"When any man likes me I am never surprised for I think, 'How should he help it?' When any man does not like me, I think him a blockhead."
-Hester Lynch Piozzi (British diarist 1741 - 1841)
The thing is... when I was younger, I used to think it was ME who was the blockhead. In my single life, despite having a fair amount of self awareness – enough that I could reasonably define my level of oh-honey-you-so-fine coolness (and subsequent great girlfriend-material) -- I always assumed that it must have been me that had some hideous deficiency or other because none of the boys I ever “went for” saw me like I saw myself. I say “went for” because most of them never knew I was even remotely interested. I am from the “worship-from-afar” school of singleton life; the one time I ever had the bollocks to tell a fella that I was interested in more than just a spin on the school dance dance floor (can I get an uh-huh?) produced results too cringeworthy to mention in polite company. So mostly I got to be the best friend... never the girlfriend.
Later, I worked out that I didn’t have to sit around and wait for my own validation from whomever filled the 501’s of that particular Romeo-of-the-month and that there was plenty of amusement to be found if one proactively went out to find it, instead of waiting for it to call me back like it said it would. Isn’t that tragic though? I would tell that to my teenage self if I ever had the chance to have a word with her. Me and the 18th century Mammy P pictured above, we would tell her who was a blockhead, all right.
Oh, and also we would say: please don’t wear your hair like that. Eeeesh.
2 comments:
Don't worry - you'll have the opportunity to tell your teenage sons this some day. My 16 year old daughter scares me sometimes by saying EXACTLY the things I used to say. Except she's got this weird Canadian twang thing going on.
Maggie
You mean... (gulp)... they're going to be TEENAGERS one day?
(faints)
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