Long time, no post. I figured now would be a good time to update, seeing as there is something interesting to comment on.
Ahh Samantha Brick - I think we've all heard about her and read her delightful articles on the DM so no need for me to link to her. While I commend someone to have the gall to say "Men love me because I'm beautiful; women hate me for it", I do think she is rather deluded and is a sad inditement of many women today. Sadly I know a fair few ladies who use pitiful excuses as to why they are so unpopular with their own sex.
Women are (let's face it ladies) bitchy toward one another. In fact, most women treat another woman as competition until they can suss her out. This often puzzles my boyfriend; why can't women just get on with one another, he asks me whenever I say I'm not so keen on someone is his cliquey circle of friends.The answer is always the same: give me time to figure her out, ie. give me time to realise how much competition I have with her.
I have experienced a few circumstances where women try to create competition with others in order to give them some form of validation. A prime example of this came in the pub in First Year where one member of our then friendship group decided to announce "I've had more men, and women, in the society fancy me than Sazzito." Sazzito and the rest of us were slightly stunned. A simple conversation on the oddities within our society had turned into how many people had fancied this one girl. Instantly it is clear who her competition was and always would be - Sazzito. While making a joke out of it, I recently told Sazzito that it had been a bit hurtful. Afterall there were more than two girls in the society, myself being one of them. I remember another time with this same girl. who decided she had the biggest boobs in the society. If only she wasn't sat with me, who being taller and far broader than her was at least three or four sizes bigger than her. The fake competition made all the more hilarious as we knew her bras contained at least an inch of padding.
Unsurprisingly myself and the majority of our group no longer speak to this woman. A falling out occured regarding her treatment of one of our other friends and her general attitude. To speak to this woman, however, you would think we fell out as we disliked her because she was so amazing (and most likely as she was disabled. It was also all about the disability with this girl.) The truth was her attitude stunk and her delusions of grandeur created a woman who was totally self-obsessed. Her presence altered the atmosphere of a group so shockingly, it felt as though there was a giant pink llama in the room no one could talk about. She also had the amazing ability to change a person. Her fiance, once a pleasent young chap, became an unbearable know-it-all, attempting to educate a person soon to have a history degree on who started the Cold War (Churchill apparently) and a recently qualified chemistry PhD on his own subject matter. A person who has struggled through university, doing little work in the belief he was so smart he needed do it. But I digress....
It is my belief, Mrs. Brick is doing exactly this. She is trying to create competition with women in order to boost her own ego. Women clearly do not want to be her friend as they have realised that she is most likely always trying to compete with them, often when there is no need for competition. I suspect she hasn't realised that by failing to realise the arrogance of her statements and by cultivating her myth of beauty, she has in turn knocked her own confidence. It's not the trolls doing it, but herself by continually saying she is beautiful and all the men think so. It's not jealously driving negative female comments, but the fact women (and men) are pointing out to her the arrogance that has been spotted.
Men, while simple creatures, will spot the opportunity of a flirtacious woman. It would not surprise me if Mrs. Brick is in actual fact the instigator of the attention with some flirtacious behaviour. Often our anonymous female would try to garner the attention on her by doing something to get people to react, for example singing. I remember another instance in the pub where she sang, the men fawning over her to tell her how good she was. The two ladies present at the table merely looked at each other, with a glance which said "Aww the boy's are being polite - she really cannot sing." A later chat with the boys confirmed they were being nice due to the awkwardness of the situation. This is how I feel Mrs. Brick gets her male attention, by acting in such a way it demands attention for her own validation. And that is why she wrote her article - to garner the attention she so desperately needed.
I also have a strong suspicion that the anonymous woman I mentioned reads this blog. To her I say: look at the sheer amount of friends you have lost in the short time you were at university. I'd start to question why, but not what we have done, but what you have done to lose so many people as the common factor is you.
And so it doesn't come across as an attack on one woman I know, I also know plenty of girls who try to get a man's attention by playing dumb. Many women I know detest watching women do that and who have little respect for women who do - but that's another blog post :)
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