I think I was socially unsavvy as well. Then I learned savvyness and to be honest that put me in an equally painful place. As I got more savvy I engaged in lots of codependent behaviour as I endeavoured to change who I was in order to be loved and approved of. Once I got sober and went to CoDa and started to understand what a nonsense dance of codependency i had unwittingly engaged in, I made the decision to walk to my own drum. And my conscience has to be that drum. Sometimes it is painful when people I thought cared about me turn out not to have done, but actually I have found that in the last couple of years, while I've been sworn off the savvy, I've made new and better friends. Maybe not such.supposedly cool or popular ones, but that's no loss really. Social savvy is pretty overrated I reckon. The reason your daughter is bewildered is because she's trying to find sense and reason where there is none. That popularity game is not motivated by love or compassion. It is motivated by selfishness and ego, and fuelled by fear. Reading between the lines it sounds like her bff has been drawn to all that nonsense and your daughter, not wanting to lose said bff has wafted towards that fire with her. She may need to accept that sometimes people just change. And not always for the better. Hopefully if she can learn from this to be true to herself, it may help her avoid lots of trickier peer pressure situations when she starts college and there are cigarettes, alcohol, sex, and drugs thrown into the mix. This could be a great learning opportunity for her, painful as it seems now.
God, Grant me the serenity to accept the people i cannot change,
The courage to change the person I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Time for some decent friends I think.
I suspect that there will be other girls at school who are not part of this gaggle of little witches. Perhaps leave the savvy behaviour to them and wisdom and acceptance could be her tools instead.
BB