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insecure about losing friends and when a girl with AS suddenly joins the clique, peers wonder how this will change their role in the group structure.
    Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabees, has taught hundreds of teen girls and has come to see patterns in the roles that teen girls play in their group structures.
    Wiseman classifies them as:
    7 Common Roles Girls Play in Cliques
     
The Queen Bee: Through a combination of charisma, force, money, looks, will and manipulation, this girl reigns supreme over the other girls and weakens their friendships with others, thereby strengthening her own power and influence.
The Sidekick: She notices everything about the Queen Bee, because she wants to be her. She will do everything the Queen Bee says. The Queen Bee, as her best friend, makes her feel popular and included.
The Floater: She has friends in different groups and can move freely among them. She has influence over other girls but doesn’t use it to make them feel bad.
The Torn Bystander: She’s constantly conflicted about doing the right thing and her allegiance to the clique. As a result, she’s the one most likely to be caught in the middle of a conflict between two girls or two groups of girls.
The Pleaser/Wannabe/Messenger: She will do anything to be in the good graces of the Queen Bee and the Sidekick. When two powerful girls, or two powerful groups of girls are in a fight, she is the go-between. However, the other girls eventually turn on her as well. She’ll enthusiastically back them up no matter what. She can’t tell the difference between what she wants and what the group wants.
The Banker: Girls trust her when she pumps them for information because it doesn’t seem like gossip; instead, she does it in an innocent, “I’m trying to be your friend” way. This is the girl who sneaks under adult radar all the time because she can appear so cute and harmless.
The Target: She’s the victim, set up by the other girls to be humiliated, made fun of, excluded. She can be part of a clique or outside the clique. Either way, she feels isolated and alone.
    From Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, copyright © 2002 by Rosalind Wiseman. Used by permission of Crown Publishers, a division of Random House, Inc.
    A new friend that a girl with AS makes could play any of these roles in the clique. It is important in blending into a group of girls to figure out the power structure and figure out if a girl with AS is breaking in on already existing and established friendships. She would not want to upset the Queen Bee, for example.
    Social groups are organized and structured, and when a new person is brought into the group, the existing structure has to shift. So, if a girl with AS begins a new friendship and does not take into account and respect the roles and positions of the members of the group, she may not be accepted or may even be excluded. If a girl with AS is being brought into the clique by the Pleaser or Target, she has an uncertain new position because less stable members initiated the friendship. Sometimes, for a new person to successfully become integrated, a more influential member of the group, such as the Sidekick, needs to initiate. Thinking about structure is a less personal or hurtful way of thinking about girl friendships. When a girl with AS is not “clicking” with a group of girls, she should analyze what possible reasons, apart from her own actions, could have caused the lack of success. Sometimes it is about the other girls and their roles in the power structure.
    The reason for explaining these three social structures is because they intertwine with each other. That is why it is difficult to fit in if a girl with AS does not automatically sense them as typical peers do. If a girl with AS does not understand one or more she is less adept for fitting in than a typical girl. Cliques exist at any level in the Popularity Hierarchy, have members in any of the Common Roles, and the girls