In the past couple of months, I've been lucky enough to spend time with my best girls (different groups) not only here in New York where I reside, but also in Florida, North Carolina and Maryland. I don't always get to see my closest girlfriends, so I'm extremely thankful and grateful for the visits and mini trips/vacations we plan to get some quality time in.
And when I get together with my best gals, you can pretty much guarantee the following will occur: excessive laughter, reminiscing, catching up, "girl talk," deep conversations... and trashing our appearances.
Huh?
It's something I've always noticed, but even more so as my friends and I have gotten older. It doesn't matter what group of girls I'm with or where we are, we're inevitably going to have conversations around what we hate about ourselves and our bodies. Conversations sound a little like this:
"I can't get rid of the last of this baby weight."
"I HATE my thighs. That's why I never wear shorts."
"I used to have nice hair but now it's thinning and gross."
"I would totally get a boob job."
"I need to get my teeth fixed."
"DELETE THAT PICTURE I LOOK *HUGE* IN IT!"
"My skin is so broken out; it's like I'm 14 years old again."
Sigh. I do it. My girls do it. Hell, MOST girls do it. And I hate it. I was thinking about this topic as I sat down to write this and a scene from (ahem, the most amazing movie of all time), 'Mean Girls,' came to mind. In it, the popular and pretty high school teens stand in front of a mirror; each taking turns critiquing something about themselves -- anything from "weird hairlines" to "man shoulders."
And while the scene is meant to be funny, there's a scary sense of reality, too: this is what we sound like, ladies. We're a nation of Mean Girls -- but the victims of our harsh words and insults are ourselves. Why do we do this? I've noticed that women even respond to compliments by negating the kind words that are said to them.
"Wow, you look amazing girl!"
"Ugh, thanks, but I still have to lose like ten pounds."
GIRLS. I'm guilty of this too, so I'm including myself in this: we have to stop beating ourselves up. We have to stop adhering to societal pressures to be perfect and flawless and have f*cking thigh gaps. We have to learn to accept compliments and the fact that there are people who actually DO think we look great and thought so enough to tell us. We need to stop overly criticizing and self-deprecating to the point that we're delusional. I look at all the beautiful, smart and amazing women in my life and get really really disappointed when I hear them brutally critiquing themselves.
Why don't they see what I see?
And I get it; sometimes we feel fat. Ugly. Gross. Unattractive. There are specific parts of our bodies we don't particularly like, or that we wish were bigger or smaller. Sometimes we look at other women who seemingly have it all and covet their appearances and subsequently compare ourselves and how we don't quite match up.
But it's a horrible habit and one that we should all look to break. So let's all try our best not only to cease doing it, but to also tell the women in our lives to do the same.
It's time to stop being Mean Girls. What do you say?