Agreeable woman

You are an agreeable woman.

You can’t recall any overt indoctrination. Your mother wasn’t particularly agreeable. In fact, she was always drumming the beat of her independent drum.

And yet, you were the agreeable woman who always needed saving at the party. You remember those inevitable moments when the creepy guy wouldn’t leave you alone, and your bolder, brasher friend would have to politely tell him to fuck off.

But you, agreeable woman, couldn’t just say no?

You are an agreeable woman because hours after an injustice occurs — let’s say when someone cuts you off or is blatantly rude to your face, for instance — then all the retorts you should have said come flooding in. Agreeable woman that you are, you couldn’t muster them up in the moment.

But it can’t just be a character flaw. Let’s consider the evolutionary advantages of being an agreeable woman. One could argue it’s a survival tactic.

Stay agreeable, agreeable woman, so that you keep all the men — the potentially dangerous, scary ones — docile, placated. The agreeable woman makes everyone her friend.

La di da, hunky dory.

Agreeable woman, where did you leave your backbone? Did its development get stunted in the womb of your childhood?

The agreeable woman who always chased the perfect grades, the perfect looks. Agreeable woman could also be called a perfectionist woman, an obsessive woman.

No, that’s too harsh, right?

But, lest we forget, there are also perks to being an agreeable woman. Think of all the people oh so pleased with your people pleasing!

The agreeable woman doesn’t make the poor, innocent man who accidentally came inside her pay for Plan B the next day. No no, it’s okay, the agreeable woman’s got it! Only fair, right?

The agreeable woman will only feel shame for that years later, cringing at the agreeableness of it all.

You, agreeable woman, wonder how you got through life relatively unscathed. But wait, let’s give the agreeable woman some credit. She’s no fool.

She eventually squirms her way out of the non-agreeable situations. She has an intuition, no matter how buried in doubt and Midwestern qualifiers.

That time the gray-haired man convinced you to pay him for his revolutionary new therapy that was being studied by a university in Switzerland, don’t you know?

The same one who told you to pose in an apron and tights, for art.

I know what you’re thinking, but now’s not the time to judge the agreeable woman, poor thing was trying her best. She also thought it might be art.

The agreeable woman eventually took her train far far away, into the next situation she will hope her parents never find out about.

And about those parents, you knew I’d make it to them eventually right?

Perhaps the agreeable woman is just the product of a sheltered upbringing.

The world of hard knocks will slap the agreeableness out of someone real quick, one imagines. But the agreeable woman’s existence, you know, maybe it was too cushy of one.

Many people want to look back and shake the agreeable woman. It’s like her gauge was broken, making her tolerance for bullshit a little too high.

An “Ope, I’m sorry” when someone bumps into the agreeable woman. A “No problem” when someone wakes the agreeable woman out of bed because of their drunken ignorance. The agreeable woman makes them coffee and listens to their troubles.

That’s the trick right there. What’s the line between agreeableness and kindness?

Agreeableness is a passiveness is a softness is a dagger turned inwards.

It’s a kite blowing easily in the wind — taking the agreeable woman far until she hits a tree or is simply tired of waving around on the whim of the sky.

Because the agreeable woman discovers her limits in starts and stops.

The agreeable woman starts to get flashes of her power. She may write it off at first as an unearned compliment.

“Who, me?”

But eventually, the agreeable woman will feel its fire rise up within her. A slow burn at first, until she’s set fully ablaze.

Confidence will rise as she tells the guy at the club without an ounce of hesitation “We are NOT interested” after he tries to edge his way into her friend circle.

When she stands up to a client who changes the terms with a flimsy justification.

Each splinter, fueling her fire until the agreeable woman stands strong in her flames, finally unafraid of the scene she’s making, the brightness she’s giving off.

In that moment, the agreeable woman will solemnly raise the unmistakable flag of her middle finger to the generations of conditioning that made her so fucking agreeable.