Hierarchy

This whole boy fiasco, lovely as it has been, has forced me to confront a rather unfortunate way of thinking. It seems I picked it up about 8 years ago, and despite how far I've come since then, I still can't get rid of it.

See, I told the boy that he was the first normal boy to like me. Which is, of course, ridiculous, as normal is a stupid concept with no meaning and no clear definition and one that is used to make people feel like outsiders. You're not normal. The reason I said it was because he is the first boy to like me who isn't incredibly nerdy. You know, the video game playing, slightly antisocial, obsessed-with-things-like-star-wars kind of boys. Nerds. Geeks. And I had decided oh, okay, these are the only kinds of boys that I'm ever going to get to be with, and that's okay, they're not so bad, and I guess I'm pretty nerdy too. Only the thing is, there's a lot of girls out there way nerdier than me, and they fit with those boys a hell of a lot better than I do.

But some part of my brain is still 12 years old, because I was phrasing this to myself in the way of normal boys don't like me. They never will. That's ok. Which is fucked up, because what I was really saying was I would really like to date a boy who isn't obsessed with video games but I am convinced that that is never going to happen based on extremely limited past experience.

Those boys that I would be able to date, from what I can tell, were not popular in school. They're the stereotypical losers, the ones that always get teased in movies, the ones that get told no girl will ever like them. My mom used to say that the boys that liked me probably did because I was nice to them, and nobody is ever nice to them, much less any girl, was the unspoken end of the sentence. This was probably true then, but it's an incredibly fucked up way to think now. And through this, I thought, this makes sense: I am a loser like them, I am not normal, I don't fit in. I always wanted to have one of the boys who did fit in, but I had convinced myself that that was never going to happen because I didn't fit in and that didn't happen and it's really amazing how I only spent three years of my life being classified as a loser and yet how badly I internalized it.

If there's anything high school and subsequently university and the real world have taught me, it's that thinking of people in this way gets you nowhere. You miss out on opportunities to get to know really cool people by being a judgemental asshole who looks down at people who are different. And the people I admired, the people I really liked, never seemed to care. They'd befriend anybody, no matter what they looked like or what their hobbies were or how weird or abnormal or whatever they might be. And when I first got to high school, I was still trying to look down on people who might be weirder than me, still trying to convince myself that I wasn't at the very bottom, and I met people who didn't think that way and accepted me as I was and that was a big shift for me.

Now this is happening. I'm thrilled that it's happening, and I'm trying very hard to work through this shit, because I feel awful for thinking this about people- thinking there are normal people and losers- and thinking it about myself- that I'm still not one of the normal ones. Now it comes through when I realize I don't know how to be a girl "correctly", I never did, I never naturally went to makeup and fashion, I never got that. I still don't. So I stand behind these girls in the elevator of my building, with their perfect hair in cute hairstyles they somehow picked up, their flawless makeup done with skills they somehow picked up, their artfully matched clothes, popular yet their own, done in a style that they somehow picked up, and I know girls like that can be perfectly nice but some of them still give me looks like I got when I was 12 and it just sucks because I'm standing there in jeans and a t-shirt and big ugly boots and my bangs are stuck to my forehead, which is covered with zits I don't know how to hide because I never learned how, and my hair is pulled back in a shitty braid because I keep it long and never know what to do with it. And I feel like a loser all over again, and I think, he must like girls like this, girls who know how to be girls, girls who know what they are doing, and then it turns out that no, no, people aren't as fake as I think they always are, people are capable of liking people like me because there's nothing wrong with me in the first place, and people are better than I give them credit for most of the time.

I don't know why unlearning this is so hard. I don't know why I still act this way, like I have to put myself above people who are even more "loserly" than me in an effort to get up with the girls who know how to be girls. Because it's mean, and petty, and stupid, and costs me a lot of meaningful relationships. But it is effort for me still to live in the real world and not look at their world as pretty and perfect and beautiful. Even if it is, I have to not care. My life will not be any better if I figure out how to apply eyeliner and wear those long, layered necklaces, and learn to french braid my hair. My life will not be any better if I go out drinking with them, and party with them, and study the way they do. My life doesn't necessarily improve if I learn how to "be a girl" better.

My life is already filled with real and interesting people, who aren't just pretty pictures. They are their own people, they are kind and smart and generous, and they are real and warm and loving. I don't live on a magazine cover. I don't know why I keep feeling like my life is empty when it's so full.

But this is what's behind all that, behind me just saying "He's normal, and he likes me." He's not normal, neither am I, and yet we both are. We're human. We're people. We're falling in love with each other. I need to let that be enough.

Maybe, though, just maybe, this is what finally gets me over this way of thinking. The boys I dated before were perfectly good boys, they were kind and caring and sweet and didn't wish me harm, we just didn't work. For both of them, I wish only the best, and the nicest, kindest, nerdiest girls who will love all the shit they do.

yer pal,
swegan

Edit: I should probably give those girls in the elevator more credit, too. The nastiest they've been to me so far is just the looks, nobody's ever said anything mean to my face, and they did welcome me into their group at one point. I don't know what kind of people they are, I just know that they look at me like people who were nasty to me once.

And they're still there getting degrees alongside me, they have just as much a chance as greatness as me. The universe doesn't owe me anything for all the shit I put up with, and despite how much they tell you the popular kids won't succeed- oh, they will. They'll be right there next to you. And that kind of sucks to think about.