I’m still a child in many ways even though I’m at an age that’s considered old by many.  Looking at the slightly younger girls around me, they all seem very mature, much more mature than I am.  They are very polite, caring in a motherly way, never acting out inappropriately… these are all actions and attributes that society has determined a mature, adult female should exhibit.  But looking more closely I recognize some smaller, subtler actions that show they are still maturing, that they are still trying to assert their individuality, or “finding themselves”, to say in a very cliche way.  They have yet to realize their individuality needs to shine through naturally and the harder they try to assert it the more posing they come off as.  This is a very cliche topic in itself, but I see these little things girls do and it gets under my skin.  I was once one of these childish girls, having done all these things that they’re doing now, and now I look back and I point and laugh at myself and I want to yell at other girls not to do these inane things.  Things like developing their own “writing style”.  You see this all over Facebook, where girls would tYpE LiKe tHiS and put punctuations marks in front of sentences as well as after or basically all o.v.e.r. the frickin! place! and… there’s nothing wrong with being unique, but why try so hard?  Why not put your efforts somewhere else?  If you see them drop their thing after a short while it means they have thought long and hard before they did it and it’s not really part of who they are.  Yes I’ve done this myself before.  Now I try to develop a writing style that is easy to read, clear and concise, and has a nice smooth flow to it.  There are also shows and books out there these girls tend to like, such as Nylon.  I used to like Nylon myself but it got annoying after a couple years.  The writers themselves wrote like insecure, pretentious young women who branded everything they discovered as the best thing since the internet and again, there is the whole ideology about being different and individualistic that they must shove down your throat.  And then there are shows like “Sex and the City”, which I’ve never ever ever liked and which I’ve heard someone describe as “toxic”, which is true.  Not only is the acting and writing atrocious, which is beside the point, but it again indoctrinates that women must be strong and independent and confident and being in control of your life.  That’s all fine and swell but it is absolutely not necessary to defend your shit by manipulating men and endlessly thinking your current relationship is not good enough for you.  This is what impressionable young women start believing after watching this kind of propaganda and you see girls all over being whiny and dramatic over every little thing that happens to them.  Nothing is good enough for them anymore and they must strive for what others have inspired them to believe are better.  Honestly, if things were bad for them, why hadn’t they realized it before someone else pointed it out to them? Could it be because things weren’t bad in their own eyes to begin with, but only bad in other people’s eyes, and now they’re just being influenced by other people?  So are they such an individual now?  How are they an individual when they’re changing because of something someone else said?  Also, wearing a Dior t-shirt with a giant tutu doesn’t make you an individual; it makes you ugly.  There are so many more things in the world that are more important than showing off your individuality and showing others that you’re a “strong woman”.  There’s nothing wrong with being strong and unique but the key is “being”, not “showing”.  People say girls mature faster than boys, but I don’t know if that’s true.  Boys seem immature because they screw around and make dirty jokes, but this behaviourial immaturity has more to do with their personality than their level of thinking.  It probably also has more to do with the fact they are boys —boys are more carefree and risk-taking by nature.  At the same time, boys can have very deep thoughts and be quite worldly in their views, whereas girls’ main thoughts are very often focused on themselves.  That’s not to say I’m not self-centered myself, and in addition I’m still quite immature.  But I don’t care about how I appear to others anymore.  All I care about is keeping my job and improving myself and getting over this stupid cough.  Attempting to be unique hadn’t gotten me anywhere and, as ironic as everything else in life, trying so hard to be different because others say you should only showed what a conformist I was.  Alas.  I didn’t enjoy writing this because it was so preachy and bitchy and everything I say sounds stale, but it feels good to get it off my chest.