ManicPixieDreamGirl.. and how to maybe survive being her friend..

This blog is probably going to cause some serious shit, and I'm sorry. Just know that I love you still, and maybe once you are done being mad.. you can see that.

I am (was) friends with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. You know those girls.. just picture every part ever played by big eyed Zooey Dechanel.. the kooky, cutesy, pseudo mystical, awkward, adorable dress twirler that makes men melt into people puddles. I didn't realize she was a MPDG for a long time, mostly because I didn't want to, the MPDG goes against everything I believe in, everything I stand for, everything I want. 

This type of girl (I can not call them women, they are far too little girly to be women) is manufactured to be a man's dream of the perfect woman, she is a sexually active adult wrapped up in a 5 yr olds attitude, with every thought and action directed to be pleasing to men. Everything the MPDG does is adorable, from the way she sneezes to shocking people with her potty mouth, she is the picture of flat out cute. 

Some don't realize what their persona conveys, they firmly believe (like my friend) that she is just being her quirky self, giggling over butterflies and exerting their belief in magic while playing video games all day in their cute jammies. These girls are clueless as to why any being with a penis flocks to her, shocked and befuddled when they get hit on every time they leave the house! They maintain that they just don't get it, but they absolutely revel in the attention, glowing with every turn down, and making little mu faces to their female friends because gosh.. I can't do anything without men wanting me. 

My friend is forever getting hit on, regardless of where we are, she got hit on at the zoo for fucks sake. It was an issue for me, not understanding, and her attitude really only made it worse. When I expressed frustration over being invisible when she was around, she stated that from then on she would make a serious effort to not look cute or anything when we went out (because I was obviously a troll and she had to work to be ugly and not get hit on) 

The MPDG is all about being wanted by as many men as possible, even the ones she doesn't want, because men wanting her makes her feel special. These are girls who must be wanted, must be seen as the muse, the object of desire, the utmost in rainbow glitter farting unicorn in a field of daisy fairies specialness.. or else they don't feel important at all. Everything is about them, even when it isn't. 

Last summer, I went through a dating assholes phase. At one point, my friend told me that she was just going to pretend to be mad at me so she didn't have to hear about it anymore, then wanted to know why I wasn't talking to her about stuff.  At the end of the summer, when I actually got my heart broken, she called me. Not to console or offer a shoulder to cry on, but to find out if I was mad at her because she encouraged me to open my heart and let people in. I was stunned. 

Manic Pixie Dream Girls don't really mean to be so self involved, they simply can't feel special if someone else is in the spotlight. Everything ultimately must be about them, because they survive on the attention of everyone else. MPDG's will create drama in order to gain attention, even when they are loudly claiming that they don't want any attention at all. There is never a down time with them, either you make them feel special and cherished, or they are going to push it till you do. The MPDG is a pro at passive aggressive behavior with their female peers, because they won't cause a scene in which they may be seen as anything other than the perfectly sweet victim of some other woman's jealousy.   

The good news is, most girls outgrow their Manic Pixie Dream Girl personality, blossoming into real and wonderful women. Why did I say real? I think that MPDG is a lot like Pinocchio, a hollow imitation of people, pretending to be something that they are not yet capable of being. I want to be around when my friend grows out of hers, I want to see her be the woman I KNOW is inside just waiting to be let out. She is surrounded by strong, brave, outspoken women.. and I believe (maybe naively) that she wants to be a real woman someday.

Negative Nancy..

During the course of a religious discussion the other day, I was informed that I was not really happy without god. Said accuser had at one time been a friend in real life as well as on FB, but unfriended me a few years ago because of her inability to see anything other than her own opinion and skewed ideas on how a woman's life should be lived. When I pointed out the fact that, as a christian person, she had been the first to turn away when we saw things differently, she decided to tell me that it had NOTHING to do with our opposite views but with my constant negative attitude.

Hmmmm.. oh really?

Ya'll know that I take those comments seriously, so, being me, I wondered if that was an accurate statement. I have spent the last 24ish hours going through my fb, looking for and counting the honestly negative posts.. all the way back to my very first days on facebook. What I found was a bit eye opening.

There were quite a few weight related negative posts, as well as men suck negative posts, because I was unhappy with both of those aspects of my life. When I weighed (haha) those rantings against the VAST quantity of other day in the life posts however, the number was actually incredibly small. In fact, the bulk of them were from June 2011-Dec 2012.

This was also the time frame that old friend and I both reconnected and stopped being friends again.

What was going on in my life that made me so negative for a year and a half? Oh yea.. I remember!

I had been cheated on by my fiance, kicked out of our home so he could move his new girlfriend and her kids in, lost my condo because no one living in it would work and help me pay for it, ballooned to almost 300 lbs, was abandoned by my married best friend because I kissed a guy she could never have, and generally WAS miserable.

 I was also attending church, trying to immerse myself in the feeling of love and community I had been promised.. a feeling that did not exist btw. At church I was snubbed because I was not married, I was belittled because I dared question a male teachers interpretation of the bible, and was finally shut out by the bishop because I refused to join the singles groups and find a man.

Was I unhappy because I didn't have god? No.. I didn't have anything.. that's why I was unhappy. God didn't comfort me when I had no one, god didn't lift me up so I could heal, god didn't whisper to me in the dark and give me the strength to get out of bed every day.. god was just as absent as every other human being (the ones I had not grown in my own body excluded) I had loved.

So I made some changes. I found and cultivated friendships with people who were not insane whore bags, I stopped beating myself up for the mistakes I made in my failed relationship, I channeled that anger and disappointment and hurt and fear into making myself a better person than I had been for a little while, and in making sure that I was never so low again that someone like my best friend or my fiance or god could make me miserable. I realized I had put my faith, for a brief time, in things that really were pretend.

It was after I did all this that I was able to look at my life with a clear view, and I realized I had put my faith, for a brief time, in things that really were pretend. In my time of greatest need, I truly had stood alone.

I guess, in some ways, my old friend was right. I had been negative. With good reason, reasons that any real friend would have tried to help me overcome, but negative nonetheless. However, not having god in my life was not what made me unhappy. It was life that made me negative, and even then, it was only for a very small amount of time.

Leaving my childish belief in fairy tales behind has, in fact, given me purpose and an intense happiness! I am an honest and good human being, because that's what we all should be. Not for a reward after we die, but for the reward of not being an asshole while we are alive! Believe in what you must, but understand this please.. my life is better because I made it better, no one else. I am not ever unhappy because I lack a belief in, or relationship with, a thing called god. I am sometimes unhappy because life can suck, but that's all part of actually living one.

To my old friend.. yes, I was negative. You did not stop being my friend because of it. You stopped being my friend the moment I said that I did not believe in your god, or the arbitrary rules of your religion. Be honest next time ok, you god fearing christian woman. This atheist will be. To everyone else.. if I for real start being a negative nancy, tell me.. or better yet, ask me why and give a shit about the answer.