.png)
When I was in my One Direction stan phase many years ago, my father told me unprompted that I had "high standards". I felt offended at that. He didn't elaborate, but conceded; "It's not a bad thing. You just do."
We were driving somewhere for an errand and I was stuck in shotgun, the silence only being evaded by a "Take Me Home" CD I'd put in the stereo.
I couldn't understand how telling me I had high standards wasn't an insult. He would also say I was high maintenance, and so I retorted I wasn't. I was a highschooler who had never dated anyone at the time. How would he know? Why did it bother me so much?
Discovering FDS in the past year or so had been helpful for multiple reasons. And after going through multiple posts, the book, and this particular forum, I can finally tell you that the reason I hated being told I had high standards was because THEY WEREN'T. I didn't have any.
I was an impressionable, low-self-esteem teenager those many years ago. The first and only time I had ever been asked out (at that point) was as a joke just before an 8th grade end-of-the-year formal. I cried twice; once after realizing why his friends snickered at me in the hallway, and a second before putting my mascara on, accepting I didn't have a date to the formal like all of my other friends.
My father assumed I had high standards because I listened to boy bands and said I was going to marry Niall Horan. He assumed I wanted someone rich and handsome and talented, and that I'd be that person to lock eyes with a famous singer in a crowd and he'd swoon immediately.
Firstly, I wouldn't reject any of those things, but that's not the point. Because what my father saw were superficial descriptions of a celebrity crush, and that I was single in highschool, obviously because I rejected every boy in my year. No dad, nobody was asking me out.
All in all, I wanted to marry my boybanders because I listened to their songs about how much they love their SO, and thought that these guys would be nice to me, if they knew I existed.
That was it.
Today, I have high standards. I don't go around parading that, but I'm also not shy about it either. Simply put, I'm able to reject a man if he's not my type because I no longer hold the mentality that I'm too ugly or unworthy of love and respect.
I also still listen to boy bands, and I'm not ashamed of that either. Part of it is nostalgia, another part are the catchy sounds, and another part is a reminder to myself; Surely there is someone out there that will be kind to me, even if I haven't found it yet.
So no wonder so many girls like boy bands. It was almost as if it was the first time they could see themselves being respected by a man, over some scrawny pubescent who thinks he's the shit for playing basketball.
Scrotey men are more protective of other men than their own daughters; it's unfortunately not an unusual phenomenon. He most likely wants you to feel bad for having high standards because if he wasn't your dad, he wouldn't meet any of your standards. These kind of men collectively gaslight women to keep our standards low so that they can happily continue doing the bare minimum. You got close to ego checking your dad but he wasn't having it.
Men love telling women their standards are too high.
I realized something about society's shameless bashing of boy bands--
It's one of the very, VERY few genres of media that allows girls to picture themselves as being loved for simply who they are-- not how they look or what they can do for someone else.
Lindsay Ellis had an awesome video essay called "Dear Stephanie Meyer" where she reflects on her "I'm not like other girls" phase of bashing Twilight (like everyone else in the early 2010's). Is Twilight goofy? Sure. But the book/ movie series was primarily panned because... *checks notes*.... teen girls like to fantasize about being in a relationship. But boys don't get 1% of the hate and vitrol teen girls get for their "I'm the powerful chosen one who gets the super hot girl" fantasies.
And on the subject of Twilight, a lot of teen girls could also find comfort in having a boyfriend who is able to control his urges and not pressure his girlfriend into doing something until she was ready.
I'm on a journey of healing my inner teenager and am FULLY loving me some boybands right now
Gurl I hear you. I was never a directioner but I'm a BTS fan and I was looked down on a lot in my earlier years of college because of it. Men used to bash me because I liked 'feminine' softer-looking asian boys instead of the macho stereotype they foolishly believe is appealing to women. Most of the time, whenever I stated how much I like this band, some man had to point out how I was never going to meet them anyway.
In my opinion, men just hate it when women enjoy something genuinely. The female fantasies are often ridiculed while the male fantasies are everywhere: girl next door, maniac pixie girl, every fucking movie where a loser gets to be with a ridiculously hot woman (I'm looking at you Adam Sandler). We can't enjoy anything at this point...
I have been told I have high standards as an insult, and that I need to lower them. The older I get, the more I value having those standards and I see where I went right, and where I should have had higher standards that even the supposedly "high" standards I had in my 20s. (I didn't date in high school or college and was pretty naive, to say the least, but I had boundaries and drew them the more I went on dates and such. No boy asked me out then, and honestly I only got asked out a couple of times in my life. Once I was the one to ask a guy out, and I ended up dumping him about a year later. Stayed with that dude way too long.) Now at 34 I'm grateful I didn't lower those even middle-tier standards and end up like some of my peers, in shitty marriages with low value men, and had children with those men. Nope. If anything, the bar is higher. And it should be. I'm not wasting my time or money.
My only regret about boy bands is I was really into NSync when it turns out the Backstreet Boys were better all along
I have referred maybe twice or three times to Justin Timberlake as my “future ex husband” as a joke and it makes my dad and brothers visibly cringe every time. it’s just a joke to me, obviously I’m not gonna meet that guy, but they get very uncomfortable
my dad loses his shit when he sees Sophia vergera(sp?) on screen and nobody but me bats an eye. Even though my dad is 74 or something and it’s super disgusting. I don’t think she is much older than me. she so many leagues beyond a man like him
Ahh a fellow former directioner. Even tho fandoms often become very toxic, I miss the One Direction days. I felt the same you did about them but I was aware I had high standards and was happy with it. The dreamy fanfics didnt help lol. This is a bit of a different topic but I always hated how people treated me when I said I liked boybands like these. Like, I am aware its not lyrical genius I see in front if me but sometimes I just want stupid fun music to dance to with my friends. I was made to feel insecure, like a dumb basic girl for liking One Direction but I feel so differently now. Let me be basic, connect with all the basic girls in the world and be happy. I wouldnt change that time for the world.