To My Fellow Women: Stop Worrying About Being Rude

Last night I was hanging out with my girl friends and my one friend was Snapchat messaging a guy. She has no interest in him but he has tried to hit on her a few times. He made a comment to her and she didn’t know what to say. So of course, like any typical girl would do, she asked us what to say.

I simply told her not to reply and she came back with the typical response that even I would give: “But I don’t want to be rude.”

I have to answer because I don’t want to be rude.

Hmm.

As women we feel an obligation to answer men, we feel like we owe it to them to respond because if not then we are being rude. But think to yourself for just a second how many men have ever not responded to you? Yeah…

You think they were sitting on the couch with their friends debating if it would be rude or not to answer your message? Hell no. They simply just decided to not answer.

Women are caring and kind and generous by nature. We WANT to make people feel included, we WANT to give love to people, even if it’s not romantic love, and we WANT to make people feel good and that would include responding to something someone said because we feel if we didn’t it would make us appear rude.

I’ve been in the position before where I’m talking to a guy and he said something that I found completely rude. Maybe I let him know how rude it was or maybe I didn’t but regardless I still kept answering and talking because I felt the need to be liked, which yes, is fucked up.

I’m a person who needs people to like me, even people who I don’t like and I’m not sure why. Outside validation is something that is important to me, I wish it wasn’t but it is. I wish saying to myself “damn girl, you look good today” was enough for me but it’s not, so I need someone else to say “damn girl, you look good today” in order to really feel it.

Wanting people to like you is human nature. It’s normal to want to be liked and admired, and I think that’s part of the problem.

We let people say things to us as women that we don’t always know how to respond to because we don’t want to be ‘rude’. But I think it’s time for that to change.

Lately, I started standing up for myself more. I realized it’s more important to stand up for my beliefs than allow some arrogant man to think he’s right and I’m wrong because I’m a woman.

I heard a male acquaintance make a joke about my girl friend’s weight and you know what she said? N O T H I N G. She said nothing. So I did, because sitting there wouldn’t be right. And the truth is I don’t care if I lost that acquaintance or not because someone like that isn’t someone I want in my life in the first place.

Standing up for yourself, ignoring a guy who says a comment that rubbed you the wrong way or speaking your mind even if you’re the only one who sees something wrong with the situation is NOT rude; it’s necessary.

Stop worrying about being rude because you don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, stop worrying about being rude because you don’t think what you have to say matters, stop worrying about being rude because you owe it to yourself to stick up for yourself.

Don’t answer that guy, you don’t owe him an explanation. Don’t allow you or your friends to be talked down to. Don’t think you don’t matter because you do.

Don’t worry about being rude and say what you need to say, or say nothing at all.