If you were to ask the media what female relationships were like, more often than not you would get a response along the lines of “thinly veiled antagonism.” If you were to ask girls you knew the same exact question, they would most likely answer in the same fashion. Some may even throw in a quote or two about how they prefer male friendships, because boys are “less complicated” and “nicer”. In fact, I feel like I may have uttered a phrase like that in the past. How could I not? No one wants to knowingly associate themselves with a toxic crowd, but to label female relationships as hazardous ones is extremely cruel. Consequently, I’d like to throw in my two cents and defy that stereotype. This past week, I encountered female kindness under a guise of anonymity in the most unexpected of places: the bathroom stall door.

The backside of bathroom stalls in public settings are usually adorned with mundane scribbles of bored past occupants, but this week I saw writings that were anything but trivial. In Sharpie black there was a scribble that read, “I want to be 99 pounds.” When I read this, I was slightly taken aback. I couldn’t imagine anyone ever saying that out loud. Although losing weight seems to be a constant on many people’s agendas, I couldn’t think of anyone who could say something so extreme without others assuring them that they were fine just the way they were.

Then, I started thinking about this even more deeply. What is the likelihood that girls went around assuring others that they were fine for the sake of saving face? I have had unfortunate experiences in the past where friendships with girls resulted in uncontrolled chaos and drama, so this didn’t seem impossible. Two-Faced Tiffany and Phony Phoebe aren’t strangers in a typical crowd, so how unlikely could it be that girls say nice things to make them appear “nice”? Could the media have really impacted my mentality in such a way that I doubted girls’ attempts at kindness? Shocked, I glanced back at the stall door and saw something that reignited my faith in my defaced sisterhood almost immediately: “Every healthy body is perfect. Be healthy and happy.”

I could feel a smile forming on my lips as I saw that other girls in different handwriting styles had added words like “Important!” and little smiley faces with arrows showing they supported the anonymous hero’s words. As I looked around the sides of the stalls, I noticed that comments of support and advice weren’t rare. The scribbles of support seemed to create a haphazard collage around me in the stall, and it filled me with an immense pride.

Although the media and unfortunate experiences in the past may pressure girls of all ages to be weary of their relationships with other girls, they should be reminded that stereotypes are usually unfounded. You may be disillusioned for a small while, but who knows? Perhaps your reassurance lies on the backside of a bathroom stall.