Being a Pick Me Girl

what it means to be beautiful

It started with ants. I was sitting in the sandpit with my sisters and my next door neighbour, Clark. I didn’t particularly like Clark. I found him obnoxious and loud; he said his Dad was so strong he could lift a car above his head, and I knew that wasn’t true, so he was also a liar. I didn’t have a crush on him, yet it came to be, that I found myself on a sunny afternoon buttering a thick slice of Wonder White, sticking it to the gravel and consuming at least 6 formic acid tasting ants in the ultimate ‘pick me girl’ act.

the ‘pick me girl’

The ‘pick me girl’ is ‘one of the boys’ and ‘not like other girls’ she rejects femininity by wearing trainers to prom and definitely doesn’t wear make-up, and of course she outdrinks and outeats all the boys (but still stays thin and hot duh). By rejecting beauty culture she performs it in the way she picks and chooses her mannerisms to cater to the appeal of men. The irony of the ‘pick me girl’ is that in her attempts to disengage with femininity and all that it represents — lip gloss, high heels and silk dresses, and align herself with ‘the boys’ — she plays right into the hands of the patriarchal system in a more insidious way by adjusting herself to suit their whims.

My ‘pick me’ vibes were so strong I wanted to be picked by boys that I didn’t even like. As far back as I can remember I wanted to be the girl that boys wanted. This made every girl my adversary. I would size them up in comparison to me. The more they had, the less I had, and the less I had, the less I felt.

What impact does that have on girls? If all their choices are being made to be ‘picked?’ What kind of clothes do you wear? Words do you use? Sex do you have? What do you give of your body? What do you give of yourself?

The ‘pick me girl’ isn’t really different from other girls; many girls unconsciously cater to the male gaze by seeking validation from men; the ‘pick me girl’ just gets bullied for it more on TikTok (she seems a bit more painful tbh). Because aren’t all women united in this? The woman in her 60s with the great skincare routine who is ‘aging gracefully’, the girl with the false lashes and fake tan, the millennial obsessively gua sha-ing her face every night, the entire Kardashian family… are we all just different types of ‘pick me girls’?