A few weeks ago, my roommate and I were hanging out when all of a sudden she said, “Oh my god. You have to take this quiz”. It was a BuzzFeed quiz titled, ‘How High Maintenance Are You Actually?’ and we both expected me to score extremely high. It had been an ongoing joke for the entire year: I’m a low(-ish) maintenance friend, a high maintenance girlfriend, and somewhat of a high maintenance person in general. My desk overflowing with hair products, Victoria’s Secret perfumes, and Sephora makeup can attest to that. But as the jokes kept pouring in, I had to wonder why being high maintenance was such a bad thing.
Growing up, our mothers all tell us to be with a guy who treats us like a princess, right? So why am I being shamed for finding a guy who actually treats me like one? Why is it so wrong to ask my boyfriend to drive me home after class or allow him to take me to nice dinners? More importantly, why do people assume that I force him to do those things?
In the past, I’ve had to explain to guys who liked me that I’m high maintenance. They all got frustrated and said that I was just telling them that so they’d back off. While that isn’t a complete lie, why should being high maintenance make a guy run away? Why is having a high maintenance girlfriend seen as a challenge when it should be seen as a reward?
Knowing you’re high maintenance means that you know what you need and you’re upfront about it. It means that you take care of yourself (mentally and physically) and don’t let anyone treat you poorly. If you sleep at a guy’s house on a Saturday night, you best bet that any high maintenance girl is going to make him drive her home in the morning. Being high maintenance means expecting people to meet your expectations, even if they are high, because those expectations are what make you you. That should always be okay.
Image sources: The Keep Calm-O-Matic, Giphy.