Standing up for yourself can often be a tricky thing for a girl. If you don’t, you’re seen as a pushover, and if you do, you can be seen as selfish and mean. It has taken me a long time to learn to balance this, and even now I am not perfect.
I’ve always been a pretty outspoken person, except when I need to be. I’m the loud mouth of my friend group — the one who actually has the guts to say things no one else would dare say even if it’s exactly what they were thinking at the time. I believe that’s why it comes as a surprise to most people when I tell them I’m not good at standing my ground and often give in during confrontations. I tend to just apologize and say I am wrong, even when I’m not. I have had to learn the hard way that even when you do this, it still does not make everything better. So what’s a gal to do? Lately I’ve come to realize it is better to stand your ground and have your opinion heard than to give in under pressure.
This is the part of my rant where I am supposed to make a big confession about how I stood up for my beliefs at some point, but I don’t have one. I am still waiting for that opportunity with hopes that I’m ready when the day comes. Instead, I have a story about how even though I didn’t stand up for myself and allowed the other person to “win,” I still lost several friendships in the end.
It was about a year ago, during the hectic time of re-signing leases. My roommate and I needed a third person to fill in a empty bedroom of our apartment. We had asked a few people and never got a straight answer from anyone, so on one of the last days we spontaneously signed with a friend who happened to be roommates with another friend. If we’re going to make a long story short here, they had never communicated living arrangements ahead of time, and now the second friend was mad at everybody for going behind her back. I got the blame for the entire situation. Instead of standing my ground and explaining that I did nothing wrong, I started to just apologize and suck up to her. The way I saw it, I would rather have a friendship than win a fight.
Looking back at it, maybe this girl would have respected me more if I had stood up to her. All I know now is this girl is never going to forgive me. She held her grudge and allowed it to ruin my friendship with her and all the other “friends” I had made because of her. I now wish I had stood up for myself better and told her my side of the story.
I think J.K. Rolling expressed it best when she said, “It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” I hope you’re able to learn the importance of standing up for yourself before it’s too late because there really is power that comes from it. Being able to stand your ground and stick to your word will provide you with loads of self-confience. Stay true to who you are and you’ll never go wrong, collegiettes!