An open apology for judging other girls

Dear Ladies,

Part of growing up is learning from your mistakes, right? In order to learn from your mistakes, you have to realize that you’re making mistakes, and boy have I learned in the past few years that I spent a lot of time making the same mistake.

I am here to admit it; I’ve been that girl at the party. You know, the one who rolled her eyes when a girl walked in with what I thought to be a particularly short skirt, the one in a corner whispering, “Who invited her?” The one proudly proclaiming, “I’m not like other girls,” which, now looking back on that, I don’t even know what I meant by that. Who are these “other girls” and why did I act like I was better than them?

What I didn’t realize was that by being that judgmental, I was potentially hurting these ladies. If someone was wearing a short skirt, maybe they just felt great about themselves and wanted to own their awesomeness. Nothing wrong with that. Or maybe they dressed to get some attention that night. Also, nothing wrong with that. Deep down, all anyone wants is to feel validated somehow, like we matter to someone. In my own way, by proclaiming I’m not like other girls and judging their choices, I too was asking for attention. I was saying “Please notice me, I am a unique human, too!”

If I had realized that then, I wouldn’t have judged the girl who wore a shorter skirt than me; I would have paid attention to her. Maybe we both wanted the same validation. Plus, no one should be judged for wearing something that makes them feel great.

Growing up is hard and scrutiny from other people makes it even harder. If I could pass down one thing to younger girls, it’s that other girls aren’t your enemies. We aren’t all in a competition; instead we should love and protect each other rather than judge each other.

The more you focus on opening up your hearts to each other, the more friends you’ll end up making. Whether they are the five minute besties you meet in the line for a bar bathroom, or the kind that you see at the store who compliment you on your lipstick color and give you confidence for the day, or the kind you meet at a party and take a ton of selfies with, or the kind that you cherish for life. You know, the kind you share all of your thoughts with—both the deep stuff and the deeply weird stuff.

Your girlfriends are important. Not to say that your guy friends aren’t, fellas deserve a lot of cherishing too, especially my friends who put up with all of my shenanigans, but us ladies need to stick together more. I’ve learned so much once I stopped judging other girls so harshly—both about them and about myself. I think that if I had known that earlier, I would have spent a lot less time thinking I was alone growing up.

Since I’ve learned this, I’ve vowed to be a more accepting and open-minded person, and it’s a lot more fun—trust me on that one. I hope some of you reading this can do the same.

So I’m sorry to the girls I judged, the ones I talked about behind their backs, and the one whose feelings I hurt. If you’re out there and reading this, if you ever see me around town at a bar, come say hi and I’ll buy you a beer and give you a hug and we can finally be friends, because you’re awesome.

Xoxo,

Alexandra