The idea behind being a pick-me girl is to stand out amongst other women in order to gain male validation. Most times, the only way they are able to stand out is to shed some form of their femininity and even dignity just to please the heterosexual male. Their idea of being different from other women usually stems from their insecurity of not being chosen by a significant other; they decide to leave the crowd and become “a cool girl” and every man’s dream girl. Too cool to be like every other woman. Another sad thing about being a pick-me girl is that they usually displease themselves just to please the men; they do and say things they usually won’t, and they go against their own principles and morals with the hope of being different and favoured by the male gender.

&nbsp;I had a friend back at the university during my first year; she was really pretty and had a small stature – what people usually consider smallie- but she was insecure about her looks and body. Maybe being around me heightened her insecurity because I was a lot thicker, but I always considered her prettier than I was. When I noticed how insecure she was, I tried my possible best always to hype her up and make her feel good about herself, but I guess the fact that most of the times we went out, I always got approached by men made her feel less of herself. The worst part was that most of these guys were not even reasonable or worth it, and I made sure she always knew. She used to tease me about how proud I was because I had a big ass, and I should consider myself lucky that my body covered up for my lack of beauty. I used to consider it a joke, although I always felt slightly hurt whenever she said it. Before you asked, I did express how I felt, but she waved it off, accusing me of being over-sensitive to a joke.

I never mentioned it again, and she never flat-out made that same joke, but she dropped other forms of jokes here and there. At first, most of these jokes were made when it was just us, but slowly, she began to make them around other people, particularly guys. She’d say things like “na only bum bum Joy get, nothing dey her head” or “apart from bum bum Joy no get any other skill, not even cooking, I wonder how she won marry”, and she would usually say them when the boys she assumed liked me were present. Then she always backed up these unfortunate jokes by adding how good she was in being a wife material, how polite and submissive she was compared to me, who was rude because I had a mad body. To be sincere, I don’t know how I stayed friends with her for two years because she was hella mean and the real definition of a pick-me girl because this was somebody who claimed she hated cooking and doing all those wifely duties, but when she was in the midst of men she played the perfect wife material; it was utterly disgusting and diminishing.

The saddest and funniest part of this whole thing was that most of the guys found her weird and uncomfortable being around, and whenever they invited me out, they’d beg me not to bring her along. At first, I thought they were just being rude. I always argued with them and cut most of them off because of her. I even went as far as telling her what they said, and she would get pissed and tell me they just wanted to fuck me; that was why they didn’t want her around. Trust me to believe my supposed best friend. A lot of people actually warned me along the lines of our friendship, but I insisted that they didn’t know her as much as I did. It might have taken two years, but I’m glad I was strong enough to let go of that toxic relationship. People hardly talk about the pain of friendship betrayal, but it hurts much more than romantic relationships. What eventually broke the camel’s back was getting screenshots of a chat between her and my then-boyfriend. She tried so much to destroy my good name to him, telling him how I slept around, how I might have contracted STDs, how I was dirty and didn’t clean up properly. I felt so betrayed; I even reached out to my other male friends, who made it known that she also tried to tarnish my name around them. She told them similar things, adding that I wasn’t as smart as I seemed and that I was forming daddy’s princess, but I got my money from men. She also embarrassed herself by begging them for attention and sex.&nbsp; Ending things with her was tough. I cried so much; to this day, I don’t think I’ve cried as much as I did during that period.

The thing about being a pick-me girl, a guy’s girl, or a cool girl is that you eventually lose good women in your life. Standing out from womanhood in a negative light never works out; you turn out to be a mean girl, a nasty gossip, a backbiter, a snitch and many other nasty things. You end up attracting either the worst type of men or no man in general because, contrary to popular belief, good, responsible men actually like women with a mind of their own. If you try pleasing them with nasty gist about your supposed friend, they would never consider you with seriousness, and they would turn not just your friend but also you into a joke. To be frank, you often turn into an actual joke and become an easy target for all sorts of men.

In a nutshell, your idea to garner the attention of the male gender by setting yourself apart from not just other women but also your ethics, principles, and morals would definitely not get you the right guy. You’ll end up falling into the trap of misogynistic assholes and even rape apologists. So stand your ground, sister and embrace your womanhood because being the “cool girl” for men doesn’t guarantee that you will get the man.

Pick-me girls do their very best to support and please the male gender. Their notion of not being like other girls and being the cool girl always ends up with them betraying their friends and female society just to get "the man."

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