What if you felt all alone, with no friends to talk to or depend on. What would you do? What if you did not know how to make friends in a certain environment and situation, and your attempts were shot down and unsuccessful. How would you act? I considered these things about Anna as I was in a comfortable environment surrounded by my friends, but only after some time of ignoring this situation. It took a while to see things from her perspective, but my friends and I did, eventually. We put ourselves in her shoes, and saw her through new eyes.

Megan, Leanne and I are all friends and in the same gymnastics class. We have been friends through gymnastics and only really see each other once a week in class. We have been going to the same gymnastics school as ever. I have been friends with Megan since we were two years old, and we met Leanne a few years ago. We tell each other everything, and the three of us have become good friends. Last year, we started our gymnastic year the way we always did: the three of us plus one or two other girls in our class who we would usually only get to know for the one year. We always included them into our group and became friends with them. However, last year was a little different.

Anna was a ten-year-old girl who believed that she was too good for the kids in her class her own age, and joined our class. We welcomed her for a little while, but soon shut her out. Anna was obtrusive, conceited, and often bragged about herself. For instance, if Leanne, Megan and I were having a conversation about whatever, she would come in and change the subject so something that revolved around herself involved herself. Also, she would laugh when others messed up and say that she was better than that person. After a brief time of putting up with this, we just started to ignore her.


We didn't like how she cut into our conversations all the time, or how she bragged about how great she was. Every week she alienated us more and more, and that just made her keep trying harder and harder to get in.

Eventually we asked ourselves, why is she doing this? She seems to want to be our friend, so why does she act the way she does? We soon realized that she just wanted to be friends with us, and to do that she wants to make herself seem great so we might like her. It was her first year at our gymnastic school and she didn't know anyone. She tried to join our conversations all the time so that she could feel accepted.

Instead of feeling sorry for Anna, we tried to accept her when she was a good friend, and help her correct her ways of when she was a bad friend. When Anna cut into the conversation between Leanne, Megan and myself, we told her that we were talking about something before she changed the subject, and then included her in our conversation, and talked about her topic later. We also made it known to her that we don't laugh at friends when they mess up or fall down, and she shouldn't either. She turned out to be a nice little girl and a good friend. I hope that she takes this experience with her for the rest of her life so that she can grow as an individual.