Beware! Personal Stuff Ahead!

You've been warned. This blog will be a bit personal. If when talking about boys, love and the sort you get squeamish. Or if you experience any dizziness, drowsiness, sweating, twitching, irritability or other side effects – you may not want to continue reading.

Now that I’ve got your attention, you’re gonna continue reading? Aren’t you? AREN’T YOU?

I’m currently reading a funny book called Notes to Boys by Pamela Ribon. The author has been a prolific writer her entire life. And she’s a slight hoarder.  She’s saved ALL her journals from the day she first started one.  Her most interesting journals were those from when she was a 15 year old girl. 

Now having been a 15 year old girl (30 years ago – gulp) this got my attention.

Her journals are really her angsty, teenage, hormonal self who has written to boys she’s liked. And her “experiences” with said boys.  The book is full of drama and crying and vowing to never EVER talk to XYZ boy again, only to flip the page and she’s in love with a new boy. If you’ve been a teenage girl, you know how this goes.

Anyhow, let’s just say I relate well to these stories.

This book is what started a thought provoking week in which I’ve considered stepping out into the dating world again.

Then Sunday happened.

I will preface the conversation I had with someone with that I tend to read into things a lot…and then I sometimes churn on them and make myself either sad or angry.  The person I was having a conversation with probably doesn’t even know that what she said hit me to the core and made me a bit sad, and a lot angry.

Let me also say that my BFF Blueberry and I have a sordid history with boys that I like who turn out to like her. It was how I lived through my college years. I would meet a new boy. I’d cultivate the friendship. He’d meet Blueberry. I’d become “just friends” while he would ask me about her and how to ask her out and if she was dating, etc.  I am sure that Blueberry never understood how painful this was for me. AND she wasn’t doing it on purpose. THAT’s what pissed me off more. She was just “that” kind of girl that guys flocked to. She was tall, gorgeous, perfect skin, smart, and she didn’t know she was any of those things.  I, was the complete opposite of her.

Fast forward to the  mid 90’s. We were at some friends house having dinner – and by WE I mean all of my really close group of friends I had in the mid 1990’s.  Suddenly one of the friends says to Blueberry, “I think we need to find you a boyfriend. And I have someone I’d like to set you up with.”  The conversation continued around how single she was all the while I’m sitting there even MORE single than she is. She’d had a boyfriend in the last decade. So feeling a bit bitter I piped up and said, “Hey! What about me.” To which my friend replied, “Oh Jenn. You don’t need any help.”

Um hi! Single still. Apparently I needed help.

Back to this past Sunday night. I was having dinner with a friend and somehow we started talking about dating. She said, “I’m a little surprised Blueberry is still single.”

Which I heard as, “I’m not at all surprised you’re single.”

So instead of brushing it under the table I asked, why she was surprised Blueberry was still single, but not surprised I was.

I think I caught her off guard a bit and she back pedaled and said that I seem to be so professional (not sure what this has to do with being single), and put together (ahhh false), and have my life together and organized (maybe but what does this have to do with finding Mr. Right or whoever he is?)

What I heard, “Because you’re fat and no one will love you.”

That, my friends, is what went through my mind. The full, naked truth of what, apparently, I think about myself.  I had to take a moment and excuse myself to the ladies room to ponder, briefly, why that ran through my mind.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that was the running commentary in my mind on a regular basis. And that is why, perhaps, I’m still single. 

Now, I know PLENTY, of overweight men and women who are happily married and in love. Logically, I realize weight is not the entire reason. I get that. Logically. But the  mind and the heart are often not in sync and now I have to deal with this emotion that bubbled to the surface.

Why couldn’t it be something easier like, daddy issues? Oh god! Do I have daddy issues too?

So at the end of the day, I was hurt.  Not by what she said, well kinda by what she said, but more by what I thought. Unless of course she meant that I was single because I was fat, which is just mean.

Always picking on the fat kid.

There you have it. My gut has been cut open and I’ve publicly discussed something that has plagued me for years. And I know that I’m a good person and that any guy would be lucky to have me - blah blah blah…which is clearly easy to say and/or type, but if I don’t actually feel that way, than saying it means nothing.  Me thinks I’d better start working on that self-esteem of mine.