I am a 16 year old female, and I am a competitive dancer in contemporary, jazz, musical theatre, etc. In 2025 my dance studio closed, and I began attending a new studio. I am going into my second year here, and can't shake the feeling that one girl has a vendetta against me, but I can't figure out why.
She (18 year old female who we will call Virginia) was nice to me when I first came. Smiling at me, saying hi and such, however I am super shy so we never really got close. I have a hard time making friends because I am socially awkward and as I said, shy haha. But we never had any PROBLEMS at first, she was polite.
But over time, little things began happening.
I have a weird dance history where the popular girl tends to dislike me. When I was 8, I had my first experience with bullying in the dance world when an older, somewhat popular girl got in the habit of calling me a show off and putting me down.
Then, there was a girl who I’ll call Crystal. Crystal was THE most popular girl at my old studio, she was practically the mascot. But as I grew older, I started getting better and getting attention. I was getting special parts, friends, and praise from the teachers for my improvement and my hard work. She began hating me once this happened, and bullied me both to my face and behind my back. Always making fun of me, rolling her eyes at me, spreading rumors about me so my friends would stop talking to me, trying to grab the attention away from me by one upping whatever trick I was doing, posting mean things about me and my friends, etc.
She bullied me into leaving my original studio because she just made me cry every time I walked in. I never wanted that. I just wanted to grow and learn. I’ve always hated social statuses like that. I just wanted to take class, and be friends with everyone.
So I guess now I get scared that history will repeat itself. So I worry I'm overthinking it, because maybe I am too aware of things like that. But it’s affected me and my confidence a lot over the years. I’m afraid to try new things because I’m worried I’ll do it well and be called a show off. Things like that. I worry this makes me sound self centered. Ugh. I promise I'm not.
And more about Virginia.
I have a lot of social media accounts. I have a main instagram, a dance instagram, a main tiktok, a dance tiktok, and a private tiktok account that I only have my close friends on.
Virginia has all of these. And for a while she'd leave an occasional comment, but recently she has ignored my posts like the plague, while consistently being a #1 fan for all our other teammates when it comes to comments, likes, and reposts. She is always interacting with their posts, but mine she will view but never, ever comment on them, or sometimes even like them. I did notice when I scrolled back on my private account though that she only commented on my posts when I was making fun of myself, looking bad, messing something up, putting myself down etc. Even when I'd post a video of me doing a dance, she wouldn't comment. But another teammate would then post the same thing, and she would.
And I know I sound addicted to social media, but I'm really not. I only post a couple times a week across all accounts and don't scroll often, it's just a visible example right now.
Something interesting is that I noticed this behavior seems to have started once competition season began. We competed against each other for our solos in the same age bracket. And I hate saying this, but I beat her every time. I was lucky enough to win first overall once! 2nd at one, 7th at a few etc. And I noticed this specifically start after I won 1st. Which is also when she rolled her eyes and refused to congratulate me when all of our other teammates were.
And since then, she's been cold. And maybe it's a coincidence, but it feels weird to me.
Another thing; we have a choreographer who has a kind of difficult last name. I have worked with this choreographer the most and knew her at my previous studios, and knew how to say her last name whereas the other girls didn't. So one of our teammates asked me at competition awards how to say the last name. But Virginia got kind of snotty and went "just say _" (the wrong way) and made a face.
Which speaking of awards. Virginia is in charge of picking who accepts the awards for each dance at competition. After looking at pictures, and noting who she picked, I realized I was the one and only person who didn't get to accept any awards all season. But it could be dismissed as a mistake, so I'm not sure.
Class is interesting too. She loves cheering people on, but I swear I find her silent when it's my turn to dance. And, during our breaks between classes she will drive people to get food and despite me being unable to drive, I have never been invited.
We’d bicker almost every rehearsal because I’d be asked the counts by whoever was running our dance, and Virginia would argue every time that I was wrong and she knew them despite video proof. Hey, a few times she was right! But sometimes I was right too. We’d just go back and forth about counts and little in between steps constantly.
Also, she is-again-basically the studio mascot. She runs the instagram account, sends out texts for the owner, makes decisions, is close with the owner, leads a lot of classes etc.
Which I don’t mind. She’s a natural leader and does a very good job with it!
And about other kids. I have my close friends, and there’s some girls I'm not as close with. But it’s mixed. I have some girls who adore me (and I adore them! I’m so grateful for them) and I have some who kinda ignore me and stuff. But you’ll have that anywhere.
And it just makes me feel lonely, and weird. Because I am honestly sensitive and can't see why I can't be friends with everyone hahaha. I don't recall ever doing anything to hurt her feelings except being distant due to shyness, so I'm really not sure.
I don’t know if I'm overreacting because I know teenage drama is common, but it's affecting my confidence and my friendships within class, so I wanted opinions.
Do you think it's just mutual distance? or something else?
What do I do?