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Old Aug 31, 2015, 09:41 AM
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daynrand daynrand is offline
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Member Since: Jul 2015
Location: Auburn
Posts: 38
For some reason I received notification for this thread this morning, & while re-reading a few, a certain memory jumped back to me. As a young girl/woman, I was quite beautiful (physically.) I even had a period of time, from about age 15 to almost 17, when for no reason I've ever been able to fathom, I "became myself". It would take too long to explain, but I somehow lost the weirdness that had followed me throughout childhood & just fit into my skin. I absolutely loved everybody, and it was not acting. I felt a real & true "oneness with the universe" baloney, except it wasn't baloney. It was real. And, when you feel that way toward others, they reciprocate. I was honestly happy, I "understood life" & knew I had a reason for existing & also for the first time ever, even could see that I wasn't all that ugly after all. In fact, I was extremely attractive. (Before, no matter what I was told, I simply felt ugly.) I've analyzed this plenty in the 40-plus years since, & do believe the main reason this took place had to do with an incredible teacher I had, but again, would take too long to explain & I've already run on more than I'd intended. Anyway, that was for about 1 1/2 years of my life, & it ended several months b/4 my 17th birthday when I was kidnapped & raped. Then PTSD took over and ruined it all.

What the point is, that I began attempting to make, I had more boy friends than girl friends during that time. Not "boyfriends", but boys who were friends. They were my best of friends, too. Not sure why, but I guess I was always a tomboy & just enjoyed hanging out with them most, going camping, jumping in the back of someone's pickup at the spur of the moment to go clam digging, things like that. Often I was the only girl in the bunch, & they all treated me like "one of the guys".

HOWEVER... inevitably, one or another of them, especially whichever one I felt closest to, would get weird on me. Then, sooner or later, someone would tell someone else who would end up broaching the subject to me that my friend was in love with me, and was too intimidated to tell me. It happened maybe about 5 times that I can specifically remember now. It always ruined everything for me. I could not understand why we couldn't leave things alone, leave them as they were working so wonderfully, leave us as the best of friends. I even did things to minimize looking too feminine, like stuffing my hair under caps, never wearing make-up, wearing baggy boy clothes, etc.

Don't think I'm some egotistical woman who was hung up on her great looks, either. I'm not kidding when I say I grew up being told & believing I was ugly. When I had that revelation that I was pretty, although I won't say I wasn't happy about it, I was kind of more bemused than anything. And after the PTDS came on, I not only went back to feeling ugly again, I couldn't even look in the mirror without seeing little worms crawling out of my pores or other horrific images. But for that period of time in high school, when I was so very, very happy with my friends, I could not for the life of me understand why I couldn't keep my friends who were boys as "just friends" without them getting strange & lovesick on me.

And I really do believe there are plenty of other young women out there who feel that way. When you guys are out to meet women with the intent of romance in front of it all, I believe you are blocking yourselves from the chance of finding some awesome friends who are women. They may end up being some of the best friends you'll ever have. There may never be a chance of romance with most of them. Or, who knows? It's possible that one special one may end up falling in love with you.

I'm not saying this as clearly as I intended or as clearly as I saw it in my mind when I began. I'm sorry for all the extemporaneous bull I went through in getting to this final point. Just didn't know how else to explain my reasoning for it. Maybe if I hadn't been so physically attractive it wouldn't have been such a problem, I don't know. I clearly felt like "one of the guys" but I didn't look like it, so... I don't know. But, whether you think I shoulda been "flattered" or something like that, I wasn't. I was always devastated to find out that one of my favorite and best of friends saw me as a possible romantic interest instead of his good forever friend. It took away from my self-esteem, not added to it. In my mind it was like, so what would happen if a car ran over my face & ruined it? Then, would he no longer want to be my friend? Or something along those lines.

I'm just saying, that's all. I see so many posts from some of the guys here about romantic pursuits, and wonder if you just changed your goals to friendship pursuits with women? And, while you're at it, if you do that, it shouldn't matter what they look like, either, right? If you're only interested in friendship? Sorry if this is too wordy, fragmented, tmi, etc. Didn't know how else to explain. I'll probably end up asking for it to be deleted when I read it again in horror next week. But please know my intentions are meant for good for you.

And ps ~ if you don't think "looks matter", all you have to do is get old & see how much differently people, particularly strangers, treat you from when you were young & beautiful. Even AS'ers get away with a lot more when they're "Y&B".
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