“They’d be those kind of women who only have friends who are uglier than they are. You know those women?” I asked.
“I thought pretty much all women were like that,” my husband said.
“No they’re not. I’m not like that. Hmm,” I said, challenged to think about it. “My friends are always… they’re distinctive. I always choose people who are singular and the men who like them, like them. However, when I was single I always wound up running with women who had taste opposite mine.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Invariably my friend always liked skinny blond nen. You know… hippies. Men who look like Tom Petty who is just gross. Of course I liked short-haired, dark-haired men so there was never a conflict. We could divide the room like that.”
He laughed.
“Yeah, this was always the case. Even when I ran the with Ben, this was the case. Ben and I have very similar energy but a man is either gay or he is not so there again, we could divide the room. I never made friends with someone I would have to compete with, this is true but for different reasons.”
“I see, P.”
“Yeah, none of this we like the same kind of men but I-saw-him-first bullshit. I think my way is much smarter. I never had to run over my friend to get a man and she never had to run over me. Blond? There is one for you. Dark-haired? I am going after that. And then we’d run interference for each other, see? ”
“Okay, P,” he said with a chuckle.
“So that is how I handled this when single and when I have been partnered, that means I have a man I want, my friend has a man she wants and that’s that. It doesn’t matter what she looks like because there is no swapping. You have yours and I have mine. I keep my man and she keeps hers. If she doesn’t like her man she can get another one, but not mine. You see? I have never had to compete with another woman for a man because of this. This is my way.”
He snorted.
“I figured this out when I was 14,” I said. “It has always been this way. Even my roommates back when we were kids. One of them liked black men and the other was church-y. She wanted someone all religious and that was not my kind. You were my kind.”
He snorted again.
“Oh, come on. I know you like it that I’m like this.”
“P, I have always enjoyed every aspect of your thinking.” (Venus in Gemini)
On that, we said good night.
Do you compete with other women?
45 Responses to “Competition Among Women Chasing Men”
No, never. I was always really shy about meeting and flirting with men. I mean I can be really chatty and flirty if I know they’re interested but unless that’s clear no way would I approach them. Men who aren’t 100% available just don’t exist in that realm for me.
A friend and I had this conversation. It went:
Me: “How weird. Some guy just asked me if I wanted to be in a three some with him and his girlfriend.”
Her:”How’d they pick you? Not that I think you’re not attractive…”
Me:”I guess she picked me. I said no, of course.”
Her: “HAHAH! She totally thinks you’re uglier than she is!”
Me: “WHAT?”
Her: “Yeah. She thinks you’re “safe”. She’s only doing this to please her boyfriend and she picked you because she’s not threatened by you.”
STRANGEST conversation I’ve had in a while.
nope – i’ve had at least a few losses to my friends. no one that i really cared about though. i would definitely try to avoid being friends with someone who’d go after someone i really really cared about. i guess my choice of women (or men) has been very good cause that’s never happened to me.
on a separate note, i know the kind you’re speaking of…the kind who can only be friends with people less attractive than her. she’s also an evil witch. what’s the psychoanalysis on that. simple insecurity?
Oh, “they” have said that about me, too. I’m on the tall side and considered conventionally cute, but my best female friends have always been shorter and more robust. I don’t seek them out to make me look good; it just so happens that we attract each other and they have the finest brains and personalities ever – I just fell in love with them. I have never competed with them or used them as a foil to make me look better – when you’re secure with who you are, you don’t need that. The men who like them don’t like me anyway and vice versa, but you know, if their men came onto me, it would only serve to weed them out for my friends’ sakes.
NO!
My girlfriends are my family. Er, more so than my biological family. I would rather die than play games with the women I love.
No I would hate that. A friend and I had very different types, but there was one cross over man we both noticed. However, I saw her notice him, and then look at me to see if I had as well, so I just pretended I hadn’t. It’s not worth it, and besides that, she’s older, so that’s something else I thought. Perhaps it’s because I’m the oldest in my family, I think age should win out here and there!
If I do, I’m really bad at it lol
Never. I’m for you not against you.
I’d never even heard about this tactic until a few years ago when I heard about someone using it. And she is super, super insecure and bitter about pretty much everything. Also into one-upmanship, and very, very self-centered.
I’ve been in situations like dolce, though, and it’s kind of been understood that either you back off, or ‘lose’ gracefully…after the initial flirting, you see how the game is going and if you lose you’re happy if your friend is happy, and it just means that it wasn’t meant to be!
I grew up being compared with other women continuously. I still am by my mother. I most often feel I fall short of almost everyone, because most women are beautiful in some way.
My good friends have always been incredibly beautiful women.
My sister: “I only married men 6’4″ or taller, I like tall. thin men. We always had different tastes in men too.”
All my friends are prettier than I am. I think it must be Libra liking their surroundings to be beautiful. 
We used to have a game. Whoever was out for the night would pick a guy who they thought was cute. The goal would be to find a guy we all agreed upon. We never could. It was funny how divergent all of our tastes are.
I did have a girlfriend who was always kind of threatened by me – asking if I thought her guy was cute. I always thought they were the dumb all american type. I much prefer my men strange. 
And no, many of my girlfriends are much more beautiful than I. Although I will say that I haven’t had any friends who have gone after the same type of guy as I do.
I don’t consciously try to compete with other women (I will readily admit that I feel insecure if that is the case), but I’ve had a lot of women try to compete with me. I initially feel stronger affinities with women than with men, so unless I just get a death vibe from her, I’m always trying to be nice to women around me and make friends. Then if it turns out that she’s a woman who doesn’t like women, it always feels shocking and hurtful somehow.
As for the making uglier friends thing, an advertising company in Israel recently did a disgusting ad campaign for Bacardi aimed at women that was totally exploiting this idea, but it was just shockingly offensive on so many levels. It’s crazy that they think most women operate this way, when actually I’ve met more men who will choose a friend who is uglier and dorkier than they are that they can keep around to feel better about themselves.
used to. tried to avoid it but i ran with a couple who had the same taste which made room for some stupid drama. not that i was innocent, mind you, but i didn’t go out of my way to create it past junior high… whereas some do…
(couple of women)
Now that I think about it, I have never liked my sister’s, or my friends taste in men. My sister likes hippies! The last new boyfriend that was introduced to me by a girlfriend made me think, ‘ he looks like a gay train conductor’….not that there’s anything wrong with either gayness or train conducting, the two things together in her new man were unexpected and odd. He had a very very very well maintained beard shaved into a distinct line, and a blue floppy hat circa 1974. She adores him. Great! Who cares what I think.
Now i understand why my mom beating.
My daughters never fight.
No , I don’t compete with women, and offcourse not my girlfriends. We sometimes have the same taste , and there is never a problem telling my friends I think their partner is hot, smart ,funny ect….because none of us would go there, and I don’t know but there is no envy for eachothers lives ..We have discussed this ,and none of us would switch.
@luci- I don’t like the way you friend put that , and it’s not because she offended ur looks ,and I am not just trying to make you feel good but ur friend makes it sound like this was only the guys idea, that the girl just reluctantly said yeah to please him. And that is underminding female sexuality. I think you attracted her , because it’s almost impossible to be intimate with someone you don’t like . So I call bullshit on what your friend said .
It doesn’t arise because I never go out with other women, except to the races, and we are not on the pull! In my London life there was a certain amount of competition for available men, but as we all had pretty different taste I can’t remember any serious problems. Men pull where they will, and I go along with that!
There was more of a problem when I was ‘college age’, more of a feeling of competition, but again there were plenty of men to go around and on the whole we didn’t fancy the same ones. My only real memory of that sort of conflict was when I was travelling round Morocco and Spain with my best friend during the ‘long vacation’ – we were 21 – and we both fancied the same guy met en route. He was dark and romantic and slender with jet black curly hair, an American… he preferred me… it was very uncomfortable, and caused a bit of a catfight. I should have said no, but I was young, horny and insecure. It was only a fling on the way, and we got over it easily enough.
I’ve had much more of a problem with women thinking I’ve had their men when I haven’t. I’ve lost two friends of long standing in that way, and the irony is I didn’t even fancy these guys! – not that I’d have done anything about it if I had, and they both tried hard enough. I *like* men, and they like me. I guess my friends thought, since I was known often enough to go with men I found attractive, that I must find their swains irresistible and didn’t resist! It still makes me sad.
No. They compete with me.
My friends are far more prettier than me.
No woman should compete with another woman, any man that makes you compete with someone else it’s not worthy.
This resonates well with me.During my life I’ve had many close relathionships with persons of the same sex.Alot of my friends were very attractive.It worked out well for me,As we were quite popular.I’d allow their beauty to attract a score of men/boys into our circle.I never thought of myself as beautiful,but apparently my personality/style(?)helped me out.because i almost always had takers.for the most part,my friend’s and i had different taste in men.So competition wasn’t an issue.
“a man is either gay or he is not”
is this completely true? besides the bisexuality/transgender issues… there’s also the gay man who thinks he’s straight!
For Ben and I it was. We worked together, had similar energy and similar tastes.
We literally would see a man we both liked and would parade by and see who caught his interest. ::smiles:: We had a lot of fun with this and not once was the vote split.
I haven’t had to compete with anyone because my taste in guys differs too much from my friends. I’m not the prettiest of my friends, but I am the least sought after, which is great. Too much attention makes me nervous haha. Then again, my best friend throughout high school was a Scorpio..
I feel like I do all the time. I feel like I have to. For me it seems that I like what I like very specifically and my girl friends like everything so they’re all fair game- even if one of them is mine.
And it doesn’t stop with men. We compete about everything.
I don’t feel comfortable with those kind of women and undercurrents around me. I was friends with a guy and his new girlfriend was constantly inferring that I was in love with him and so stupidly insecure that I just stopped being around both of them altogether. I’m way past that crap.
I had a friend, small, blonde, Dutch, who was a real flirt. She always had men wanting her, and there was this unspoken agreement that I could only hang with her, if she got all the male attention. For many years it was ok, men scared me, and it was an interesting phenomenon to watch. Well, on the last get together we had, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, we spent about 3 hours talking about her, then I got about 10-15 minutes of her time, at which point we had to go back to talking about her. At the end of the hike, we stopped to get a bite to eat. An older couple sat down next to us, the gentleman was on my side of the table, and we started talking about art, leaving my friend to talk to the wife. Well, that was the last time we ever spent any time together. On my end, it was just too obvious that there was a total imbalance in terms of who got all the time within our friendship (I had been seeing it for years, but kept holding on). For her, the fact that once I got the male attention (ok, I’m aging a lot better than she is), was enough to end the friendship.
I’m not interested in competing for a man… if I don’t hold his interest, all by myself – just being me, then it isn’t worth it.
My best friends are male. But with my girlfriends, there’s no need to compete because I am the only one who prefers older men. And if I go for someone my age, it’s always someone who no-one else is interested in. This is good because I can’t be arsed to have a petty fight over men.
With my sister there’s somewhat of a competition though. It’s not that we see a man and we’re both interested in him, rather a lot of men are interested in both of us.
I am the most competitive person in the world but for men? NNNNoooooo way. Among trillions of other reasons, their egos are big enough and need absolutely no help getting further puffed over ladies fighting for them! (And I say that with love, I really do.)
Women who do this are not my style and since I always go for the most esoteric guy in the room, it’s rarely an issue anyway; no one I know has the same taste as I do (which is maybe why I don’t and never have hung w/fellow Aquarians!) I had one friend recently who was so blatant about this, though, it made me almost sad. We’d be out having drinks or whatever and chilling and then the guy bartender (or waiter or basically anyone of the male gender) would happen along and I would get immediately benched from the convo as she rushed to flirt, bat the eyelashes, giggle, etc. My first reaction: my friend just got bodysnatched by an alien; what happened to her? My second: honey, no competition here, if I wanted that man you’d know it, you’d have no say in the matter and there wouldn’t BE any competition about it so just eat your dinner and let’s get back to our conversation, m’kay?
Weird, I’ve never heard about women consciously choosing less attractive women to befriend in an effort to make themselves look better by comparison. How the hell does that even work in real life? I have a close circle of friends–known them since high school–and they all pretty much look like me (we share an ethnic heritage of olive skin, dark hair & eyes, petite figures). I don’t recall us ever competing for the same guys in college. We were–and still are–tight like sisters. Besides, we differed a bit in personality if not in looks and we all ended up marrying very different men. I choose new friends based on common interests, not looks. God, I’d hate for people to think that my newest friend (who is a little laid-back in a matronly, won’t wear make-up kind of way) was chosen by me to make “me look better by comparison.” Do people really do this–or think like this? I do not believe guys do this either.
this is the stupidest crap I have ever heard.
So the hell what if there are attractive girls getting guys!!!
you all sound jealous!
it is the guy who makes the decision TOO which girl he wants if there is a competition.
Guys are just out for you know what.
And who wants those kinds anyway??
In the end, the nice guys always finish last and they are always left for wanting someone.
There are more men in the world than women, truth be told. The women who are competitive just want to get that guy for sex and what is wrong with that??
the mars in sagittarius is working overtime with me by the way
i still think it is jealousy.
In both sides by the way.
because the girl competing WANTS all the boys to want her. Is that really insecurity??
To me the definition of insecurity can be dubbed from the other woman’s perspective. She didnt get the guys and is not competitive in that arena and not “horny” enough. It is after all, a “drive” that is natural to some women. if it is not natural to the other women why is it such a big deal. The only ones you have to worry about are the women who are going to rip each other apart to get those men. Who wants that anyway? It is utterly ridiculous and the men like it! MUD SLINGS and mud pit fights with bikinis on.
Never !
All my friends are gorgeous. I care very much about whom I´m beeing seen with . Leo rising.
Beeing part of a group of goodlooking women is always great fun, lot´s of attention, and as for men, well there´s usually enough to go around.
I don’t compete with my girlfriends on any level let alone men. We each have our strengths and weaknesses and with my closest friends we know what that entails.
I was the last of five women competing for one man’s attention : my father. These include my two half sisters, his ex-wife, my mother and I. Consequently I had to deal with a lot, A LOT of jealousy from day 1. I tried to become ugly when I was an adolescent, as I had repeated the same scenario with female friends from a very early age and always wound up in situations where I was jealoused for various reasons. Jealousy almost ruined my life because I was too young and therefore unprepared for it. Bulimia and very bad self-esteem resulted, and even though I still struggle with female competition, I feel better about myself. I am getting to a point where I am not ashamed of my qualities just because they make someone else uncomfortable. As for competition amongst women, it cannot be denied, even between close friends, but it can definitely be handled, The more secure you are with yourself, and the more you seek out like-minded friends, the better off you are. It is just so unhealthy otherwise.
Also, I disagree with shut the hell up. I really don’ think these women are fighting and manipulating their way to getting more attention just for sex. It all stems from a profound, often unadressed need for being validated, sexually,physically, but above all socially. A lot of women (and men for that matter) need to be reassured that many people desire them, day in and day out. They cannot simply BE without that validation. To a certain extent, I’d say it is totally natural to feel this need, and act upon it. Only often times it goes way too far.
Totally agree with f. I know two women who absolutely can’t exist without daily validation from men. Both women (Sagittarius, Aries, both have Capricorn moons) are obsessed with their online dating profiles and the “flattering” (I find the men’s comments crude) comments they receive. Bad dates are laughed off and everything these women do is in the attempt to validate their attractiveness to strangers when instead they should be focussing on rebuilding careers, friendships, taking care of their kids… Of course, both women are still miserably single after 4+ years of being divorced. And they don’t understand why… I’ve never looked to men for validation–my sense of self-worth and validation comes from career sucess/reputation. Which is itself not good (at times I’m obsessed with work) but at least I’m not sexualizing myself in order to feel I’m of value.
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I grew up competing with other women in a very subconscious level. As a child, I was often compared to my mother’s friends’ daughters. Though I wasn’t so much “competitive”, I always felt that I had sorely lost the competition already (never mind that I had low self esteem to begin with). In high school, there were a few friends of mine who would go for the guys I liked and this soured my trust in most female friends. This did not stop me from having female friends, but I always felt I was “sub par” compared to my female friends even though later on the women I’ve befrieneded all had different “types” than I do.
In a way, I don’t try to become better than any of my female friends, but the lingering feeling of being “sub-par” is still there. It is more in a sense where I don’t divulge much about my life, in hopes of me not appearing like I am a nobody compared to them. I’m really working on this – but yes… this has always been my “competition” issue against other women.