Odd Girl Speaks Out Read online

  By the time you get home, you know exactly what you are going to do. You walk in the house, put your bag down, grab a snack. You do the how-was-school-honey-it-was-fine-but-did-anything-special-happen-no-I-gotta-go-upstairs thing with your mom and get online. Your friend is on. You grab the keyboard, click on her screen name and type:

  "Are you mad at me?"

  It begins. For the next thirty minutes, the two of you are furiously typing back and forth.

  YOU3456: u really seem weird and i just want to know if i did anything to make u mad.

  HER1234: gawd don't worry stop being soooo sensitive!!!!!!!

  You sit in frozen silence, your fingertips tingling on the mouse, waiting.

  Waiting.

  HER1234: jk! :)

  The air in your lungs rushes out. You can breathe again.

  Fighting on IM is a huge mistake. Girls know this but they do it anyway. Ironically, the same reasons girls think it's a good idea are actually the reasons why it's a terrible idea.

  First, you can't see her face. This is good, you think, because you're afraid of saying something the wrong way. You're also nervous you might say something you don't mean. You're afraid she'll know you're angry at her. Now all you have to look at is a blinking box on a computer screen.

  But when all you see is a blinking box, you don't know what she means. And you don't know when she's angry. Since you're already nervous and probably a little paranoid, in the split second you have to interpret what she writes and reply, you decide that she's attacking you. You write back something mean, and the temperature gets turned up. Meanwhile, she's about to type "jk" or never meant anything mean in the first place. Too late for you, though.

  You can't hear her tone of voice. This is good, you think, because you don't have to experience her angry emotions. You can simply respond to the words on the screen. But you're nervous, even scared, about fighting. She says something like "stop being sensitive" and you totally lose it because you think it's the worst thing she's ever said to you. Unfortunately, you couldn't hear that she was just kidding.

  You don't have to have the fight by yourself. This is good, you think, because you can have your best friend with you (in cyberspace, on the phone, or in person) while you're going through the drama. She can give you advice and support. But behind that blinking box, your "friend" could be three or four people cutting and pasting your conversation to three other people, who send it on to their friends, and so on. If you slip up and say something that offends one of them, you may be in trouble with many more people than the girl you're IMing.

  The big myth is that you can control what you're going to say online. Yet you can't see the person, hear her tone of voice, or be sure it's safe to talk to her, so you're more likely to say things impulsively and carelessly, or just make comments that are misunderstood. I've yet to meet a girl who hasn't pressed "send" and then clapped her hand over her mouth and said, "Omigod."

  What can you do instead?

  For one thing, stop using the Internet as a way to express yourself. That doesn't mean you should stop writing down your feelings, but back in the old days, there used to be a thing called a pen. When you take the time to form the letters in your own handwriting, and when it takes longer than a millisecond to tell someone how you feel, a strange thing happens. You take more care with what you're saying. You get more time to cool off. You get to seal the envelope, sleep on it, then tear it open the next day and rewrite it. Writing by hand is the real way to control what you're saying.

  If you write better by typing, type the letter, then write it by hand. But if you e-mail it, you run the risk of having more than one person read it. You know what that could mean. If you must e-mail it, sleep on it, then read it again the next morning. I guarantee you will probably edit it. If you hit "send" right away, you'll likely wish you hadn't.

  If someone wants to get into it with you online, tell her you would love to talk with her but not via computer. Tell her you'll talk on the phone, in person, or through letters. Remember: It takes two to fight online. Instead, tell her you're worried that you won't be able to say the right thing online, or that you're better in person. Emphasize how open you are to what she has to say.

  Don't, don't, don't give out your password. Do you give out your locker combination? House key? Diary location? So why are you telling people how to break into your account? Because that's what a lot of girls will do when they get mad. Angry girls will hijack your screen name and send e-mails and IMs to guys acting like they are you. They will subscribe you to porn sites. They will enroll you in crazy spam schemes. They will send notes to other girls about things you never said. You can avoid that risk entirely by keeping your password to yourself, or at least changing it when you get in a fight with someone.

  IM and e-mail are like passing notes or writing on the bathroom wall. They are inadequate, impersonal tools of communication. When you have a problem with someone and need to resolve it, nothing will ever replace the experience of two open eyes and a firm, respectful voice.

  Listening: The Most Important Part of Talking

  When I wrote Odd Girl Out I spent a lot of time focusing on the trouble girls have voicing difficult feelings. The culture tells girls to be nice, and as a result, girls are fearful and anxious about conflict. They stay silent, get other girls to be on their side, or hold in their feelings until they explode with rage.

  But what about the girls who do express their feelings? When they speak, what happens?

  "They turn it around on me."

  "They bring up all this stuff from like a month ago and then suddenly it's all my fault and I end up apologizing."

  "They call me a bitch."

  "They walk away."

  The problem, I have learned, isn't just how we talk. It's also how we listen.

  Ask yourself this question, and be honest: How do you feel when someone comes up to you with a serious look on her face and says, "Um, can I talk to you for a second?" You know something's up, and it's not going to be good. Here's how I generally feel: panicked, afraid, and most of all, defensive.

  I get my claws up. I start wondering what she's going to say and how it's going to be wrong. By the time she opens her mouth to talk to me, I can barely hear her over the freaking out that's going on in my own head.

  She says, "When you told Jess about my dad losing his job, I felt really angry."

  I hear, "Boy, you have really messed up now. You are in huge trouble."

  She says, "I told you that information was private."

  I hear, "You really are a complete loser that screws up all the time. I can hardly believe I'm even friends with you. You totally suck."

  She says, "It's really hard when I feel like I can't trust you, or that you're going to tell my secrets to someone."

  I hear, "Seriously. I mean, why is anyone friends with you? I can't wait to tell everyone I know what you did."

  This scenario is all too common among girls. The fear of direct conflict drowns out reason and common sense, giving us a warped translation of reality. Other girls hear just fine and simply deny what they've done or change the subject to justify their behavior.

  Why do we do this? Here's one way of looking at it: If you're taught that being a good girl is the end-all, be-all of your girl life, the moment someone suggests you might have done something wrong is going to be a little nerve-racking. After all, the very center of your identity is threatened. It's no wonder many girls try so feverishly to deny they're anything but nice. Yet reacting with denial and defensiveness makes the situation worse. It makes the other person feel shut down, ignored, and invalidated. When the issue at hand cannot be discussed, the conflict escalates.

  The next time someone tries to talk to you, try following some of these "rules of engagement."

  Listen. In other words, don't talk. Let her say what she needs to. Don't jump in with "But I...," or "Well, you..." Bite your lip, breathe deeply, do whatever it takes—but let her finish. You'll get your chance
. Talking is most of what she needs to do.

  Stay with the issue. This is the most important part of listening. If she wants to talk about A, don't respond by bringing up B. Whatever she has done in the past doesn't count. If she's angry because she feels like you're competing with her, don't bring up the fact that she was competitive with you last year, or even last month. Here's why bringing up other issues is almost always off-limits.

  First, you're basically telling her that her feelings are invalid, she has no right to feel this way, and it doesn't matter what she thinks since there is clearly a reason why you were allowed to do what you did.

  Second, you make the conflict bigger and harder to solve. A fight over one issue is clear; a fight over two or three or four starts to get tricky. If there is always a reason why someone acted poorly, then there is never a reason why anyone should ever apologize. If you were the one wanting an apology, would you agree?

  Third, the more issues you bring into a fight, the more likely you will start to wonder about the relationship as a whole. It's sort of like this: "I thought we were just going to talk about this one thing, but we have so many problems, and the more we talk about them, the madder I get—I don't even understand why we bother being friends."

  Fourth, the more issues you bring into a conflict, the more people you're likely to involve. Let's face it: Most fights between girls are not one-on-one. As you revive more incidents from the past, you run the risk of inviting other girls to get involved all over again. You may end up walking away from the friend you're fighting with and call up someone else who was involved in an earlier issue. "Oh my god, can you believe she has the nerve to tell me Fm doing this when remember how she did that? Whatever!"

  Finally, if you take the conflict away from the issue your friend needs to talk about, she will never really feel like you heard her. If she doesn't feel heard, she'll probably hold a grudge. And what's the thing girls hate most about their relationships with other girls?

  "We never forget anything. Ever."

  If you don't feel listened to, you're certainly not going to forget, and why should you? If you respond to your friend's anger with three reasons why she really shouldn't be angry, or why she should be less angry, don't be surprised when she blows up at you the next time something small goes wrong.

  I'm not saying you should lie down and nod dumbly to everything she says. You're allowed to explain your actions, especially what motivated you. But don't allow your fear of her anger, or of your friendship ending, to take over. If you let fear rule you, you will start justifying your behavior.

  Apologize. And when you say you're sorry, mean you're sorry. Don't say, "I'm sorry you feel that way." That doesn't really mean anything except, "I'm sorry you're so sensitive that you have to get upset about such stupid things."

  Try not to say, "I didn't mean to. I really didn't"—at least, not without saying you're sorry, too. Even if your intent was not to be aggressive, the effect was what hurt. That's ultimately what counts. After all, if you didn't mean to, I guess you didn't really do anything wrong. Isn't that what you're saying?

  Say "I'm sorry." Period. Then press your lips together, no matter how hard it is, and be quiet. It's going to feel hard. So count to ten. Make a mental list of all the stuff you have to do. But stay quiet.

  By following these rules, you have a good shot at a healthy conflict. But remember that in this situation someone has approached you; when you seek out someone to apologize to, they're not always ready to hear it.

  Saying You're Sorry

  When it comes to apologies, some people say "I'm sorry" as often as looking in the mirror—in other words, way too often—and others say it about as many times as Halley's comet comes, which is once every seventy-six years.

  The girls who say "I'm sorry" all the time say the least about what happened to get them there in the first place. They say they're sorry as if it's a magic spell that will make all the bad feelings disappear. In reality, quick "I'm sorries" are Band-Aids. They may cover up the problem, but a grudge usually lingers. The friend who is annoyed today will be angry tomorrow.

  Girls tell me all the time that "we fight over the stupidest things. We create drama over nothing." The "I'm sorry" girls are partly to blame. If you haven't talked a conflict through, but instead smooth it over with a breathless "I'm sorry," it's not going to take much to set your friend off next time. It could be something totally ridiculous, like the way you looked at her in the mirror this morning. Or the fact that you were loud in study hall. Doesn't matter: If she's angry to begin with, she'll be looking at you with dark goggles. Stuff that didn't bother her before is going to now.

  The girls who don't apologize think saying you're sorry is about giving in, showing you're weak, and letting someone win.

  "Win what?" I asked a group of girls.

  "You know," they told me. "Win. The fight."

  "But what do you lose if you say you're sorry?"

  "You just lose."

  "Lose what?"

  "I don't know! You just do!" (This was usually followed by a really loud sigh, eye roll, or noise that's hard to spell out but kind of sounds like "ach!")

  Although they don't say it, girls who rarely apologize are afraid of losing friendships, status, or both. After all, most conflicts between girls aren't taking place one-on-one; usually they're three-on-six, or nine-on-twelve, plus a few moms and people on your buddy list.

  Many girls think saying they're sorry means the girl you're in a fight with—not to mention everyone on her side—has a right to drop you, dis you, or have power over you in some way. If you've got a posse on your side, you've got others to look out for besides yourself. If you "lose," they lose, too. That's a lot of pressure!

  Here's what's wrong with this picture: Whether girls say they're sorry all the time or rarely, they both make the same mistake—they think a friendship conflict happens in black and white. One side wins and the other side loses. One side apologizes, the other side is apologized to. One of you is guilty, the other's not.

  It'd be nice if things were that simple, but most of the time, they're just not.

  In most cases, both of you have something to own, or take responsibility for. The stuff girls fight over is rarely black and white; there are always things two people interpret differently, or "shades of gray." It's rare that someone is completely innocent.

  Even if you insist you did nothing, that you meant nothing, that it wasn't your intention to hurt her—that's not really the point. Sometimes you have to step back and ask yourself these questions:

  • Do you love your friend? (That is, when she's not driving you crazy.)

  • Do you care about how she feels?

  • Do you want to keep being her friend in the long run?

  If the answer is yes, it doesn't matter if you think you did nothing wrong. You can certainly explain that your intent was not to hurt her. But if she is hurt, you have to acknowledge your role in that. One of the secrets of mature friendship is sacrifice. Not blind, senseless sacrifice, but sacrifice for someone, for something—for your friendship. If she's hurt, that's what matters. Occasionally, you have to put her feelings first. Hopefully one day she'll do the same for you. Ask yourself: What's it really going to cost you to say you're sorry? Is it that big a deal?

  What's important is that your friend is hurting. If you're ready to resolve things, find her. Do not talk to anyone else about it. Do not get "advice." Do not talk to her friends. Just find her and get her alone. Tell her you want to talk. Use some of the questions on page 53 to guide you. Then apologize.

  Interviews with hundreds of girls had a major impact on my own friendships. I realized the girls' fears of direct conflict were no different than my own. After a lot of effort and reflection, I learned that what feels the hardest in a friendship often turns out, with practice, to be pretty easy, especially saying you're sorry. I used to anticipate major disasters if I took responsibility for my mistakes. Why would anyone want to be my friend
if I had done something really wrong? Amazingly, I found that most people apologized right back. Once I opened the door with my apology, I was almost always met halfway.

  Owning Up

  In Odd Girl Out, I wrote about bullying my friend Anne in ninth grade. When Anne and I met ten years later to talk about it, she helped me realize that I had been in denial about the terrible things I had done. I lied to myself and others about who I was: the kind of person who would never do such a mean thing.

  Of course, Anne had never forgotten. She described in precise detail what our group of friends had done to her, especially the effect it had had on her self-esteem. When I listened to her and then apologized, I believe I was able to give her some measure of peace, even a decade later.

  If you have done something you regret, it is never too late to make amends. Hurting someone doesn't make you a terrible person. Nobody, none of us, is nice all the time and to everyone. We all make mistakes. You can still be a good person even if you have done some bad things. I think of myself that way, and I hope other girls will, too. Telling the truth about the darker sides of being a girl is actually an important thing to do—an act of girl power. When you take responsibility for the things you've done wrong and still work at being a good person, you help show the world that the nicest girls are actually real, flawed people, not perfect plastic dolls.

  No matter how long ago it happened, you can always say you're sorry. Apologies never expire. You'll get a lot in return: You will walk away understanding yourself better and letting go of the secrets and shame so many girls are forced to hide. You'll find it easier to apologize in the everyday conflicts that arise in your life. Best of all, you will become a truer, more honest person in the process.