I pick me.

Thoughts on internalized misogyny from a recovered pick me.

Ah the pick me. The internet’s favourite punching bag. For those not in the know ( i.e. my mum because she reads all my nonsense but I worry she may not understand some of it lol), a pick me is a derogatory term for a woman who seeks male validation, usually by distancing herself from feminine traits. ( the I’m not like other girls trope). Other pick me traits include being or pretending to be low maintenance and ‘cool’. ( Cool being a very specific brand of self neglect that we’ll get into that later) and putting other women down. Yeah, nasty stuff.

Recently, I’ve been grappling with the era in my life, circa my early 20s, when I unfortunately was very much a pick me. It’s deeply embarrassing and not on brand and I’m not proud of it. But I think it’s a canon event for most women lol. A huge part of that came from being a silly goose with low self esteem. I also had unfortunately internalized society’s notions that my worth as a human being was directly proportional to my ability to be picked by a man. ( Yeah I’m gagging too).

To understand how a rational self respecting woman such as myself ended up in this ghetto, it’s important to look at what it’s like growing up as a girl in this world. And a darkskinned one at that.

I never really thought much about my appearance growing up. Like most children, my focus was on play and the myriad little dramas of my little life. Also everyone in my family looked like me and they seemed to have no issues with their looks so I was ok with mine too. My looks were also never a thing because I was good at school and a self confessed tomboy who unbeknownst to her was struggling with internalized misogyny. So I took pride in not caring about my looks and girly things like clothes and makeup. I actually lowkey resented being a girl. Because even at a young age I could tell there was something undesirable about girlhood.

Comments like ‘don’t cry like a girl’ ‘wacha umama’ signaled to my young brain that being a girl or having girlish traits was embarrassing, a source of ridicule and contempt. And so I hid my girlness. I wore boy clothes and cut my hair. I abhorred dresses and skirts and the colour pink. I refused to play girl games and exclusively hang out with my brother and his friends. I was determined to not be like the other girls- delicate and emotional and boring. I was one of the boys; rough in my play and manners. Uninterested in my looks and in ‘behaving like a good girl’. Wholly embracing the patriarchal script that girlhood was undesirable. And believing that the more I distanced myself and proved my difference, the more likely I would be to be accepted.

I carried this deluded mindset into high school where it morphed into a different beast. Whereas in primary school your social capital came mainly from your prowess in school and at the various games and escapades of youth, now looks began to matter. And a particular look at that. I began to notice the kind of girls who got approached at funkies and taken on dates looked and acted nothing like me. It’s like the script changed overnight. Gone was the roughhousing of my youth. Being girly now was no longer taboo. The more soft and delicate you were, the more attention you got. The less opinionated and abrasive you were, the more boys liked you. The lighter and curvier you were and the better your hair was, the more desired you were. And to be desired by a boy was the ultimate goal.

By then I had had a thorough education from the media I consumed about where my worth lay as a woman- in being chosen and loved by a man. I needed to have someone run through an airport to declare their undying love for me, like they did in the romcoms. I needed to be ravaged and have a man fight for me, like they did in the Mills and Boons I read. Because otherwise what was the point of my existence if not to have a man obsessed with me? Any woman worth having had to have these experiences. And I was determined to be a woman worth having.

There was just one problem though. I didn’t look like any of these girls. The beauty standard then and now has always been light skinned, curvy with good hair. I’m the exact opposite. Darkskinned, straight up and down with unmanageable 4c hair. Features that I had blithely accepted my whole life now became a source of shame. The world did not care for how I looked and it had no qualms in telling me so, in a myriad of ways.

It was seeing the same casts of characters on every news station, tv show and billboard. Light skinned, ethnically ambiguous, straight haired. Characters hailed as the epitome of female beauty.

It was being offered bleaching creams and unsolicited advice on how to ‘manage’ my natural kinky hair.

It was being called ungrateful after rejecting a man, because he usually doesn’t date dark girls so I guess I was supposed to be thankful he was slumming it with me?

It was being categorized as the ‘smart girl’ because apparently I wasn’t allowed to be pretty and smart, not with my features anyway.

It was seeing the kind of girls guys went crazy for and knowing I didn’t measure up.

It was constantly being inundated with messaging about the ways in which society did not value my natural features.

It was feeling the deep exhaustion of hearing that colorism isn’t that deep and you shouldn’t care about what people think about you anyway.

It was being fetishized by white men who didn’t see me as a person and more a personification of their exotic jungle fantasies.

And many other experiences.

So there I was. Inundated with messaging that the way I was was not desirable, but being human, wanting to be desired all the same. And so I thought, ok, maybe if I can’t be the pretty girl maybe I can be the cool girl? You know the one who’s chill, who’s down for anything, always willing to subsume her needs for everyone else, always willing to go with flow. The one, as described by Gillian Flynn in Gone girl:

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be.

The most miserable years of my life were when I was trying to be a cool girl. A girl hell bent on twisting and shaping herself into whatever shape a man needed me to be. A girl with no boundaries and even less self esteem. A girl looking at everyone except herself to love her. I thought by being chill and low maintenance that would get me what I had always wanted- to be loved and chosen. Turns out all I got was trauma and a hefty therapist bill.

So being a cool girl didn’t really work out for me and society had already told me I wasn’t a pretty girl. And a nervous breakdown that completely derailed my life eventually left me unable to keep up the cool girl act. Plus I was sick and tired of pretending I had no needs. Sick and tired of letting people walk all over me. So I needed to be a new kind of girl. A more honest and true version of myself. Because the past versions weren’t working. And so the girl I settled on was the version I am today- just a girl. More or less free from a desire to be chosen. Because I choose myself each and everyday.

I think as women it’s easy to find ourselves searching everywhere outside ourselves for love and acceptance. But maybe that doesn’t need to be our story. Maybe a version exists where we wholeheartedly love ourselves and our lives. And we don’t give a fuck whether anyone chooses us. Because we choose ourselves.

I have spent more years than I am proud of centering my life around being chosen and wanted and frankly I’m sick of it. It’s so boring. And exhausting. And I have zero desire to live a boring exhausting life. Also I am exactly like other girls. Always will be. And I’m proud to be.

To remix that Meredith Grey quote- pick me. I pick me. Choose me. I choose me. Love me. I love me.

As always thanks for being here.

xx.