The Outlier

I can remember the first time I was called beautiful by a boy. I was in college, it happened at the end of my freshman year. I was almost 19 years old, and had never even been called pretty by a boy. Various other names had been used for years, the ones I am used to hearing. The ones I believe because after so many years, so many people using them, how can you not? I struggle everyday to believe him when he tells me I'm beautiful, because how can he think I am when every other person doesn't.

My whole life, I've been a tomboy. I like jeans and sweatshirts, I prefer going barefoot to wearing heels. Playing in the mud, searching for bugs under rocks, never brushing your hair. Me in a nutshell. My mother said I'd grow out of it, just like my sisters had. They went through a similar phase, and came out of it very girly. They love wearing dresses and heels, spending an hour or two on their hair and make-up just to go to school. What my mother never realized is I am not my sisters. I have no desire to wake up earlier than I have to in order to look like a barbie doll to the people in my grade. I value sleep over looking perfect. If I can wake up, get dressed, and leave in 10 minutes then I will every time.

My older sisters dated from the time they were in eighth grade. They had scores of boys who wanted to be with them, wanted the chance to take them out. My brother was the same way, except with girls. All my siblings could get a date in a minute. I was not so lucky. The boys in my grade thought I was about as appealing as a crack on the sidewalk. They never considered me, not even for a second. Did it bother me? Not initially. For the longest time it didn't. All my friends dated, had fights and drama, and broke up. I was their go-to for help (though I had no experience I could give them some great unbiased advice) and through their stories I was 100% fine with not dating.

I was the outlier in my family. No boyfriends, no dates, no 3 hour phone calls. I spent my Friday and Saturday nights on the couch, watching a movie or reading a book. My parents never had to worry about what I was getting myself into; all the bad things I did were only done inside the pages of my latest story. While my friends were out partying, drinking, sleeping around, I was safely tucked between the covers of the scores of books piled next to me.

The older I got without ever dating, the more my family questioned if I even liked boys. My sisters asked me first, then my mother. My brother and father never asked, but  I could the question was on the tip of their tongue. My friends asked me, the people in my grade would ask my friends because they were too scared to ask me to my face. I am a 1000% supporter of the LGBTQ community; they are wonderful people who deserve to love who they love. I do like boys, and only boys, I just was't interested in dating throughout most of high school. They didn't seem to believe me, because all high school girls are supposed to be boy crazy.

My family didn't understand, though I didn't explain it to them very well. I always told them I just wasn't interested in a relationship at that time. That was only partially true. At times I did like someone, yet I never believed they could like me so I would push the feelings away until they disappeared. I had decided that nobody would want to be with me, so I had accepted that fact. I would be the outlier in my family, no boyfriend in high school, or college. Be a strong, independent woman who didn't need no man.

Freshman year of college, though, everything changed.