Have you ever seen a seven-year-old girl catching lizards and opening them up to see how they looked inside or perhaps just for fun? Well, that little girl was me. I was raised with guys, so maybe what I am about to write may be biased, but hear me out. Perhaps, I see a side of guys a little different, but that is because I have seen it all, the good and the bad, and it may be time that we start appreciating both sides.
For this article, I asked several of my friends, both guys and girls, to describe guys in one single word. The results for this were somewhat expected, and they were not great., “deceiving”, “selfish”, “unorganized”, “hardheaded”, and the most popular one “players”. Funny enough, many of these words describe myself and many of the girls I know. I had girls give me answers in memes, and some even went ahead and gave me more than one word. So were these answers of girls with broken hearts, bad pasts, or just terrible guy friends?
We girls tend to portray ourselves as better than guys, which we are, but it's time that guys get credit for the effort they put in, and I am not just talking about boyfriends or husbands. As a girl that helps “coach” a fraternity’s football team, there are many new things I have learned. The first thing about having guy friends is that you never have to pay for food or drinks, this is not the same as taking advantage of them; guys just like to pay for things. This certainly does not mean that they have the upper hand, but trust me as a girl that loves food and has more than the money for it, its nice to save it up for even more food and have guys give it to us for free, if they love it then why shouldn’t we? I say start pilling the chicken wings up! Then I learned one of the most useful traits so far, to remain calm. When girls tend to find themselves in trouble or under pressure, we easily go into a state of stress and anxiety, but guy try to find quick and logical solutions. Its easy for girls to find themselves involved in fights with other girls, even best friends, so they tend to try to ease up tensions or advice the most logical thing you can do, talk to each other. I, like I’m sure many of you ladies, have found myself endlessly babbling to guys about pretty much anything, so maybe its time we appreciate them for all the listening.
Yet, on the other hand, the double standard appears. While having one of the flag football practices one day it started raining. Clearly when something like this happens guys are bound to take off their shirts, because really,, who could practice with a heavy soaking wet shirt? Yeah I did. If I would have taken my shirt off along with them and someone would have seen, then the talks and shaming would have stepped in. We live in the 21st century, yet many concepts still remain. There’s still the standard that girls need to cover up and that guys are the cheating pigs. Personally, I like to believe that both sides are equal, both sides need to hold themselves up to the same standards.
Maybe it's time that we start changing the way we look at males and females. Maybe its time that we truly stick to gender equality, to stop whispering behind walls when girls want to take their shirts off, to start recognizing that women too, cheat. Maybe its time that the good guy gets out of the friend zone so women can stop calling them “players”, because they don’t have anyone to play if we don’t let them. Maybe its time to stop this woman over men or men over women, because in reality we cannot have one without the other. Now, I’m not saying to go praise every male that crosses paths with you, but what I am saying is that the sooner we change our negative views on men, the sooner they themselves can change. There’s a saying that goes “you become what you think you are”, and if we let them think they are all these names we call them, then there’s not much hope left. In this constant battle of the sexes we seek to win, or at least to become equal, so ladies perhaps its time we buy a drink or text first, and guys maybe its time you let us.
