"Women want a ring that p*sses off other women"

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#31
I don't doubt that it happens, but it's a pretty sad way to live your life, IMO. Being envious or spiteful changes who you are, and makes you not appreciate the things you DO have. I am genuinely happy for both my friends and people here when they have things to reveal they are happy or proud about!

And it is utter nonsense to imagine that men don't indulge in the same feelings and behaviours. Women like to paint men as simple and assume that they do not gossip or become envious or stab one another in the back, but they do - just as much as women do. They just do it in different ways.

Again, the behaviour is not justified regardless of whether men do it, too, or not. But men are not the simpler, nicer, kinder people many women imagine them to be. Just like women, there are confident, happy and kind men and there are jealous, insecure and spiteful men. We all have the same emotions and feelings.
 
#32
It's an interesting debate...for me it isn't so competitive, I love staring at lovely items whether they be from people on the internet or my good friends. If someone I know is lucky enough to have beautiful items and can afford them, it's no skin off my back. Just how I feel personally about the issue.
 
#33
Interesting post and conversation. There is probably a grain of truth. Although an engagement ring is a symbol of your love, I never met an engaged girl who did not want her GIRLfriends to admire the ring. Not necessarily to one-up them or anything, but women do want other women to think they look nice and that they have nice things. Let face it, if we dressed for men, we'd all look like hooters waitresses or worse--just plain tacky.

I think in fact sometimes that a ring being a symbol of love makes girls more anxious that it be 'nice' inthe context of their circle of friends. If the ring is not admired, or worse, if people put it down (unbelievably cruel in my opinion), a girl can feel like its being said that her man doesn't love her enough. this sounds silly, but I do think a lot of women value the ring as a way of showing how much she is cared for (at least as much as, hopefully a little more than other women she knows).

'Nice' isn't necessarily bigger or expensive of course. Women can find all kinds of reasons why their ring is special and I think that's great!
 
#34
No offense to anyone on this thread, but what is this about hoping or being happy that old school acquaintances have put on weight or do not look as attractive as they did? fortunately, it has not been often, but I have met up with a couple of girls from high school who seemed or even said something to make it clear that they thought it would make life more fair if I would have gotten fat or stopped working at looking as attractive as I can (which is work after a certain age, definitely). I was never mean to them back then (often I tried to be nice, but they were sullen and unfriendly) and it seems to come out of nowhere! Frankly, it always makes me sad and I think their energy could be better spent working on looking attractive themselves! I think we need to get past whatever issues we had in school, we are not fourteen or fifteen anymore and hopefully with age have gotten more secure and happy with who we are so that we don't need to worry who else does or does not look attractive! It can't take something away from us if other people also look good or still look good.
JMHO
 
#36
black jade said:
No offense to anyone on this thread, but what is this about hoping or being happy that old school acquaintances have put on weight or do not look as attractive as they did? fortunately, it has not been often, but I have met up with a couple of girls from high school who seemed or even said something to make it clear that they thought it would make life more fair if I would have gotten fat or stopped working at looking as attractive as I can (which is work after a certain age, definitely). I was never mean to them back then (often I tried to be nice, but they were sullen and unfriendly) and it seems to come out of nowhere! Frankly, it always makes me sad and I think their energy could be better spent working on looking attractive themselves! I think we need to get past whatever issues we had in school, we are not fourteen or fifteen anymore and hopefully with age have gotten more secure and happy with who we are so that we don't need to worry who else does or does not look attractive! It can't take something away from us if other people also look good or still look good.
JMHO
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I was over a lot of things that happened to me in my youth, especially in regards to a few particular people, until I got to sit through a Weight Watchers meeting with 2 of the worst "tormenters" I grew up with recounting all the crap they did to me, despite loudly being asked to shut up or leave because they were disrupting the meeting, some of which happened in some cases 25 years ago. For example: we used to have skating parties after school. In the restroom, which didn't have a main door to close it, there were 3 stalls. One of which was really exposed to the whole place. I had to pee so I had to use it as it was the only one available. These two girls saw me go in and thought it might be funny to open the door. When they couldn't readily open it they pulled and climbed and tugged at it till it not only came off the hinges, but the walls supporting it came completely out of the wall. So I am sitting on the toilet with my pants down, needing to pull them up and wipe, with NO walls or door surrounding me, and 90 people staring in at me laughing, them included. This happened more than 20 years ago, and they are STILL mocking me for it. In public, in private, and any opportunity they get. So yes, I AM going to hope like hell that their lives are worse than mine and they are even less happy and secure with themselves than before, and rub all of my good fortune in their faces, because while I may have gotten over it and made myself better for it, they haven't and they still thrive on my reaction at the time to get them through their sad lives. I DO hope the worst for them because besides making fun of that and other incidents, I got to be called a fat loser IN A WEIGHT WATCHERS MEETING by other people who were not seeing the irony of the fact that despite their weight only being gained by birthing a child, they were still at weight watchers.

And maybe that makes me a lesser person, I don't care. They would be charged with crimes as juveniles for what they did to me had it happened now and that's just ONE incident mentioned above.

I worked EXTREMELY hard to get over the **** I was put through, and to put myself all the way through my masters, and to start businesses, and to make friends who actually wanted to be friends and not use me for whatever reason. And after all that crap I DO feel some entitlement to wallow in their misery.
 
#37
black jade said:
No offense to anyone on this thread, but what is this about hoping or being happy that old school acquaintances have put on weight or do not look as attractive as they did? fortunately, it has not been often, but I have met up with a couple of girls from high school who seemed or even said something to make it clear that they thought it would make life more fair if I would have gotten fat or stopped working at looking as attractive as I can (which is work after a certain age, definitely). I was never mean to them back then (often I tried to be nice, but they were sullen and unfriendly) and it seems to come out of nowhere! Frankly, it always makes me sad and I think their energy could be better spent working on looking attractive themselves! I think we need to get past whatever issues we had in school, we are not fourteen or fifteen anymore and hopefully with age have gotten more secure and happy with who we are so that we don't need to worry who else does or does not look attractive! It can't take something away from us if other people also look good or still look good.
JMHO
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I'm sorry for the comments they made, I agree it was out of place. I can't speak for everyone but I think each situation is different. In my case it was girls deliberately trying to be obnoxious and went out of thier way to make fun of my appearance. I was the only Asian girl in the school and puberty hit me much later than everyone else. So I had a lot of baby fat and they would purposely tell me how awkward I looked because I hadn't developed and would give me mean nicknames. At 12 or 13 it is a mentally torturous experience. I didnt provoke this at all and i think it was because I was the easy target. I don't purposely go and try to seek out these people so I can check on them, it's more random moments in passing.

I'm very happy and comfortable with myself and my life now and puberty eventually caught up with me. Had I never saw them, my life would have been the same.
 
#38
ame said:
I think he's partially right. I laughed out loud at that actually even though it's sad.

I can honestly admit that even 20 years later, I anxiously look forward to running into all the girls who treated me like crap in school and went out of their way to make me feel less than them and knowing that they are miserable in their lives and hate that they have nothing nice and have gotten fat. I like having nice rings, nice things and knowing I worked my ass off to get what I had and they got by on their looks and when their looks faded they settled on every aspect of their lives. They're still just as nasty and insecure as they were then that they had to abuse other people. I don't rub it in, but I feel a lot better knowing that what they did to me and others bit them back later in life.
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Like!;)
 
#39
Hi, newbie here! Just wanted to add a different perspective: I think, for me, it's more of trying to "fit in" and have what people would consider a nice ring. Not to make anyone else feel bad, just to feel "normal". Since I have two very distinct groups of people that I interact with, I actually struggled with whether my diamond would be too *big* at some times and whether other people would feel bad or jealous of me, or I would feel uncomfortable, etc. On the other hand, when I interact with the other group of people, I don't want to feel that I/my future FI couldn't afford something bigger. (BTW, The carat weights I was worried about were all between 1.5 and 2 carats--AND I have very big fingers!) At no point in the entire decision-making process did I wonder how to purposely make someone else feel bad. (I can't report on people's reactions to my ring-- YET-- b/c I am waiting for the day it gets to be permanently on my finger!)
 
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#40
I don't know if I necessarily agree with the OP's statement, for myself at least.

With respect to the other posts, I got teased a fair amount in junior high and high school a bit too. I was super shy and not really athletic. I've never really thought much about it until I saw your posts. It would be great to run into them years later and see them fat and ugly. Unfortunately, last I heard, one of my tormenters was a partner at a large law firm, the other is a well known film star. Seriously. She is almost 40 and never married, though. =)
 
#41
I found the comments from Denis Leary to be very humorous. As is the case with most jokes, the comments are only funny because we all know that there is an element of truth in them. If they weren't true, they wouldn't be funny.

I personally think that within most women there is a desire to be competitive with other women. Many of you have pointed out that this is not always malicious, but perhaps more of a "subconscious" instinct. I agree. Let's face it, many women dress more for other women than for men. Men don't care what your shoes look like, or what color your nails are, or that your bag has a certain logo on it. In fact, they would most likely prefer that you didn't have all of that stuff!

I personally don't feel like I am like the women in the quote, but I would be lying if I denied that a part of me is like this. I like the things that I have because they are beautiful and fit with my style. I like my engagement ring because it symbolizes my relationship with my husband. Regardless, I do find myself comparing what I have to others and I smile a little when I realize that I am lucky for what I have.

To sum it up, I think there is a difference between enjoying and being proud of what you have and making others, and especially friends, feel inferior. Most women either secretly or maybe not so secretly want others to admire and perhaps even covet what they have, which is fine and I must say a part of human nature, as long as it isn't taken to an extreme. Men do this too as many have already pointed out. My husband constantly points out other men who want to "race" to see who has the fastest car. I think this is stupid, but it is the equivalent to women and their accessories.
 
#42
No, IMHO. I am truly happy when people I love have things that I might consider nicer/better/bigger than what I have and I've never bought anything to "out do" something someone else has.

As for the ladies here, I love to drool over the goodies and I'm never pissed while I do it!!!!
 
#43
How about less weight snobbery here.

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To the topic, of course there's competitiveness in women, but a joke likes to exaggerate. Fine, it does this and we relate to the shred of authenticity in it. To me, though, a joke like this also expresses a certain anxiety about women.

Recycling old stereotypes about women serves to blow off steam in a time when women actually are achieving as never before, in high office throughout the world, in college in larger numbers than men, and sitting across the board table from the guys who chuckle at such jokes.
 
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