I shared my thoughts on performative men on Sept. 4, so now we’re going to dive into the female equivalent, or otherwise known as “pick-me girls”. 

“I’m not like other girls” is the token phrase for these pick me girls. It is a mindset that indicates the thought that these girls are better than others, and hearing this phrase as an outsider of the pick-me girl community is extremely daunting. 

We call them pick-me’s because their attitude toward men comes off like they’re waiting to be “picked” over other girls. 

One of the most common characteristics of pick-me girls is that they change their personalities dramatically in the presence of a man. This could be them talking about sports they don’t actually care about, downplaying her own femininity, and putting on a bravado that makes her look more fun and outgoing and interesting than other girls. 

If they’re spending time with a female friend and a boy shows up for whatever reason, be it a brother, a father, or another friend, they’ll usually get louder, and they start talking about topics they want the boy to hear about. Sometimes it even goes as far as making up complete lies just to gain attention from a man in the room. 

Changing your personality and conversation topics depending on who’s around is not an uncommon thing. I don’t talk to my mom the same way as I talk to my friends. I don’t talk to any of my teachers the same way I would talk to my siblings. It’s very natural to act differently depending on the audience due to varying attitudes to certain topics.

However, the personality change with pick me girls usually involves making other girls around her look bad in order to make herself look better in the eyes of the boy she’s trying to impress.

Intentionally making someone else look worse for your own benefit is wrong in any situation, but I think the reason behind it here simply being to impress a boy makes it worse. 

Being friends with a pick-me girl is like being in constant competition with your best friend. No matter where you are, they’re trying to make herself look smarter, more attractive, nicer, or funnier than you just for male attention. 

Most times they don’t even care whether the attention they’re getting is positive or negative. They thrive off of having people thinking about them, good or bad. They want nothing more than to be someone’s central focus.