The “crazy girlfriend”
It is often portrayed in media this idea that most girls are crazy and guys shouldn’t fall for the “crazy girlfriend”. This is imaged as women who don’t like it when their boyfriends hang out with their friends, or who will start fights with them every day for briefly glancing at another woman. Then the boy who is dating this “crazy girlfriend” stumbles upon another girl he likes, one of those “not like other girls” girls. In gone girl, this girl is described as the “cool girl”. The cool girl is interested in stereotypically masculine interests, such as sports or cars, and mainly has male friends, but is insanely hot. Megan Fox in Transformers is an example of this.
This polarizing image of women in mainstream media, as either the “crazy girlfriend” or the “cool girl” has sprouted toxic behaviours from men, but especially for young woman. Every girl I know, myself included, has had a phase in their early or mid-teenage years surrounding this “tomboy” or “not like other girls” phase. Which has now evolved into the “not a crazy girlfriend” phase.
Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely some girlfriends who have very toxic tendencies and sprout toxic relationships. Personally, this desire to not be perceived as the “crazy girlfriend” has never historically been a struggle for me. That was until I entered a relationship where I felt genuinely and strongly in love. When I was in those past relationships I just told them I loved them, because that’s just what you do when you enter a relationship, and I assumed that I was in love because I enjoyed hanging out with them. So things they did never upset me because I never cared enough to be upset about them. I never believed people when they would say “Oh, you’ll just know when it’s love”. When you’re young, any time you have any slight attraction to someone, you assume that it’s love. But there is an indescribable difference, and it is true, that you will just know when it’s love, so this time, it was different.
Get Victoria’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
In this relationship I found myself getting more and more upset over the most minuscule things that wouldn’t upset me in past relationships. Simple things that I knew I shouldn’t rationally be mad or upset about, but I was unexplainably upset about it. For fear of being perceived as the “crazy girlfriend” I held my tongue, or even worse I had this pattern of pretending to be mad in a joking lighthearted way, when I was in fact actually mad. My boyfriend and I would sometimes joke around and be play mad to mock these toxic relationships. So I would use this to my advantage when I was actually mad, and play it off as a joke so that I wouldn’t have to show affection when I was upset, but he wouldn’t think I was actually upset because I was masking it as a joke. I am still actively trying to stop doing this because it is very toxic.
Sometimes, when I get upset and I know that I logically shouldn’t be, I’ll try to google ways in which I can stop being so clingy. All I find are articles about trusting my partner, and that I should increase my self-esteem if I am so scared that he will cheat on me. Let me make this clear that I trust my partner, I don’t think he would ever cheat on me, and I feel secure that he still likes me. So these articles never help.
For the past five years, I have been having this problem. A lot of the times when I feel certain emotions I start to feel bad about feeling them. My logical brain knows that these are things that I shouldn’t be upset about, but then my emotions kick in and I can’t help but feel sad or upset.
The journey of accepting that I am allowed to feel the way I feel has been a long one. A journey that I am actively still trying to work on, one that has taken me a long time. Sometimes I feel like I’ve progressed in reverse. Once I stop repeatedly saying the words “your feelings are valid and you are allowed to feel them” it’s like I forget it. Sometimes I wish I’d just tattoo it on my forehead so that I can see it every time I look in a mirror. I think the problem is that no matter how many times I repeat these words in my head, I’m not entirely sure that I believe them. I know that I shouldn’t be upset when my boyfriend is spending quality time with his family, but I get upset because he spends all hours of every day with them, and barely pays attention to me when we Facetime at night. Yet when these jealous feelings arise, I don’t fully allow myself to be upset about them because I tell myself that I shouldn’t be feeling them. I know that logically I shouldn’t be jealous that my partner has a close relationship with their family, but it does bother me because I feel like I’m always being pushed to the back.
When speaking to friends, I know many that will simply try to forget about what made them mad, until it would come up again, and then move on with their relationship, so as to not be labeled as the “crazy girlfriend”. The fact of the matter is, guys and girls alike, will be more upset about things that their partner does, when they are in love. Holding your tongue and not communicating what upsets you, will only make you unhappy with your relationship. This is something I am actively still trying to do, and it is hard. Continuously telling myself that no matter what I am feeling is valid, and it doesn’t make me crazy for feeling them, is something I’ve been trying to work on for the past three years. It is a process, and one I hope that we can all achieve.
