When I was a teenager, I experienced being made the object of a very cruel joke related to my lack of a love life.

It’s funny that I find myself remembering this lately, because at the time I thought that the boys who planned and executed it were idiots—relying on the distinctively shitty handwriting of one of their ringleaders was the major error—but there’s no mistaking that to a teenage girl who longed to have someone to call her own, who felt isolated and alienated within her own friend group, this was deeply hurtful. It stung to be treated as the butt of a joke, no less one to do with a part of my life that I was already super vulnerable about. Way to jam your finger into an open wound, make it bleed, and then pour salt all over it.

Around Valentines Day, to raise money, the student council at my high school sold roses which you could attach a note to, and send to someone in their homeroom class. Someone sent me one, which had never happened before, but it was a fake; one ringleader signed another’s name in his distinctive handwriting which I recognized because we’d been in the same classes for THREE FUCKING YEARS. And he’d signed yearbooks of mine in previous years. Did they think wanting love made me blind as well as stupid?

I sat there, looking down at this note, and this tainted flower—which these same cretins ended up using for a zine they called the black rose, being so enamoured of their prank—knowing that I was being watched for my reaction. Feeling put on display for the worst possible reason of all time. Singled out, in more ways than one.

It was one more slight that I was supposed to laugh off, shrug away, and act as if it didn’t bother me, by behaving with these classmates as if it was fine. I was cool with it and hey, we can still be friends.

Looking back at this, it was entirely the wrong response. I should never have spoken to any of these jerks again. I should have stood up for my own boundaries, but at the time I had none, thanks to the poor parenting I got on any of these things. I lived in an enmeshed household where there were no boundaries, and there was no encouragement to establish any, so I didn’t, and I suffered as a result. For too many years. Being held tighter to the bosom of my hopelessly small family was not enough to salve my boo-boos. Not by a long shot.

Someone treating you disrespectfully deserves an equal response. Unavailability. Not talking to them. Ignoring them when they attempt to engage with you. Some kind of limit that communicates the transgression of an important boundary. It should be clear they did you wrong, and you’re not about to shrug it off.

I reflect on this because it appears to me as if this isn’t something men are told they need to accept. They’re not expected to be nice no matter what, and indeed, many of them aren’t. Just try to politely decline their advances and see where that gets you; about half the time, you get called something nasty. A bitch. A cunt. You can add frigid or withholding to those, as they get thrown in for good measure sometimes. For a polite “no thank you,” delivered with all the deference of someone trying not to get mauled by a wild animal.

But women are told, from girlhood, to be nice. To submit, as if that’s our fate as women. Submit to poor treatment, or else someone might never be nice to you ever again. If they can see that you’re human, they’ve hurt you, and you push back, then you’ll be alone and friendless—worse, dateless—forever. The only way to maintain relationships is to accept being treated like shit. Oh, when that boy pulled your pigtails, he liked you! 

I can only say this: that shit makes me fucking angry as fuck. Fuck being nice for scraps. Fuck accepting shitty behaviour as if that’s all I should ever expect out of anyone, man or woman, because truthfully anyone who sees you accepting shitty behaviour eventually tries to run something similar past you to see if you’ll let it slide. And that includes other women. Friends, even.

Fuck being nice for scraps

And what’s worse: the feeling it burrows within you that somehow you’re not deserving of kindness. Of being treated like a human with feelings that deserve to be respected, not for any special reason, just because you exist. You take on all the negative feeling, but the people who hurt you never think twice about being unkind. They get to call you a shrew, or uptight, or whatever, because you got hurt by their selfish, inconsiderate behaviour. And even worse: somehow you accept that like it’s correct! 

Now it’s on you to forgive and forget something another person did without even thinking twice about it, else maybe they’d have stopped themselves. If they knew there were consequences. Because apparently being a kind and considerate person from the start is beyond some people.

Nah, fuck being nice. If someone has transgressed a boundary, let them know clearly that they’ve done so, let it be clear you expect some kind of apology, and then drop the fucking mic and leave. Establish boundaries with people, and never apologize for defending them with vigour. 

Take the apology, and forgive—for yourself, for your own peace—but don’t waste energy forgetting. If the other person wants you in their life, let them be so unfailingly and consistently kind that they take on the work of helping you forget their shitty behaviour by replacing it with much better behaviour. Or, never see them again. Not a loss for you.

Fuck being nice and ingratiating as a response to unkindness and disrespect. It gets you nowhere, and it eats away at your self respect and self worth. Turn your back and walk away and don’t waste a breath or a second thought on it.