Tell me…is this woman clueless…or just a bitch?

Last weekend, one of our neighbors threw a beer-tasting party. It’s an annual event and he takes it quite seriously (clearing out his living room and setting up long tables and chairs for the organized tastings).

My close friend (I’ll call her Lucy) and her husband weren’t invited to the beer-tasting bash. So, the day before the party when another neighbor of ours (I’ll call her Betty) asked me whether or not Lucy was going to be there, I told her that she wasn’t. When asked why, I said that she hadn’t been invited.

Well, the day after the event, Betty saw Lucy at the park and said to her, “I was surprised not to see you at the party last night.”

Lucy wasn’t really sure how to respond (especially since I told her of my conversation with Betty two days before), so she just laughed it off (like a Cool Broad) and said, “Well, we typically don’t go to parties that we’re not invited to”.

When I recounted this conversation to my husband, he refused to believe that Betty would purposefully say something malicious. “She’s just clueless,” he said.

Well, being clueless is never an excuse for being uncool. Cool Broads don’t talk about parties they’ve been invited to or have recently attended with people who a) they aren’t sure have been invited to said party, or b) they didn’t see partying at said party; because they run the risk of making that person feel awkward if it turns out that they weren’t included.

At best - it’s bad form, and at worst - it’s being mean. Because Betty knew exactly what she was doing, I’d argue that she was being the latter.

When used by a woman to describe another woman, the word bitch means spiteful, hostile or unpleasant. Why do women feel the need to be mean to one another? Why is it that women seem to be each other’s harshest critics? Why did Betty feel the need to bring up the fact that Lucy wasn’t invited to a popular neighborhood event?

In my opinion, the two biggest reasons women tend to be bitches are;

1) jealousy/envy, and
2) low self-esteem.

Though closely related, jealousy and envy have distinct differences. Jealousy concerns something one has and is afraid of losing to someone (or something) else, while envy concerns something one does not have, and either she wants to acquire it, or she doesn’t want the other person to have it (this is often referred to as malicious envy).

An argument can be made that a little bit of envy or jealousy isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can keep us on our toes, make us more competitive, and render life more interesting or exciting (I’m never more motivated to keep up with my workouts at the gym than when my best friend shows up 5 lbs skinnier than the last time I saw her.)

And certainly there’s an evolutionary component to the need for jealousy as women learned that to lose their mate could result in the loss of the mate’s resources for her and her offspring. Survival of the fittest dictates that women are equipped with the ability to identify potential threats to their well being by being jealous when their mate shows interest in another female (or vice versa).

But even though we’re hard-wired to be jealous of other women, Cool Broads know how to control their outward manifestations of jealousy and envy toward others and maintain grace in every situation…always. (who knew I could sound so fancy)

People who are prone to jealousy often have problems with low self-esteem and feelings of insecurity. So when our parents told us that the nasty little girl at school teased us because she was either jealous or didn’t feel good about herself, they were telling the truth.

The difference between cool and uncool broads is this; Cool broads aren’t mean to other women because they feel bad about themselves - they go to therapy or buy a couple of self-help books to deal with their issues. (who knew I could be so unsympathetic)

How to deal with bitches

• Never retaliate…this will just make you appear bitchy.

• Never show weakness…act like you’re above the fray and that it doesn’t bother you when someone says something bitchy (laugh
  it off).

• Never take part in the bitchiness…if an uncool broad starts talking about someone else to you, the best thing to do is to immediately disengage from the conversation. If she’s gossiping about someone else, she probably does it about you.

• If you feel the need to confront the offender, do so in private…I tend to be nonconfrontational and my M.O. is just to ignore the petty, little bitch. However, if you feel the need to confront someone about her attitude problem, do it when nobody else is around. If she lacks self-esteem, calling her out in front of other people will only exacerbate her issues and make her feel attacked and vulnerable. This will only make the situation worse.

Here’s to making That Cool Broad a bitch-free zone!

~tcb

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