I’d first of all ask the mods to take down a lot of that post- if I were her I wouldn’t want my whole vent up on the internet.
Besides for, well, calling her (you know, she vented to you, be friendly back) there’s probably not much you can do. Trust me, I’ve been there- it’s not until tenth grade and on that I really developed a solid friend group and before that, I was pretty much in gehennom.
Just a nice place to insert a vent- the WORST thing you can do (and I don’t mean you, RisingSun, I mean anyone in any similar situation) is to do what all of the charismatic Chessed heads and teachers and speakers say and “reach out! Go over to someone you never talk to, the kid who looks lonely, and say hi! You don’t know how happy you make them!” To qualify that statement, every time I’ve heard a teacher say that, it’s always been with the very clear undertones of “nebach! You need to cheer her up! Make her feel like someone cares and bang! there’s your chesed of the day!” And every time after that, I’ve been approached by random bubbly girls who stop in front of wherever I’m sitting and eating lunch in front of my homework and say “hi! So how’s stuff? Good? Yeah, me too. Oh, sorry, gotta go.” It’s patronizing and we know EXACTLY what you’re trying to do. There are some girls who might theoretically be genuinely good friends if they ever took the time to make more than a token gesture to give a warm fuzzy feeling.
Fine, be nice, but just put about a microsecond of thought into it first. Be clear in your head that you’re genuinely expanding your horizons and not just fulfilling an obligation- and if the girl doesn’t look like she wants to talk to anyone (sometimes, I actually WANT to be reading that six hundred page book) then just SKIP IT.
/endbitterrant.
ANYWAY…
She sounds like she’s going through a hard time. Besides for GENUINELY being there for her (if you’re going to treat it as a chore, just don’t bother), all you can do is be sympathetic. She vented to you once and chances are she’s going to avoid you in the halls now- there really isn’t very much you can do to help her without making her feel like an idiot for spilling to some random kid in a different grade.
I wish you and this girl both a lot of hatzlacha.
HaLeiVi: And that might not give this girl a lot of pain? If someone has a headache and someone’s like, “oh, it’s just a migraine, she always has migraines,” does that make it less of an issue? RisingSun just wants to help if she can- unfortunately, she probably can’t.