How do you see yourself in the mirror? Like a whole person or an incomplete puzzle?
As a teenage girl growing up with Ed Sheeran crooning into my ears, I look for the guy prescribed by romance novels and romcoms in order to be ‘complete’ and emotionally secure. If you look at the kind of things we’re exposed to from a very young age, you’d get why that’s so hard.
The romantic in me keeps refusing anything that isn’t rainbows and butterflies, which is probably why I feel out of place amongst my peers who have all ‘fallen in love’ at some point in their lives and here I am, fantasising that a Mr.Darcy or Heathcliff would fall into my lap, quite literally.
Don’t judge me yet for my taste in men or what I just wrote. Throughout my schooling in a girls institution with an ambition drilled into my head, I mostly steered clear of boys. But once you move out of home for college, bam!
Your semester is incomplete without a boyfriend or multiple dates with good looking guys who don’t know the first thing about ambition and use Tinder just for sex. It’s not exactly a rant here, but what I’m trying to convey is the fact that in a country where we’re frowned upon for hanging out with men and going to late night parties, the existing societal paradox makes us feel inadequate unless accompanied by a boy claiming to love us whether or not he understands the true meaning of the word or not.
As far as I know, however, the same pressure exists for boys. You’re expected to date a certain number of girls in a bid to make memories just so that your college life can be called ‘complete’ and worthwhile.
As a girl who’s actively into dating guys and all for the romance in life, I just happen to feel like most of us have grown up feeling like I do, not because of a dysfunctional family or bad childhood, but because of the fact that society sells the concept of love and being loved way more than it sells sex. I mean, in my defence, I do know of guys who complain about how girls can have both at whim and fancy but most of the boys and girls my age stare at couples on Valentine’s Day and secretly wish we had that other person who’d love us and validate our existence because let’s face it – somewhere along the line, we all grew too weak to feel like we’re enough.
I hardly ever feel like I’m good enough for a boy anyway because I usually have the unrequited thing going on but on a personal level, I just want to reach out and shake girls like me so bad and just show them the mirror in which they look at themselves every morning.
It’s probably cliché, but we are all good enough! Just because some boy doesn’t validate your existence, you have no reason to feel that there’s something wrong with you.
And likewise for men. I see so many of them struggle with self-acceptance because a girl doesn’t reciprocate their feelings.
And this probably sounds very preachy but I just couldn’t let this thought go unheard because there have been numerous occasions where I doubted myself because of a boy who was too blinded by his dick to see the human in front of him. And to feel like you aren’t good enough for another human being is the stupidest thing we do to ourselves.
Like, no! Just no.
Stop. Go in front of the mirror and look at yourself. Make a list of things you see that you love and the next time a random bloke makes you doubt yourself and feel small, read that. Keep adding to that list and if possible, keep it in a place where you can see it every day.
I do that and it really helps.
In my moments of weakness, I don’t need a boy to make me complete or a date to validate my existence. I just need that tiny piece of paper with things I love about myself. Hopefully, it isn’t hypocritical to say that I still want my rainbows and unicorns and Mr. Darcy falling into my lap.