The phrase "pick me" person (girl, guy, etc...) refers to someone who acts desperate for approval or validation, usually from the opposite sex or a dominant social group, by putting down others or pretending to be "not like other people."
The phrase traces its roots to a dramatic scene in a 2005 episode of Grey's Anatomy where the character Meredith Grey begs a man to pick her, saying, "Pick me. Choose me. Love me." It had evolved into internet slang by 2016.
A teen turned to the "Am I The A**Hole" (AITAH) subReddit for feedback after calling out her mother's "pick me" behavior.
Similar to AITA, the AITAH subReddit allows posters to ask for advice and post about ending romantic relationships—both things that are banned on AITA. However, there are no required voting acronyms—only suggested ones—and no official final judgment declared.
Extension-Carrot3249 asked:
"AITAH for calling out my mom for acting like a 'pick me' in front of our friends and family?"
The original poster (OP) explained:
"I (18, female) always had an on and off relationship with my mother (46, female). While she can be very nice and supportive, she can also be very weird."
"For example, she’s always bragging about being the smallest in our family since both me and my sister are around 5’9, our father is 6’4, meanwhile she’s like 5’6—we're Slavic so she is shorter than average in our country. She always has to bring up her weight, or how certain people described her as 'tiny'."
"Both me and my sister are into weightlifting, therefore we are more muscular than average girls our age and our mom would often react with disgust when we’d show off our muscles as a joke and say how we’re 'starting to look like men'."
"Another thing she does is mock me and my sister for caring about our appearance such as doing our hair, makeup, nails etc... She takes pride in doing the bare minimum for her appearance and has this weird flex with being low maintenance."
"As a woman, your looks genuinely don’t even have to be on the list of your priorities, you do you, but I strongly believe that you have some issues if you believe that being low maintenance puts you on some kind of pedestal over women who concern themselves with their appearance. Which happens to be the case with my mom."
"As much as this irritated me while growing up, I’ve learned to ignore her snarky comments and backhanded compliments. However, recently when we were at a function, I caught her quite literally talking sh*t about MY FEET with my dad’s friend."
"She literally compared my feet with bear paws, said how my shoes are so huge on her. Meanwhile, my feet are a completely normal size and proportionate with my height and I just lost it."
"She was dissing my feet while talking to my dad’s coworker, to get a laugh out of him and highlighting how she’s 'daintier' and 'smaller' to gain approval."
"I’ve told her everything I’ve been keeping to myself for all these years, how nobody except for her cares about her being 'small and low maintenance', how annoying she actually sounds every time she brings it up, and that she actually should start taking care of her appearance because maybe then she’d be more satisfied with herself and wouldn’t have the constant need to put other women down."
"'Pick me' is usually a term used for girls/women who put other women down to gain validation from others, mostly men. That's her, all my life."
"I admit that it did kind of kill the vibe at the function and that nobody talked for the next 30 minutes, but I genuinely couldn’t care less because I am tired of being the butt of her conversations any time we have some company."
"Afterwards, she confronted me about my outburst and said how my words hurt her, which did make me feel a little bad, but in the same way she never really considered if her words hurt ME for all these years she’s been picking apart my appearance, habits and comparing herself to me."
"So tell me, AITAH?"
The OP later added:
"Honestly, I’ve expected more from a woman who has two daughters. Like, we are supposed to have each other’s backs whether we are 5’0 or 7’0 feet tall. Like, WHY are you turning this into a competition‽"
"When I was 15/16, I used to have terrible acne and my mom would always get all up in my face and point out any new pimple I’ve got."
"Now my skin has cleared up drastically, but she still keeps insisting that I have problematic skin… You can never win."
"My sister is glad I stood up for myself, but she also told me how I should’ve kept it for later instead of exploding in front of everyone, which I do agree with to some extent."
"She has been fighting with mom for a while and we both realized that she simply won’t change her attitude no matter how much we talk, so now my sister is encouraging me to just ignore her comments and let her be obnoxious."
Some Redditors weighed in by using the AITA voting acronyms:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- NAH - No A**holes Here
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- INFO - more information needed
Redditors decided the OP was not wrong to tell her mother how she feels about all the insults and comparisons (NTA).
"NTA. Your reply should have been ‘but it’s okay for your words to hurt me’?" ~ Clear-Cabinet7167
"Or 'now you know how I have felt for YEARS'. NTA, OP." ~ jodivon
"My mom is also weirdly obsessed with finding any flaw and pointing it out to my sister and myself. HOWEVER, when my skin looks good and I lost 20lbs, it was crickets."
"Same with my sister and we both find it weird and have spoken to her about it on numerous occasions. She will stop for awhile or give a compliment, but will eventually go back to her old ways."
"It's very frustrating and at times hurtful. She is 83, so she is not going to change but UGH!" ~ Toniann127
"Your mother is mental for treating her kids like competition rather than as her children. After almost two decades though, I think you should probably work on accepting that she is selfish and will never change because this is just who she is." ~ nerd_is_a_verb
"She wants to make you feel small and worthless. She is definitely small, in the sense that she’s petty and mean."
"Just openly blow her off. Practice saying “Yeah, I don’t really care about your opinion of me” in the most unbothered voice you can, and respond to her nasty little critiques."
"You’re bigger than her, you’re stronger than her, you’re young and living your life and discovering who you want to be in this world. She is small and irrelevant with small and irrelevant opinions."
"She loves feeling small? Fine. Nothing makes a person feel smaller than being openly brushed to the side." ~ Adept_Jaguar8613
"My grandmother was like this. Never had a nice thing to say about anyone. When she was close to dying, she had a few lucid days so I went to visit her."
"She asked me when the baby was due (not pregnant) and then asked me what my husband thought of 'all that' while motioning to my stomach. It was a really nice death visit." ~ brookmachine
"Yeah, I think for some in that generation giving another woman a compliment is foreign. It seems to be the norm to look for flaws and that applied not only to strangers but primarily for the girls and women in their families.
"My Aunt was the queen of that sh*t. It was so annoying. A few women in my family also partake in the 'judgement'—not to the degree of my Aunt. She could be just mean."
"She was GORGEOUS up to the day she died at 93, but had a nasty petty soul. It just taught my cousins and I to be kind and supportive to each other and women and people in general. Silver lining to the bullsh*t." ~ Toniann127
After receiving a lot of feedback, OP added:
"To all of you commenting, I’d like to say that I deeply appreciate your support and I am grateful from the bottom of my heart for everyone being so understanding and supportive."
"However I would like to ask some of you to not write extremely mean things about my mother. YOU ARE ALL ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE, BUT NOT TO WISH THE WORST UPON HER AND CALL HER TERRIBLE NAMES."
"Please do not go as far as saying that she deserves horrible things happening to her because of her actions and words. Even if she wasn’t always the kindest to me, she is still my mom, and I kindly ask you for some understanding since she grew up in an era when all your self-worth was tied to how small you are."
"I definitely don’t think that should be an excuse for her behavior; that was still what was drilled into her head ever since she was a little girl, and breaking from that toxic mindset can be very challenging."
"To all of you being supportive and respectful, thank you; I appreciate and love all of you."
OP has realized their mother has no desire to stop insulting her or her sister.
All she can really control are her reactions and, now that she's 18, how much contact her mother is allowed to have with her.
