Posts Tagged ‘unhealthy relationships’

I Was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Wednesday, August 14th, 2013

By now, most of you have probably heard of the fairly common trope in today’s media of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. If not, then allow me to give you a brief breakdown: a girl, usually quirky/cool/unique in some way but also still pretty and feminine, is the sole savior and reason to live for the male protagonist. She’s not a character with any kind of depth or autonomy; she exists only to show the man that life isn’ta hopeless hellscape; it’s beautiful and full of meaning!

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Hopefully you already realize how damaging it is just from that description, but if not, let me tell you a little anecdote that will hopefully convince you beyond all reasonable doubt.

At one point in my life, I was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. This was back in high school, before I was even aware of what a MPDG was, and before I found it easy to say goodbye to people who were dragging me down and doing nothing for my development as a person. During this time, I had a series of dude friends who I became really close to in short amounts of time.

Everything always started out really great. We were all in that weird stage of life where you’re developing a solid sense of self-worth, but you still need other people to bolster it. I tried to give them as much encouragement as possible, because I just enjoyed making my friends happy. I was fun and quirky, they didn’t have a lot of female friends, and little by little, they would get attached.

Things always went downhill eventually. I had other friends, a boyfriend, a family, not to mention school and all of the baggage that comes with it. They didn’t care for that. They wanted one hundred percent of my attention devoted to them, 24/7. They said they “needed” me to be around them to be happy. They didn’t treat me like an individual with a life of my own; they treated me like a major subplot in their own stories, someone who was supposed to be around to help make sense of the world for them. It was entirely selfish. Even when I tried to cut things off, they wouldn’t let me. Their methods of keeping me around ranged from suicide threats to actual self harm. The only way I finally got away from them entirely was going to a different state for college.

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So yeah, maybe being a MPDG sounds cute and all when it’s in a movie, and maybe it doesn’t seem that harmful in the media, but once real boys start treating real girls like objects used to manufacture happiness, things can get ugly and hurtful.

To all my ladies out there: you don’t have to be anyone’s MPDG. You are probably cool and interesting and have plenty of things to offer the world, so why bother being anything but a main character in your own story? And to all the fellas, I know that girl may seem like the only thing that makes sense in this strange and scary world, but she doesn’t exist solely for your benefit. So don’t treat her like she does! Give her space, let her have a life, and I promise you will both end up much, much happier.

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Alex Ritter, NYU.

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Don’t Waste Your Time on People Who Don’t Deserve It

Friday, August 9th, 2013

In high school, I was the type of person who took on friendships as projects. I found people who were broken in some way, and I tried to piece them back together again. It never ended well. They always developed these enormous expectations, like I was supposed to focus all of my attention on them and only them, forsaking every other relationship I had just to make them feel better about themselves.

I wasted a lot of time on those people, thinking if I just gave them a little bit more of what they wanted, they would feel better and stop being so clingy. It didn’t work; it usually just made them more angry when I wasn’t available for them, to the point where they would get hostile and try to tear me down.

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Looking back now, I know how unhealthy those friendships were for me, and how much damage they did in the long run. Those people were selfish, thinking they were entitled to 100% of me just because I gave them the kind of attention no one else did. But, of course, hindsight is 20/20, and I didn’t think that way at the time. Even when I did realize things were getting out of hand and tried to cut it off, we were stuck in the same high school and the same town together. They found ways to continue trying to reel me in after I had explicitly told them to back off and leave me alone.

This isn’t something that’s particularly unique to my life. We all do it in some form or another. We all waste our time on people who, in the back part of our minds we try so hard to ignore, we know don’t deserve it. People who make us feel bad about who we are and the things we want to do in life. Everyone encounters it in some form or another, mostly when you’re young and impressionable and don’t know any better yet.

College presents a unique opportunity for these situations: you can cut someone out of your life, and never really have to worry about again. I’m sure that sounds cruel and cold, but i’m not suggesting you go on a Facebook cleaning rampage of anyone who ever looked at you kind of funny. It’s just that, in my opinion, your life should be filled with people who make you feel better about yourself, and who support you fully in whatever endeavors you choose to undertake. Surrounding yourself with negativity and unpleasantness is never going to make you a happier, better person, and isn’t that sort of the bottom line in life?

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I don’t like cutting people out of my life. I have given quite a few second and third chances to people, but even I have my limits. The truth of the matter is, there are some people who just don’t deserve your time and attention. There’s no point in wasting your time on people who, for lack of a better word, suck. The way I look at it is, if a relationship isn’t an improvement on my life without it, it’s not one I want to put time and effort into.

No one is entitled to you. You are a special snowflake, and the people you have in your life should think so, too.

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Alex Ritter, NYU.

Follow the Campus Clipper on Twitter and Like us on Facebook!

Interested in more deals for students? Sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter to get the latest in student discounts and promotions  and follow our Tumblr and Pinterest. For savings on-the-go, download our printable coupon e-book!

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