Recently I entered an Instagram competition to win a shoe store gift card. I worked hard to win the $100 card. I’m in need of new summer sandals and desperately wanted it. You had to style the shoes you already had from this store and hashtag the pictures so the store knew about it.
The comp went for two weeks and I took a bunch of photos of the one pair of shoes I had from that store with a bunch of different tops and jewellery. I posted three a day for over a week and yet….I didn’t win the freakin’ gift card…
Some woman who posted a pic of her with her feet up in crappy sandal thongs and holding a cappuccino with a milk heart won. Over all it was a crappy picture, no decent look about it, nothing inspiring.
But I lost.
And I cried.
I desperately wanted that card because it would have covered the cost of at least three pairs of shoes. I also need to buy a new TV to replace the crap one that doesn’t work properly and wanted some perfume and face cream. All in all, over $500 worth.
I have no idea why I cried. Probably because I worked so hard to win that when I didn’t it was a shock. And then I wondered if I should comment on the store’s Instagram page. I decided not to because I wasn’t happy that someone else had won, and that led me to this blog post.
Somewhere in the archaic memoirs of this human world, I had to be happy and congratulatory for the winner.
BULL.FUCKING.SHIT!
After having a rather heated discussion with myself, I realised that I actually don’t HAVE to be happy for the winner. I am quite entitled to feel and be disappointed that I lost, it also doesn’t mean I HAVE to be happy for the person who won, who also happens to be the person I lost to. There is NO LAW that states I must be happy for the person I lost to, and there is NO LAW that says I am not entitled to feel disappointed and to express as much.
But there are those party poopers who would call me a sore loser and I should be happy for the winner. Actually I shouldn’t, don’t have to be and won’t be.
I wondered where this bullshit comes from. That we must ‘suck it up’ and congratulate the winner, whether it be the new girlfriend of our ex-boyfriend, the co-worker who cheated on their work and scored the prize over the rest of us who worked hard when they didn’t, the person who won the gold medal in the swimming race. Essentially, be the ‘bigger’ person.
Was it the egotistical winner who thought they’d make the losers ‘feel better’ by dictating that they should congratulate them so that
they can say they had grace and dignity? Isn’t that how we’re told we should do it? Be gracious in defeat and congratulate the winner. Why do we NEED to congratulate anyone when we’re upset at losing? I think it’s just an archaic way of controlling those who lose to make them feel worse by a winner who loved to gloat.
they can say they had grace and dignity? Isn’t that how we’re told we should do it? Be gracious in defeat and congratulate the winner. Why do we NEED to congratulate anyone when we’re upset at losing? I think it’s just an archaic way of controlling those who lose to make them feel worse by a winner who loved to gloat.
There is also a difference between being a sore loser and disappointed at losing. It’s all in the way we express it. If we verbally rip into someone then yes, sore loser, if we say we’re sad that we lost as we were looking forward to buying some fancy new shoes then we are disappointed.
Being disappointed DOES NOT mean you have to be happy for the winner. Being disappointed DOES NOT mean you MUST congratulate the person who won. Being disappointed is our right and our emotions, thoughts and feelings are entitled to be so.
We DO NOT have to congratulate the winners we lose to. It has nothing to do with being gracious or being the bigger person. It has to do with the fact that we JUST DON’T HAVE TO and we WILL NOT be dictated to by a society that is so screwed up it doesn’t know its tits from its arse!
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