My best friend—let’s call her “Lena”—was the kind of girl who thrived on male attention. She’d sabotage other women’s relationships, downplay her own intelligence, and constantly seek validation from men by throwing other women under the bus. The textbook “pick-me.” I tolerated it for years, brushing off her digs and manipulations, until she crossed a line that couldn’t be ignored.
It started with a guy I’d been seeing casually. Lena knew I liked him, but she swooped in with her usual charm and started flirting behind my back. When I confronted her, she played innocent, claiming she was “just being friendly.” But the final straw came when she told him I was “obsessed” with him and “emotionally unstable.” He ghosted me. She gloated.
So I decided to get petty. Not cruel—just poetic.
Lena had been talking about getting a tattoo for months. She wanted something “deep,” something that would “represent her soul.” One night, while we were drinking wine and scrolling Pinterest, she asked me what I thought would be a meaningful phrase in Latin. I saw my chance.
I told her that “Vincit qui se vincit” meant “She who conquers herself.” It sounded empowering, right? She loved it. Said it was perfect. Got it tattooed on her collarbone the next week.
Except I lied.
The phrase actually translates to “He who conquers himself.” Masculine pronoun. Not only was it grammatically incorrect for her, but it also subtly reinforced the very dynamic she lived by—centering men, even in her self-expression.
She posted it proudly on Instagram, captioned “My truth 💫.” The comments flooded in. “So powerful!” “Love this!” But then came the Latin nerds. “You know that’s the masculine form, right?” “Did you mean ‘illa quae se vincit’?”
She was humiliated. Tried to play it off as intentional. But I knew better. She stopped bragging about it. Eventually, she covered it up with a rose.
I didn’t ruin her life. I didn’t scream or fight. I just gave her exactly what she asked for—validation, wrapped in irony. And every time I see that rose, I smile. Because beneath it lies the truth: Lena was conquered by her own need to be chosen.
