Dear Matthew ... you suck!

You know in those American highschool movies there’s that dorky, chubby girl who is the school loser and she has a zit ridden face and bad hair and she wears glasses and dresses badly and she is in love with the school jock – usually the quarterback.
And because she’s in love with him she buys him gifts and does his algebra homework.
And he in return makes fun of her and laughs at her with his friends.
Finally when she wakes up and realises what an ass he is and what a fool she has been her little heart is crushed to pieces.

That’s how I feel right now.  I am that girl.  And I am ashamed and embarrassed and totally amazed that at 30 something I can still feel like a foolish 11 year old.

Which leads into the story of Matthew, the first boy I ever liked.

Matthew was the typical cute athletic guy but with a shy side.  He also seemed like a nice boy from what I remember.

I was a bit of a tomboy growing up and I used to hang out with one of his friends who lived on my street.  We had a vacant block of land across the road and me and all the boys (there were no other girls on my street) used to ride our BMX bikes around the block.  We built jumps and would tear around the track all weekend.

I also used to take dance classes and for a while his older sister was in one of my classes.
One day, stupidly, I told her I liked her brother.
And she told him.
And he told his friends.
And they laughed at me.
And I was devastated.
But I pretended to be tough. Like the tap dancing, BMX riding tomboy I was.

You see I was not the popular girl.
I was not the pretty girl.
I was kind of quiet.
And I was a little bit funny.
And chubby.
Let’s just say I really liked the library.
Does that explain it all?

So there I was around 11 years old.  Feeling like an idiot.  And I remember thinking I don’t want to feel this way again.  I don’t like feeling vulnerable and hurt.  I don’t want people to make fun of me or to laugh at me (unless of course I am the one intending to make them laugh).  And I think that’s the moment I decided that love wasn’t for me.

I started building up a barrier and stopped finding boys and subsequently men attractive.  Because if I didn’t find them attractive or was attracted to them then they didn’t have an opportunity to reject me because I was never letting myself get in the position to be rejected.
Smart hey?!

As a girl I never remember pretending to be married or having babies.  I played shop, or Avon lady, or megastar and I would sing into my deodorant bottle in front of the mirror.
And now I’m older the other girls aren’t pretending to be married or having babies, they actually are.  And I’m still pretending that I’m a megastar. 
They seem to have dreams of having babies and long married lives with gorgeous husbands and living near their parents, and I dream of traveling the globe and changing the way people think.  Of making a documentary so amazing that it gets huge accolades at Sundance Film Festival.

But I know that I focus on the travel and the documentary because they are things that I can make happen.
I can’t make someone fall in love with me.

For me, opening myself up for rejection is probably the hardest thing I’ve had to learn to do.
We all have fears and hang ups, I’m no different to anyone else.
I’ve had horrible things happen to me and people, and at times men, have been quite hurtful to me.
But I felt like I’d gotten to that stage in my life where I thought that I had some really awesome things to offer someone.

So, how come I feel like I did when I was 11 years old being laughed at by Matthew and his friends?
How can a man who I thought was actually really cool be mean to me?
And why on one hand did he say he liked me and wanted me and then on the other hand didn’t show that he wanted me or cared about me.

And I’m not writing this for all you girls to jump up and tell me that I’m gorgeous and I deserve someone better and that there’s an amazing guy out there for me.
That’s not what this is about.
That’s not what I want right now.
That’s NOT going to make me feel better.

This guy, with all his faults and his hang-ups about women, was actually really lovely.  Underneath his bullshit there was depth and intelligence.  And I’m sad that I didn’t get to know him more, if only to find out that he truly is an asshole (like my friend says he is) and be done with him completely.

Instead of feeling like I do now … which is a mixture of the 11 year old and the dorky high school girl.

The only thing I am 100% certain on right now is that my future has a lot of singing into my deodorant bottle.  Hell, I may even bust out my tap shoes.