Ah, memes. They’ve given us so much over the years and now one particular meme is confusing the hell out of men… and women are loving it.

This week 18-year-old Payton Hicks from Munice, Indiana, shared side-by-side photos of curled hair and captioned them: “you vs the girl he cheats with”.

you vs. the girl he cheats with pic.twitter.com/7qBAUJpsDN

— pay10 (@payt_xoxo) September 6, 2017

Hicks told Buzzfeed News she was curling her roommate’s hair for fun when she took the photos and came up with the joke.

“My method for curling clients’ hair is creating ugly ringlet-type curls that I then brush to make beachy beautiful waves,” she said. “I was laughing and joking with [my roommate] about how bad they look before I brush them.”

So on a very (not at all) deep level, the girl on the right has that hair all of us have had at some point, when we went to our school formal and also wore a dress we later wanted to burn. And that girl, with the ringlet-type curls, is the girl your boyfriend cheats with. Obviously. Because your boyfriend would only ever cheat with someone whose hair was subtly not as good as yours. That’s just a fact.

While women around the world immediately understood what Hicks was talking about and joined in the joke, men were, erm, just a little bit confused.

Am confused pic.twitter.com/j3NONZiNDC

— Iron Čeković (@DemirBoolin) September 7, 2017

I need help with this

— J.a.B. (@_mrbellizzi) September 7, 2017

Wat does it mean???? pic.twitter.com/PPJr5MqVDs

— Lawrence Cimen (@lorenzsimon15) September 7, 2017

i think it has something to do with the curls ?? https://t.co/3Oml5JzFq8

— J̥ͦ W̥ͦɪʟʟʏ (@j_willy99) September 7, 2017

The brown darker on the right

— robdaniel (@brownsugaa55) September 7, 2017

Hicks told Buzzfeed News she thought it was hilarious that blokes weren’t getting the joke.

“It makes it more fun that all of us girls can have, like, a secret inside joke against guys, and they have no clue what it means,” she said. 

i feel like boys don’t understand this tweet and it makes me love it that much more lmaooo https://t.co/51OAdnE0Qr

— jaz k (@jazzzzzk) September 7, 2017

However, eventually some guys did figure out the joke. We’re not sure whether they realised the joke was on them, though?

Some1 said boys don’t understand this pic… shit girl on the right curls are too over done looking like she going to middle school dance https://t.co/UGWoehzeAV

— Champagne Papi ???? (@Bnastyyy7) September 7, 2017

The curls on the right are too tight and un natural looking. The ones on the left look nice – See i know

— HCC (@Hayden_Cooper98) September 7, 2017

Obviously we’re supportive of however you like to curl your hair, IF you like to curl it at all. But women who went to their school formal with hair that made them cringe later (*cough* me) will understand the very narrow line between those goddamn ringlets and natural-looking curls. And for those women, this meme was immediately laugh-out-loud funny.

Men will never understand, in part probably because they don’t have the same systematic structures that invite them to overthink every aspect of their physical appearance. But also because among women there’s a language only we get – and sometimes, that makes it even funnier.

Listen to the latest episode of Mamamia Out Loud: Royals Don’t Have Loos In The Bedroom.

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