Please Help!!!

Question:

i was sorta hoping that maybe you could help me. i dont wanna sound like everyone else, but we all use you like we would our school consolers and stuff. you do give good advice though. i can’t talk to my best friend about this, bc she doesnt know either.
ok so I have a best friend, and we just became like bff’s this summer when our families spent all our time together. well, ever since school started again, things havent been going well with her other “friends.” their always mean to me, and of course they are always mean to my friend. one friend of hers, i was trying to be nice. i liked her at first, but she got really annoying. she always butted in my conversation about the guy i like (who happens to go to another school) with my bff. (we both know him) but she was trying to say all this stuff about him that i didnt really like. once she punched me in the stomach! i have no idea why! my bff yelled at her, and she just kept doing it. like poking me in the lunch line. my friend is getting annoyed with her too. please help!!!
thanks so much for everything!

Phyllis replied:

The number one problem girls write to me about is friends switching loyalties, being jealous, having new best friends, saying bad things about them.  I wonder sometimes if these close relationships between girls at a certain age are sort of dress rehearsals for close friendships with guys later on–the jealousy, the hurt, the gossip, the heartbreak.  Since you and your bff became close this past summer, and trouble started with the other girls once school began, it seems that they resent your closeness, perhaps your exclusiveness.  Sometimes the best way to handle a thoughtless action or a mean remark is simply to ask why.  “What made you do that?”  “Why did you say that?”  “Why have you been acting the way you are?”  It may not get a response, but it might start the person thinking more about why she is saying or acting the way she is.