The Politics of Being a Girl

Greetings all,

I was talking with one of my friends on Saturday and we used to go to the same high school for about 2 years but then she moved away. We didn't know each other in high school but my one friend was friends with someone and I became friends with that person who was friends with this girl who I was talking to and who I consider my friend now.

Anyways, these people I knew in high school, when we get together we talk about high school for some odd reason. I normally don't like to talk about the past but it comes up sometimes.

My friend was telling me about this one girl, Nada, who left the high school after a year and I found out it was the same girl that picked on me. I told my friend of the time when I was in grade 9. I was still hanging out with my friends from elementary school and one of them had a boyfriend and they were trying to do the standard 'trying to find Paula a boyfriend' scheme (BTW I was no longer hanging out with them when I was in grade 10. They went weird on me and became mean). They wanted me to go after this one guy named Tom and although he was cute I don't think I was really interested in him. This guy was in the same social circle as my friend's boyfriend. I liked a couple of other guys in that group but I don't recall if I kept that to myself or shared that with my friends.

They had me call up this guy on a Sunday afternoon. I was shy and I really didn't want to but I did just to get my friends off my back about this. I don't know if I actually talked to him but I am pretty sure I hung up on him after he said hello to me. I was really scared and so I panicked.

The next day 2 girls came up to me, in a non-friendly manner, about why I hung up on Tom. The one girl, Kelly who was in grade 10, I found her to be intimidating and she was a bit bigger and taller then me (me being 5'6"). The other girl was Nada. These 2 girls, only confronted me the one time but it deeply frightened me.

I usually kept to myself and so was quite taken aback when they confronted me about this. Me being the introvert, didn't know what to say and frankly I shut down and had little to say. For the rest of my high school years, seeing Kelly made me uncomfortable. She was in one of my classes as well either when I was in grade 10 or 11.

I didn't find Nada intimidating, mainly because she was shorter then me. Since she left the high school, I never had to deal with the uncomfortableness of seeing her.

My friend was telling me that apparently both of these girls had crushes on Tom and so I now understood why they came after me. They perceived me as a threat. The reality was that I wasn't a threat and wasn't even interested in this guy.

I am pretty much over the pain of my high school years and so this story amuses me mildly.

I call this post The Politics of Being a Girl simply because some girls are like this. They just confront you on stupid things like hanging up on a boy. It's really up to the boy to decide if he likes you and there is no point in fighting over a boy.

I never believed in fighting for a man and I never have and never will. No man is ever worth to me to fight over another woman with.

My friend's mother instilled in her to let the boys chase after you and sometime last year she gave me advice (which I honestly probably didn't pay attention to) to date multiple guys and don't give up the sex early and let them pursue you. It took me a few books and much emotional processing to finally come to that understanding. I think she was very lucky to have learned that lesson and I am glad to have learned that as well, even though I didn't learn it as quickly as I would have liked.