. It never really mattered then either, but our perception was that it did matter.
One of the pillars of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution is the freedom to associate. No elected politician can make a law prohibiting you from associating with whomever will have you (there are instances where one might not be allowed in a certain distance from a school or have a restraining order against them, because of past offences). But generally, associating in public, is up to you and those you are associating with. There are private associations and institutions that can gate keep however they wish. You are free to join or not to be a part of this association or that organization.
There is no rule that any person must associate with you or me nor a rule that forces us to associate with anyone else that we do not want to in a public setting. However there are rules if we join a certain organization. Maybe it is part of your employment that you must work with others you don’t like or who don’t like you. We are free to work elsewhere or start our own business (if we have the means and the knowhow).
We cannot control how others perceive us. This is just a fact. We only have control over how we behave towards others. We can complain about others behave, but we cannot make them be like us. If they are open to it, we can help them be more like us. We can inspire them by how we live our Faith in Christ, but we cannot force anyone to have a relationship with Him nor with us. This falls under free-will.
I would put this under Freedom of Association. But, I will tell you that just because someone gives the appearance that they are storybook perfect, does not mean that they are perfect. When I was in High School, I like hanging out with this family that, in my own mind, was the perfect family. They had a nice house, they were just pretty people, and they were a lot of fun. What I didn’t know was that the parents were struggling in their relationship and the Wife was unfaithful, leading to their Divorce. Their son was battling addiction. And the oldest daughter (whom I had a crush on) got pregnant at a party. They were not the perfect family that I had built them up to be in my head. There is no such thing as a perfect family. And the Church is, in a sense an imperfect family.
Start your own group or join a different group. Why do you feel like you have to be a part of the group that you are trying to be a part of? Is it because you desire to be like them (like the me and what I perceived to be the perfect family or the kid in school who tried to be popular who had no chance in the world of magically being “popular”) or is it the only mall group available in your Parish? Have you thought about why you want to be a part of this small group?
If you are out of High School, I would invite you to be a member of the Knights of Columbus (if you are a man and your Parish has a council that is doing it for the right reason and it is not just a drinking club). Some councils have lost their purpose, but others are fantastic and are doing amazing work in their communities. Ours at one time was just a drinking club and when I was asked to transfer, I told them I would not until they changed this. When they sold their building they moved the drinking club for after the meeting and events, so now the organization is getting back to what it should be and those who still want it to be social are free to meet-up afterwards wherever they want, though they do need to keep in mind that they are representatives of Christ and His Church, as we all are. Hope this helps.
% agee.