Ode to the Nice Girls

Rant: Ode to the Nice girl
Date: 2005-11-27, 9:18PM EST

Ode to the Nice Girls
This rant was written because a nice girl finally snapped.


I've read the tribute to the nice guys; this is my response.

This is my tribute to the nice girls. To the nice girls who are overlooked, who become friends and nothing more, who spend hours fixating upon their looks and their personalities and their actions because it must be they that are doing something wrong. This is for the girls who don't give it up on the first date, who don't want to play mind games, who provide a comforting hug and a supportive audience for a story they've heard a thousand times. This is for the girls who understand that they aren't perfect and that the guys they're interested in aren't either, for the girls who flirt and laugh and worry and obsess over the slightest glance, whisper, touch, because somehow they are able to keep alive that hope that maybe... maybe this time he'll have understood. This is an homage to the girls who laugh loud and often, who are comfortable in skirts and sweats and combat boots, who care more than they should for guys who don't deserve their attention. This is for those girls who have been in the trenches, who have watched other girls time and time again fake up and make up and fuck up the guys in their lives without saying a word. This is for the girls who have been there from the beginning and have heard the trite words of advice, from "there are plenty of fish in the sea," to "time heals all wounds." This is to honor those girls who know that guys are just as scared as they are, who know that they deserve better, who are seeking to find it.

This is for the girls who have never been in love, but know that it's an experience that they don't want to miss out on. For the girls who have sought a night with friends and been greeted by a night of catcalling, rude comments and explicit invitations that they'd rather not have experienced. This is for the girls who have spent their weekends sitting on the sidelines of a beer pong tournament or a case race, or playing Florence Nightingale for a vomiting guy friend or a comatose crush, who have received a drunk phone call just before dawn from someone who doesn't care enough to invite them over but is still willing to pass out in their bed. This is for the girls who have left sad song lyrics in their away messages, who have tried to make someone understand through a subliminally appealing profile, who have time and time again dropped their male friend hint after hint after hint only to watch him chase after the first blonde girl in a skirt. This is for the girls who have been told that they're too good or too smart or too pretty, who have been given compliments as a way of breaking off a relationship, who have ever been told they are only wanted as a friend.

This one's for the girls who you can take home to mom, but won't because it's easier to sleep with a whore than foster a relationship; this is for the girls who have been led on by words and kisses and touches, all of which were either only true for the moment, or never real to begin with. This is for the girls who have allowed a guy into their head and heart and bed, only to discover that he's just not ready, he's just not over her, he's just not looking to be tied down; this is for the girls who believe the excuses because it's easier to believe that it's not that they don't want you, it's that they don't want anyone. This is for the girls who have had their hearts broken and their hopes dashed by someone too cavalier to have cared in the first place; this is for the nights spent dissecting every word and syllable and inflection in his speech, for the nights when you've returned home alone, for the nights when you've seen from across the room him leaning a little too close, or standing a little too near, or talking a little too softly for the girl he's with to be a random hookup. This is for the girls who have endured party after party in his presence, finally having realized that it wasn't that he didn't want a relationship: it was that he didn't want you. I honor you for the night his dog died or his grandmother died or his little brother crashed his car and you held him, thinking that if you only comforted him just right, or said the right words, or rubbed his back in the right way then perhaps he'd realize what it was that he already had. This is for the night you realized that it would never happen, and the sunrise you saw the next morning after failing to sleep.

This is for the "I really like you, so let's still be friends" comment after you read more into a situation than he ever intended; this is for never realizing that when you choose friends, you seldom choose those which make you cry yourself to sleep. This is for the hugs you've received from your female friends, for the nights they've reassured you that you are beautiful and intelligent and amazing and loyal and truly worthy of a great guy; this is for the despair you all felt as you sat in the aftermath of your tears, knowing that that night the only companionship you'd have was with a pillow and your teddy bear. This is for the girls who have been used and abused, who have endured what he was giving because at least he was giving something; this is for the stupidity of the nights we've believed that something was better than nothing, though his something was nothing we'd have ever wanted. This is for the girls who have been satisfied with too little and who have learned never to expect anything more: for the girls who don't think that they deserve more, because they've been conditioned for so long to accept the scraps thrown to them by guys.

This is what I don't understand. Men sit and question and whine that girls are only attracted to the mean guys, the guys who berate them and belittle them and don't appreciate them and don't want them; who use them for sex and think of little else than where their next conquest will be made. Men complain that they never meet nice girls, girls who are genuinely interested and compelling, who are intelligent and sweet and smart and beautiful; men despair that no good women want to share in their lives, that girls play mindgames, that girls love to keep them hanging. Yet, men, I ask you: were you to meet one of these genuinely interested, thrillingly compelling, interesting and intelligent and sweet and beautiful and smart girls, were you to give her your number and wait for her to call... and if you were to receive a call from her the next day and she, in her truthful, loyal, intelligent and straightforward nice girl fashion, were to tell you that she finds you intriguing and attractive and interesting and worth her time and perhaps material from which she could fashion a boyfriend, would you or would you not immediately call your friends to tell them of the "stalker chick" you'd met the night prior, who called you and wore her heart on her sleeve and told the truth? And would you, or would you not, refuse to make plans with her, speak with her, see her again, and once again return to the bar or club or party scene and search once more for this "nice girl" who you just cannot seem to find? Because therein lies the truth, guys: we nice girls are everywhere. But you're not looking for a nice girl. You're not looking for someone genuinely interested in your intramural basketball game, or your anatomy midterm grade, or that argument you keep having with your father; you're looking for a quick fix, a night when you can pretend to have a connection with another human being which is just as disposable as the condom you were using during it.

So don't say you're on the lookout for nice girls, guys, when you pass us up on every step you take. Sometimes we go undercover; sometimes we go in disguise: sometimes when that girl in the low cut shirt or the too tight miniskirt won't answer your catcalls, sometimes you're looking at a nice girl in whore's clothing - - we might say we like the attention, we might blush and giggle and turn back to our friends, but we're all thinking the same thing: "This isn't me. Tomorrow morning, I'll be wearing a teeshirt and flannel shorts, I'll have slept alone and I'll be making my hungover best friend breakfast. See through the disguise. See me." You never do. Why? Because you only see the exterior, you only see the slutty girl who welcomes those advances. You don't want the nice girl.. so don't say you're looking for a relationship: relationships take time and energy and intent, three things we're willing to extend - - but in return, we're looking for compassion and loyalty and trust, three things you never seem willing to express. Maybe nice guys finish last, but in the race they're running they're chasing after the whores and the sluts and the easy-targets... the nice girls are waiting at the finish line with water and towels and a congratulatory hug (and yes, if she's a nice girl and she likes you, the sweatiness probably won't matter), hoping against hope that maybe you'll realize that they're the ones that you want at the end of that silly race.

So maybe it won't last forever. Maybe some of those guys in that race will turn in their running shoes and make their way to the concession stand where we're waiting; however, until that happens, we still have each other, that silly race to watch, and all the chocolate we can eat (because what's a concession stand at a race without some chocolate?)

Sometimes the nice girl gets sick of waiting.

PostingID: 114087824


From The Best of Craigslist: Philadelphia [http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/phi/114087824.html] This is a take on one I originally posted in my first blog in April of 2005, and this was posted in November of 2005... not sure where the original one came from but this is somewhat plagiarized from that original one I found... but still, the point is true.

Summer Reading: "College Girl" by Patricia Weitz

I just finished reading on Monday the book "College Girl" by Patricia Weitz. "College Girl" is a relatively short book, only 326 pages, and I read through it relatively quickly as it only took me two or three sittings to complete. The book is sad and tumultuous, focusing on the senior year of Natalie Bloom. Bloom is finishing up her college years at University of Connecticut, having transferred in from a community college. To say that Bloom is smart is an understatement, if you only focus on her bookish nature. She has no life smarts. Coming from a blue collar, factory working household, Bloom does not fit in with the typical UConn student. As she tries to adjust to UConn life, she gets further and more distant with her own family, whom she has never had a good relationship with.

What disturbed me was how much I had in common with Bloom, maybe not socio-economically, but experiences-wise. I wish that some of the text wasn't so graphic, at times it read like a romance novel, but I am assuming Weitz thought that being so graphic would make you realize how heightened Bloom's senses were to every experience she went through. She went to college a virgin so of course she lost her virginity with the first guy who paid her any attention. He liked her in the beginning, but then things change, and you want to scream at her to MOVE ON, but of course she doesn't for pages and pages. Weitz writes with a lot of adjectives, very descriptive, which helps the reader figure out the season and climate of every scene in the text.

There was a lot I could relate to, which are a bit too personal on here, and some are way too relateable to even fathom seeing them in writing. I found it interesting how this read almost like a memoir, which I liked a lot.

Here is a quote that hit home for me:

"I like you," he'd said.

I recoiled, and Jack saw it.

"What?" he asked, alarmed. "Did I say something wrong?"

My instincts told me to reply, "No, of course not," but I ignored them. "Why," I forced myself to ask, "do you ... 'like' me?"

Instead of saying "I think you're cute," as Patrick had, or some other predictable line that really says nothing at all, he told me I was interesting. That may sound just as glib and pointless, but after Patrick had made me feel about as interesting as a steel-girded doorknob, I was relieved, and what's more, I believed him. He couldn't have cared less if I had read Ulysses or the Hundred Greatest Books Ever Written. He didn't care if I had acceptable bands like Nirvana in my music collection or embarassing ones like Wham! And it wasn't because Jack was a dimwit. He was extremely well-read - his mother was a professor of literature, and he was doing a double major in law and statistics. He was smart. He just didn't make me feel dumb, or uncertain. Ever.

Jack became my boyfriend. My first boyfriend. He was sweet and generous and romantic... but here's my dirty little secret: It was harder to be with him, in some ways, than it had been to be with Patrick. Being with someone who genuinely likes you poses certain challenges for someone uncomfortable with intimacy. I kept expecting him to see me for what I was and come to his senses. I kept expecting my own insecurities to rise up and ruin everything. I was quick to self-depricate and to urge him to do things without me, but he persisted and, slowly, I grew comfortable with him.

Comfortable was foreign, but good.


"College Girl" a novel. By Patricia Weitz. Riverhead Books, published by the Penguin Group: New York, 2008.

shattered

"Sitting With The Shattered Soul"

So how do you sit with a shattered soul?
Gently, with gracious and deep respect.
Patiently, for time stands still for the shattered, and
the momentum of healing will be slow at first.

With the tender strength that comes from an openness

To your own deepest wounding,
and to your own deepest healing.

Firmly, never wavering in the utmost conviction that
evil is powerful, but there is a good
that is more powerful still.

Stay connected to that goodness with all your being,
however it manifests itself to you.

Give freely. Take in abundantly.

Find your safety, your refuge, and go there as you need.

Words won't always come;
sometime there are no words
in the face of such tragic evil.

But in your own willingness to be with them,
they will hear you;
from soul to soul
they will hear that for which there are no words.

When you can, in your own time,
turn and face that deep chasm within.

Let go. Grieve, rage, shed.

-Steele, K. (1987).

Sitting with the shattered soul. Pilgrimage: Journal of personal exploration and psychotherapy, 15, 6, 19-25.

For support, talk to your partner, family, friends, an advocate at a sexual assault crisis center, or call the Virginia Family Violence & Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-838-8238(v/tty).


**FYI, this has nothing to do with PBF. This came WAY before PBF.