Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Women and men have more in common than you'd think at first glance. There is often talk about how men are constantly trying to compare penis size by making everything into a competition but I've recently noticed that women compete with each other as well. Though men may talk themselves up or use physical force to up their genital size in each other's presence, women use words to describe what is going on in their lives as a way of saying "I've got something better than you do" or by fishing for compliments.

The ones who fish for compliments do so to pump up their own self-esteem. This "Queen of Wands" comic from October 4th, 2004 gives an idea of how the fishing thing works. And fishing for compliments usually works no matter if the fisher is surrounded by men or women. In the movie "Mean Girls" there is one scene where the character of Regina George is saying how she thinks she is fat and there is a slight pause when she has to stare angrily at her friends until they stammer back that she's not fat at all. I've noticed that the women who hang around with groups of guys (the women who aren't there to be "one of the boys") are usually the kind who fish and almost all of the time they are successful with the bait. Perhaps the fish are blind?

As for the other sort of female competition, it can range from significant others to pets. The group of girls I've met at work all have this underlying competitive edge going and sometimes it rubs off on me. If one girl mentions something about her significant other it seems that the surrounding women must all have their input as well, even if the something said is negative. An example would be that my one friend, Amber, was locked out of her house one night a couple weeks ago because her boyfriend went out drinking after a funeral and didn't come home to unlock the door like he said he would (there's another story about why she didn't have her own key but it's not relevant here) and she was pissed off at him because he didn't even call her to let her know where he was so she was stuck sitting in her car until 3am. After she told that story a few of the other girls felt the need to jump in with "well one time my boyfriend did this..." Why? It jus enters this never-ending ring of comparing boyfriend stories with each other to figure out whose boyfriend is the dumbest or the sweetest, depending on what the opening topic was.

The above competition also happens with pets. I will admit to happily participating in this one as my baby boy is one of my favourite topics to gab about. Amber and I have started some weird new trend of bringing in pictures of our respective pets. She's got a picture of her two cats, Tiger & Boots, in her wallet and yesterday I brought in photos of Delta, Truffle and Mister Pfeffer.

**Breaking News**: I literally just found out that a guy I went to highschool with and was good friends with (though now we've drifted) is going to be a father to a real life human baby. His girlfriend is due in January. He'll be the first out of my friends to take an official step into adulthood. Too bad he's going to be dropping out of school in order to support this thing. Knowing someone personally who is going to be a parent in a few months is scary. Too scary.

*stupid link of the day* Who Should I Cheer For?: in case you can't make up your mind on who to root for in the FIFA World Cup this website may be able to help you out JeN's mind ejaculated @ 12:14 p.m. | | permalink