I don't know of a woman alive who hasn't seen or at least heard about the Sex and the City episode where Carrie Bradshaw's new boyfriend Berger, schools the girls on the behavior of men.  All the girls huddle together offering Miranda a plethora of feeble excuses because her latest love interest declined to come up to her apartment after their date or has even yet to call. "He's busy."  "He had an early morning meeting."  "Maybe he went out of town."  "I'm sure he's gonna call. Oh yeah...he's gonna call!"

It's not until Berger steps in and says it like it is.

"He's just not that into you.  When a guy's really into you, he's coming upstairs, meeting or no meeting."

While all the girls balk in absolute shock - the truth ends up settling in. 

He's just not that into me.  Hmm....kind of a tough pill to swallow but think about how much time was saved by now knowing that valuable little chunk of information.

What's truly scary though - is if Berger hadn't said this - I bet years later - these women would all still be wondering not only what happened to that guy - but - would still be making the same excuses for every other guy.

Why pray-tell do we do that?

It's so incredibly frustrating to hear my girlfriends perpetually make excuses for some of the men in their lives that don't treat them well.  "He didn't mean to hit me."  "He really doesn't have a drinking problem, he's just stressed at work."  "Well he is a (insert job function here)" apparently justifying why he hasn't called in two weeks.  "Well you haven't been seeing him that long" justifying why it's acceptable he forgot my birthday.

Maybe the reason we make excuses for bad behavior is because we don't feel good about how we look on the outside? Or it is because of societal pressures pigeon-holing us into acting and looking a certain way?

In 2004, beauty manufacturer Dove released a study to launch their Campaign for Real Beauty.  The saddest of the findings was that only 2% of women describe themselves as beautiful.

Two percent?  Really?  I can tell you right now - I am not in that 2%. I am stunning and I know every gal that is reading this right now is as well!

What's even more frightening is according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2010, there were - wait for it - over 13,000,000 purely cosmetic plastic surgery procedures with the top 5 being breast, nose, lipo, eye lid surgery (uhm...ouch!) and a tummy tuck.  What's worse...this is a...77% increase from 2000.

S-E-V-E-N-T-Y-S-E-V-E-N-P-E-R-C-E-N-T ladies!!

All this begs to ask - why do we do this to ourselves?  Why do we think we aren't good enough?  One thing I do know about myself though is I will not now or ever tolerate a guy who forgets my birthday no matter how many dates we've had.  And...you...just like I...am beautiful.