Warning: this may sound like I'm absolutely full of myself. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to come to terms with something kinda complicated, and it didn't come out too well here. It sounds like I'm a conceited bitch, but most of these things that sound conceited I've never said outloud. Never even wrote about them before.
It sucks when you wake up and you realize that people don't really like you as much as you thought they did. As a young female Leo, this is especially difficult to assimilate. Not that that happened to me this morning, it was actually a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't talked about it. Well, I tried to address the issue with my boyfriend, but he was in that limbo between being awake and sound asleep.
"Hey, hon, do I ever annoy you?"
"It's impossible for two people to be together for any significant amount of time and not get on each other's nerves. I know I get on yours sometimes."
"Yeah, but you know, and I know you know..." I paused for a couple of seconds. "You see, I'm beginning to see a trend in my life... and I realized that I've been misreading people for the longest time, and people have never really liked me as much as I thought they did."
"Honey, I don't think that's the case at all..."
"What do you mean?"
Then he paused for a second and said, "
What were we talking about? I'm sorry, I'm almost asleep."
I sighed and said: "Nothing important, don't worry. Good night."
Then he kissed me and less than a minute later, he was snoring placidly.
I've come to this realization once or twice before in my life, whenever a situation has turned around and slapped me across the face. But I always thought that it was a freak incident, that I was really as well-liked as I thought I was. I mean, I'm not ugly, and I'm not mean, and I'm not stupid (though sometimes I do/say stupid things). There was a time when I was ugly (really, it takes a very gorgeous person to look good in his/her early teenage years and pre-teens, and I've never claimed to be gorgeous). Even then, though I was aware that I was less than attractive, I thought guys still thought I was pretty, and that I was just having self-esteem issues. I remember this one time, I must've been 13, and I had to walk straight across a group of older boys (they were maybe 15). Now, you see, back home in Puerto Rico, this can be very stressful, guys say lewd comments and that kind of thing to every halfway decent-looking female that crosses their field of vision. Well, I held my books tight against my chest, pushed my glasses up my nose, and walked quickly. Instead of something lewd, or maybe flattering (they're known to do that every once in a while too), they started laughing about my messed up curly hair and my uni-brow. What a blow to my ego.
Maybe it was that same year, or the next year, I wore a nice outfit to school. Or at least I thought it was nice. A long, flowery, flowing skirt (lots of blue and purple), and a white tank top. I let my hair down, I had two clearly defined eyebrows by then (though I still had glasses and a mouthful of metal). I thought I'd get compliments.
I got laughed at.
Since then, I've stuck to boot-cut jeans.
In 9th grade, I got contacts. My orthodontic treatment was over and done with. And I got asked out for the first time in 10th grade, (by someone not in school with me, those guys wouldn't even look at me until my ugliness was well in the past, by my senior year). I fell madly in love, like one can only fall in love when one is 15 and no one has ever paid attention to you, and suddenly there's a guy comparing your eyes to the stars and your voice to a siren's. He turned out to be a real dickhead, but still, we were together for 20 months. I dumped him because he was an obsessive psycho, even if he had threatened to kill himself, because he just couldn't live without me.
A month later, he was with someone else. They're still together from what I hear. I pity her.
But I, no, I was REALLY in love. I mourned for over a year, and it wasn't until the end of my freshman year in college that I started feeling attracted to anyone again. And, what was better, he was attracted to me too. We had been friends for a while, and things suddenly escalated to friends who fuck. After a couple of months of this, I was in love. He wasn't. But I thought he was. I really believed that he was, but he was scared of commitment and didn't realize that he really was, indeed, in love with me. He wasn't. It took me a couple of months to realize it.
Then I got to thinking... How many times will this happen to me? How many people have I thought really thought I was The Shit (in the figurative sense), but really just thought I was "eeeeeh... all right, I guess"?
Most people. I'm pretty certain about this now.
I used to walk around thinking guys were checking me out. I never looked, because I didn't want them to know that I knew. I've started looking, and I realize that hardly anyone ever gives me a second look.
I never stuck with any group in my life. I was the cheerleader that jammed with the metalheads in high school. Teacher's pet, Student of the Year for two years in a row. The only group I sorta stuck with was the geeks.
I've been an outcast all of my life, and I never really noticed. I was too busy thinking that people being just generically nice to me because I was nice to them, was people thinking I was awesome.
I'm glad I realized this. I don't know what to do about this new knowledge yet, I certainly do hope somehow I internalize it this time, and start to build up my self-esteem again. You know, years and years of rejection when you expect to be received with cheers just because you are not a bad person really put someone down. I'm nice, but I'm not exceptional in any way. People won't like me just for being me. I'm gonna have to work on it.
It sucks when you realize that no one really likes you, and no one thinks you're awesome, just because you were born with some talents doesn't mean you don't have to cultivate them. I didn't cultivate mine, became mediocre, and didn't realize it until now.
Okay, this is getting repetitive. My brain hurts.
I need coffee.