I am a grown-ass woman – 27 – and I am really into that boy band One Direction. My friends give me shit about this on a regular basis, and as a result, I live my life in a shame bubble and feel I can’t like a thing. They tell me it’s immature and stupid. I just think it’s fun. I’ve tried telling them this makes me feel terrible, but they don’t really listen. What do I do to get them to stop making me feel shitty about it?
One of the most important things I have learned in my long and illustrious career of supervillainy is that friends you cannot be yourself around are people you cannot invite out for a night of casual misanthropy, recruit to join your local league of evil, or tell your secret identity to. They are also people who may not even believe in your superpowers, or who honestly think there aren’t any in the whole world. What is the bloody point of people like this?
There is nothing embarrassing about enjoying the dulcet tones of young, attractive men singing about how badly they want you to “rock” them. In fact, I have just described the basic requirements for any consort I choose. Music is meant for winding down after a difficult day of infiltrating international drug smuggling rings in order to take them down, or uplifting you after a difficult battle with the arch-nemesis you keep sleeping with. It is, in a phrase, meant to make you happy. If your friends actively make you feel shitty about it, they do not deserve the pleasure of your company, or access to your weapons collection.
Punch the friends who are making you feel ashamed in the nose. If you are unused to throwing punches, use the heel of your hand so you don’t break something. Strike downward on the bridge of the nose, not up – you want to break their face, not kill them. This will set you up nicely for step two, which is: get some new goddamn friends.Â
I may have gotten too real too quickly, there. Let’s back up.
You say you’ve tried to talk to them. How have you done this? I find that bluntness and honesty go a long way in convincing someone that what you’re saying is, in fact, what you mean. I don’t recommend telling your friends to fuck off and die if what you really want is for them to change their behavior, telling them outright, “Hey, when you do this I get that you’re just taking the piss, but it makes me feel terrible,” might get you places that “Fuck off and die, jagweed,” won’t.
I recognize this can be hard. We live in a time of duplicity and, especially for women, being up front with your feelings can be see as… uncouth. Argumentative. Bitchy, even.
Fuck that, I say. Telling people what you need is the only way to ensure that you’re doing what you can to have your needs met. Telling people how you truly feel is the only way to ensure that you’re on the same page. And while there are better and worse ways to do this, the fact of the matter is that if your friends respond to your honest and earnest request that they knock this shit off with more mockery, they’re probably below the threshold of Acceptable Levels of Friend Douchebaggery, at least on this one thing. They’re probably lovely on other things. I have no idea, you’re writing to me about your shame cube re: nubile singing youths, not your personal Friendlympics.
Step three in this process is, of course, to kidnap the band and install them in your secret lair as your personal harem.* But that is a slightly more complicated matter.
With pride,A Supervillain
*I should mention you should only do this if they are willing. It’s important to practice good consent with your personal harem.
