Mean Girls

For all of my life, I've been a girl's girl. I love makeup, nail polish, lovely perfume, and fancy shoes. New clothes make me as excited as someone who hears they are up for winning a car on the Price is Right. I have swooned over jewelry and handbags. Sports are something that I have learned about as I've gotten older and appreciate, but don't expect me to be having a beer (tastes like spoiled fizz to me) and gobbling down pizza (jackie warner would be so ashamed) while screaming at the tv. It's just not my style.

I mention this all because my tribe (aka my circle of friends) is mostly all female (most men don't want to sit around talking about Project Runway and why I am so deeply against Alex on Grey's Anatomy). I love my friends with every ounce of my being, but with an all female tribe, sometimes life gets a little hairy - to say the least.

One thing that men do that women don't (and that I'm highly envious of) is that men will come outright and tell you if they piss you off, have overstepped your bounds, or have broken one of the rules of The Man Code. They'll have a diplomatic discussion (most likely while watching or playing some sporting event) and that will be the end of it. If both parties still can't agree they will still play nice with each other, but will seek each other out to watch and play sporting events with less and less.

Women? Not so much. Women treat disagreements like warfare. There are secret lunches and shopping trips with allies to discuss the enemy's weaknesses (which can range from bad hair and sloppy dressing to chewing with her mouth open and bad parenting) and to plan a future plan of attack (ex: The next time I see her at the PTA meeting, I am so not going to say hello or sit by her. She knows what she did. How could she do that to me?!?!). Women need the reassurance of the rest of their tribe that what they did was right, and what the other person did was wrong. They get EVERYONE involved in a simple matter that could be resolved if both parties just sat down and talked to each other.

And giant disagreements? Forget about it! It's a no holds barred type of situation and that's when all of the real dirt (those secrets that you've been keeping for years) comes out to play. What's crazy though (we really should all have our heads checked) is that after we bring out the big guns and decimate our bond with that girl - we'll go running to her and reestablish our 'friendship' with her when one of the other members of the tribe do something to offend us. This not only causes great drama in the girl tribe, but also a vicious cycle riddled with vendettas, backstabbing, and paranoia.

I remember a lesson my father taught me long ago. He said, "three girls can never get together without one of them going home crying. Two girls? Fine. They'll play well with each other. Four girls? Great! No problemo! Three girls? No way! No how! Two girls will gang up on the third and it will always result in bad ju ju." He never let me have two girls over to our house at the same time. Never. I remember being so angry about it sometimes, but he was adamant - Never three girls together at once.

Now, as a woman who is perfectly capable of inviting as many people over as I want, I have learned over the years that my father was right. Sure, no one has EVER gone home crying and pouting, but there have been many kitchen secrets (you know, where two or more women huddle in the kitchen and talk smack on at least one woman in another room), pointed passive aggressive remarks, and obvious eye rolls and facial expressions.

WHY DO WE DO THIS TO OURSELVES?!?!?

Now I'm not saying that we should adopt all of the male gender's attributes (the world would be a very un color coordinated and physical place), but when it comes to public relations and handling disputes - I think women could take a page out of The Man Book. So ladies, the next time one of the women in your tribe tries talking shit on another member, just say "Have you tried talking to her about this? I'm not a judge and can't tell you what's right or wrong. Only you can decide what's right and wrong for you." and leave it at that. If she still presses to talk about it, then just start talking about the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy, NCIS, or Top Chef... That will get people thinking about other stuff. :)

Let's try to stop girl on girl violence, shall we?

Happy Saturday!

P.S. This isn't one of those posts that is stemming from any real place within my tribe (my tribe is pretty open and honest about things that are bothering them - in all honesty we kind of duke things out like men). To my tribe members - I love you and all of that. :) Don't know what I would do without you all. This is just coming from a place of things that I have observed and heard about happening in other people's tribes.