Okay, so, were all the other girls out there attuned to all the girl-politics that were apparently going on in our middle schools and almost all of which I seem to have entirely missed by hiding out in the library?

I went to a fairly tiny private middle school (5th-8th grade, strictly capped at exactly 48 kids per grade), and . . . don't really remember many "girl politics." I mean, there were definitely cliques, I knew who my friends were and who my friends weren't, but in a school that small you didn't really have a "popular" set that I noticed that had any significant position of, I guess, social power over other students? It was more "those are the femme girls who are into clothes and makeup, I am not into those things so I'll just hang out with the other kids who like dragons, and we'll mutually ignore each other thanks."

High school was bigger, but I still don't recall much interaction with people outside my immediate (mixed gender) nerdy clique.