If You Can't Handle Me at My Worst

About

"If You Can't Handle Me at My X, You Don't Deserve Me at My X" is a snowclone of the phrase "If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best," which is most often used in the early stages of romance. The phrase is often mutated or used in parody.

Original

The quote's original source is unknown, but it is often misattributed to Marilyn Monroe in the following form:

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."^[1]

Spread

With the advent of online dating, the phrase, both the original and slightly mutated versions, became widely used on personal profiles, often as a warning to potential suitors. Multiple posts on reddit refer to this phenomenon, including highly upvoted ones in the subreddits /r/tinder, /r/okcupid, and /r/circlejerk.^[2][3][4] In addition, the phrase was used on reddit to refer to images of domestic violence in both the /r/imgoingtohellforthis.^[5] In addition, between 2009 and 2011, several images with the quote written on photographs of Marilyn Monroe went into wide circulation on Tumblr.^[6]

Later, as mutations became stranger, image macros featuring very outlandish versions became more and more popular on Tumblr, while the original quote fell out of favor. Some of the more popular versions reference celebrities, television characters, or anime characters, and are posted on Pinterest, Tumblr, and Instagram.^[7][8][9]

You Don't Deserve My At My Dootiest

One of the most popular mutations, "If You Can't Handle Me at My Spookiest, Then You Don't Deserve Me At My Dootiest," originated in the Skull Trumpet subreddit, /r/ledootgeneration in a post titled "If you can't handle me at my flootiest you don't deserve me at my dootiest" by DonTori, posted on July 12th, 2015.^[10] The post featured a GIF of a skeleton playing a flute made of bone, and received 2,914 points (92% upvoted). The post's format was then copied over 60 times by members of the subreddit, with different words always substituting for the "word" "flootiest," but the word "Dootiest" staying the same in each post.^[11] In addition, the popular form of the mutation became a common skeleton-related copypasta.

If You Don't Love Me at My X, You Don't Deserve Me at My Y

In late March and early April of 2018, an image-based variation of the snowclone began spreading on Twitter. Using unique spacing and Twitter's image-layout, the snowclone reads "If you don't love me at my (unattractive picture of celebrity or character), then you don't deserve me at my (attractive picture of celebrity or character)." The trend began among the K-pop fandom in late March. On March 29th, 2018, Twitter user @creeperscult uploaded images of Mingyu from K-pop group Seventeen with the snowclone, gaining over 3,500 retweets and 7,200 likes (shown below).

In the course of the following several days, the snowclone spread as users created variations with many more characters and celebrities. Some popular examples include a tweet by @officialfoxygma featuring two images of Mr. Krabs, gaining over 28,000 retweets and 84,000 likes (shown below, left). Another popular example was tweeted by the Netflix Twitter account showing images from the Disney film Hercules, gaining over 13,000 retweets and 51,000 likes (shown below, right).

The popularity of the meme was covered by Twitter Moments^[12] and Mashable.^[13]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References