Dear Girls

Dear girls of Notre Dame and the world,

As most of you probably know, a few months ago, I wrote a brief epistle instructing the gentlemen of earth on what all they are doing wrong with their lives. You may have thought that the fairer sex was going to escape my letter-blogging wrath unscathed.

You were wrong.

That's right, ladies - you all could make some improvements, too. I've given some extensive thought to the (many) things that annoy me about my fellow females and done some research on what guys find annoying about us, and the following is a summation of my findings. Read, enjoy, and ladies, take some notes - you need to.

First, there is the issue of dress. If the fashion blog "Man Repeller" is any indication, there are a good number of trends in women's fashion that are not exactly attractive to the menfolk. For the most part, those are not what I'm here to discuss. There is one thing in particular, though, that is really just not okay. That thing is leggings worn as pants. This trend has been creeping up on us for several years now, but it seems to have really caught on lately. Leggings are not pants. They're just not. Yoga pants and sweatpants are similar to leggings on the "I'm a bum" scale, but note the word "pants" in their names. Were leggings acceptable to wear as pants, they would, I like to think, be called legpants. So long as they are not called legpants, pants they shall not be. I'll begrudgingly accept this trend under 2 and only 2 circumstances: 1) you are wearing your legging-pants with an extremely long shirt/extremely short dress, or 2) you are in your dorm/apartment/home with no intention of leaving. I understand that they are convenient with boots. I understand that they are comfortable. However, I also understand that the whole world can see every nook and cranny of the lower half of your body when you wear them - and none of us wants to.

My next set of issues, contributed by the gentlemen, can be summed up as follows: if it seems like something one of the Plastics would do in Mean Girls, don't do it. For starters, there is the issue of playing dumb. Acting less intelligent than you are in order to look cute or to get guys is not, in fact, a good way to do either of those things. Aaron Samuels didn't like it; my team of contributors doesn't like it; your fellow girls find it incredibly annoying; it's stupid. Idiocy is not an attractive characteristic, so don't go around pretending like it is. Secondly, there are these things called nice boys. (Hard to believe, I know.) My contributor team had a couple of these nice guys on it, and, on their behalf, I'd like to remind all the ladies that the nice guys deserve attention, too. When you find it hard to ignore the bad boys, remember: those hot tattoos are going to look extremely stupid in 60 years. Finally, forcing the fellas to constantly go on girl-oriented dates is, if you think about it, not only rude, but strange. If you've found a guy willing to go to Panera with you on a regular basis, it is only fair for you to go to Texas Roadhouse or [insert manly restaurant here] with him at least once in a while.

Next up is an issue I have with my fellow ladies. I don't think I have ever gone more than 24 hours without hearing some girl talk about how fat she is. I hate this for so many reasons. First of all, since we are at Notre Dame, where I am pretty much the only girl on campus whose dress size has 2 digits, the odds are good that you are not actually fat. Secondly, that being said, on behalf of actually-overweight people everywhere, I'd like to point out that it's fairly offensive when some 100-pound girl talks about how obese she is while there is an actual overweight person in the room. Finally, it's not the end of the world if you're a couple notches short of physical perfection! As someone who has never been thin, I can tell you right now that life can be pretty freakin' awesome without having the body of Adriana Lima. I'm not against people exercising to stay healthy, but it goes overboard sometimes. For instance, when I browse my friends' latest pins on Pinterest, I entirely-too-often come across pictures of airbrushed-to-errorless fitness models as "workout motivation." I hate to break it to you, ladies, but you're never going to look like them. Looking svelte in tight/skimpy workout clothes is their job. Your job is college. And maybe a night shift at Reckers. Very few (read: none) of my friends look like those Pinterest-y motivators, but very many (read: all) of my friends are, as Regina George once said, "like, really pretty." So stop the "I'm fat" crap, ladies. You're not fat. You're not ugly. Next time you say you are, I might just punch you - after which, you will actually be ugly for a few hours. You've been warned.

Finally, to bring in another complaint from the fellas, the same stuff that annoys us about guys, apparently annoys guys about us, too. Don't bore them with overly-lengthy conversations - their simple little minds just can't handle it. With the gents and in general, give honesty a try. Just say what's on your mind! If you like a guy, tell him. I know this is utterly terrifying, but honestly, the worst thing that could happen is finding out he doesn't like you back. (And considering you spend most of your free time sitting with your girls trying to figure out if your latest love interest a mutual one - don't deny it - it wouldn't be so bad to know for sure.) A little common sense with this goes a long way.

So ladies, you may consider the above your instruction manual on how to not suck. Hopefully you'll learn a few valuable lessons. And if all else fails, try to make yourself as much as possible like whoever the female equivalent of Ryan Gosling is. That will always work.

Love,
The Domerberry

P.S. For anyone who was curious, I got a date for the formal. So one last tip for you, ladies: if you need a date for something, just write a blog post begging for one! It totally works!