Punch Bowl junior Emily Leven explains the inner workings of the female mind.

Girls have been known to say the ridiculous, do the desperate, and feel the illogical. The other day I overheard two girls discussing the different ways it made them feel to get different types of text messages from their respective boys of the week (and when I say week, I mean the boy considered them mildly interesting for about a week in eighth grade but the girls still hadn’t let it go). The big issue at hand was the “goodnight text message.” It obviously meant different things to receive a “goodnight” versus “night” versus “nite” versus “nit” (I will admit, that last one makes me wonder), with and without punctuation. Because like, when a girl is mad she’ll just say “night” but he says that all the time and there’s no pattern to it so they just never knew what to think.  It took two actual blocks of me creepily walking within earshot to soak it all in before the girls managed to commiserate their way through the emotional roller coaster of analyzing an ellipsis. They summed up their extensive feelings about the stupidity of male texting practices with an exasperated “and it’s just like. Really?” and then went on to talk about salads and froyo.

I, on the other hand, couldn’t get over their conversation as easily. Because these girls are not alone. They are just an isolated example of an entire subculture of nutty. How many girls completely fabricate sexual tension, subtle hints, and even entire relationships based on the most innocuous interactions with boys? How many have off-the-deep-end reactions to literally nothing? I can’t help but wonder- why are girls like this? Why is every stereotype about girls rooted in truth? How is the author of the “Sh*t Girls Say” twitter account able to get it so right so often about so many of us? I think it must boil down to the fact that girls internalize a lot of stress. There’s a lot going on behind every pretty face that the outside world simply doesn’t know about, and even though we ladies are strong enough to silently shoulder these burdens and push through on our own, doing so inevitably has serious effects on our moods. On behalf of girls everywhere, I’m taking it upon myself to bring some of these all-too-common and important stressors to light.

1. We’re frustrated that we’re such bad drivers, and take it out on everyone around us.

2. Maybe it really is that time of the month.

3. We texted our boy of the week back twenty seven minutes after he texted us back because it took him fifteen minutes to respond, but now it’s been forty-three minutes and this waiting game is really killing us.

4. We’re bitter that we’re expected to carry the baby, get fat for the baby, give birth to the baby, and then stay at home forever. We’re also concerned about our abilities to drive that minivan.

5. Frats have too many kegs. We’re not interested in wasting calories on your cheap beer. Now we can’t eat lunch so we can budget your Keystone into today’s diet. Can’t we just get some low-cal mixers?? Help a sister out.

6. Our boy of the week finally answered and all he said was “k.”  Lowercase, with a period. Passive-aggressive-much? What did we do to deserve that?

7. We really want to lose three pounds.

8. The girl walking toward us is wearing shorts that give her a camel toe and a muffin top and all of our worst fears are realized. Someone find us a full length mirror ASAP so we can take a selfie and send it to our best friend for confirmation that we do not look like that. Now we have to avoid walking, which can cause thigh jiggle, and also sitting down, because who doesn’t have thunder thighs when they sit down all the way.

9. We really have to pee and there’s always a line to the bathroom.

10. We have to go to a public bathroom. Women are disgusting in public bathrooms.

11. All the ellipticals are being used.

12. Our iPad is dead.

13. It’s raining. This weather sucks for any outfit and hair-type. We resort to the rain boots and leggings combo, a risky experience for everyone involved. Leggings show no mercy.

14. We have to deal with all the other girls who don’t like us because they’re just jealous. We can’t help being the whole package.

15. It’s hard to live up to everyone’s opinion of us as girls who are the whole package. Do you know how much thought you have to put into your outfit when you know that everyone is expecting you to look the prettiest? Sometimes we wish that we could just blend in some more.

16. We went out last night and we didn’t get enough attention. What was that about? Boys are so stupid, don’t they know that we’re the whole package?

17. More generally, boys are so stupid.

18. We’re tired of making sandwiches.

19. It’s really difficult to know everything and be right all the time and get no recognition.

So, the next time your girlfriend or best friend stops speaking to you because you took her third to last stick of gum, cut her some slack. If you had to deal with this many problems on a daily basis, my bet is that you, too, would be an occasional passenger on the crazy train.