Ranting Lily: This One's for the Girls

As an adult, I interact with the opposite sex quite a bit. Since I’m happily married, I don’t feel the need to go after any of them. This lends a certain kind of confidence to my personality. In short – I pretty much don’t give a crap, so I’ll say what I want. As Lenny states, I can sarcastically cut down men, put them in their place verbally, or razz them because I don’t need them. Not that that is a huge change from my personality growing up.

I’ve always been loud. I’ve always bucked the trend. I’ve always sought the balance between being a girl and being different from the norm. Sometimes it works for me…sometimes it cost me. But if I’m not that loud-mouthed, smart-ass…I’m not me.

Curious to me though, is that NOW men find this intoxicatingly cute! More than once I’ve been told that I would be the EXACT girl they would want to date. WHERE WERE YOU GUYS WHEN I WAS 17? I have spoken to a few women who have shared a seat on the same boat and we’ve come to the same conclusion.

You boys are infuriating like that! NOW YOU TELL US!

There are legions of former “Plain Janes” or “Best Gal Pals” out there that went dateless and ignored for years. They pined over crushes and lost guys to prettier, trendier models. She sat one seat over from you in History and got palpitations whenever you handed something back to her. We’re the ones who disappeared into the background while the coolest guy at school and the perky ingénue rode off into the sunset in his car. We were your first choice as a lab partner…but not even your fifth choice as a dance partner.

Why did you ignore us? Most would say it was youthful stupidity. In our younger years, most were searching for “lust” rather than “love.” And some of it could be our inability to make ourselves stand out. But the fact remains – we’ve probably been this way for years.

You can call me shallow at this point, but it really does chap my hide that only in older age males decide that it’s nerd from English class who wore glasses and had that slightly crooked smile that riles them up rather than the fully developed C-cup Princess. There are a lot of beautiful girls out there – just hardly any of you opened your eyes enough to see.

Then, some of you have the gall to kid yourself about being lured by looks over content! A male friend and I were having a conversation one day regarding the fact that I never dated in high school.

That devilishly cute bastard looked me in the eye and said, “I would have dated you no problem! I didn’t go just by looks, Lily.”

“Is that so?”

He nodded furiously, “Yes…beauty on the inside, right?”

“Yes,” I nodded…about ready to set the trap. “So, let me ask you this: Did you ever date the fat girl?”

When he finally did stammer out a haphazard “no,” the point had already been made. It’s easy to say that looks don’t matter and that it’s the personality that counts – but until you’ve dated the ugly girl – you don’t have a leg to stand on, guys.

So, why am I ranting about this now? I can agree that at this point, it sounds like bitterness. Lily is still resentful because she was never the Homecoming Queen or the girl that every boy was after.

Okay…maybe that’s a little part of it.

However the root of my rant is that I see pretty young girls’ everyday that was just like me when I was their age. They’re bright. They have everything going for them. The world is going to be theirs one day. We have taught this new generation to be proud of who they are regardless of what they look like – and did a damn good job doing it.

But it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t teach their counterparts to open up their eyes and see past the clothes from the Limited Too and make-up by Bonnie Bell. Once again, I just want to see a balance. Mentors, both female and (especially) male, need to teach the knowledge to those boys.

I think we’ve done enough to teach girls how to grow into women. It’s now time to teach the boys how to become men. Start them young – help them avoid the pitfalls. You’ll make some shy and awkward girl feel better in the future.