The Pattern
I go online.
It's always been this way. My first romantic relationship started in an AOL chat room. I've always preferred writing when getting to know a stranger. And not just writing, but the digital typed word. It maybe wasn't a choice when I was 15...I was too uneducated in the ways of romance to try to woo a boy in person.
I was actually pretty hot at 15, but that was a new thing. It came on suddenly, just one day I had my own style and a nice rack and appeal. It came on when it differentiated my music taste from my peers, because with my music came my new look, my subculture membership, my "individuality".
Anyway, I wasn't hot in middle school. The only guys who expressed interest in me were the two fat kids, Jamie and Robert. Oh, and George Cooper, who we all knew was gay.
Funny aside; George was my secret Santa in 7th grade and made me my first mixtape. It was mostly him holding a handheld tape recorder up to a radio with K-Rock playing Marilyn Manson. In between songs, he would go into desperate diatribes about how he wanted me to like him. Kirsten...(sigh) why don't you like me? Oh wait they just put on Smashing Pumpkins! (Back to K-Rock). For hours. Looking back, he had the best music taste of anybody in 7th grade, and I should have been the only person who cared and even I didn't.
George was annoying.
So, anyway. Back to hotness. That's how you attract boys in real life and I didn't know how to be hot. I knew how to be smart, how to be funny and how to gush about music. The internet let me put those things in front of my appearance, putting my best foot forward. It's funny that I still think it does, because all the guys I talk to online now saw my photo before we ever said hello.
But let's back up for a second. I need to tell you that I went to all girls school until 7th grade. I had no interaction with boys besides a handful of older ones I knew through piano or choir. So, when I saw the "hot" girls (the few who had been treated well by early puberty because they were the daughters of Brazilian royalty or something), kissing their boyfriends after school, it clicked: you have to be hot to kiss boys. End of story.
My parents were clearly still in love and I saw them kiss growing up, but that was a marriage, not a boyfriend/girlfriend situation. I couldn't mentally connect the two...or my mom must have been a Hot Girl to get my dad in the first place.
Ok, so that's where that fallacy originated. My first boyfriend, Dan, and I got to know eachother via instant messaging for months before we even exchanged photos. I had to mail him photos of myself, which I took with a disposable camera.
The interaction fulfilled my fantasies of things being different, of a world where only smart girls who liked ska music got to kiss the boys. Rather, other girls were kissing boys but I was kissing the hottest one because I liked ska music.
WOW what the fuck! In all my fantasies, the boy HAD to be top notch grade A fucking HOT. A total babe. He had to be a total fox who liked me for "bigger" reasons. (Things never change, apparently, because I still have this fantasy at 31)
***end of installment one because I don't want the livejounal app to erase this while I'm driving***
It's always been this way. My first romantic relationship started in an AOL chat room. I've always preferred writing when getting to know a stranger. And not just writing, but the digital typed word. It maybe wasn't a choice when I was 15...I was too uneducated in the ways of romance to try to woo a boy in person.
I was actually pretty hot at 15, but that was a new thing. It came on suddenly, just one day I had my own style and a nice rack and appeal. It came on when it differentiated my music taste from my peers, because with my music came my new look, my subculture membership, my "individuality".
Anyway, I wasn't hot in middle school. The only guys who expressed interest in me were the two fat kids, Jamie and Robert. Oh, and George Cooper, who we all knew was gay.
Funny aside; George was my secret Santa in 7th grade and made me my first mixtape. It was mostly him holding a handheld tape recorder up to a radio with K-Rock playing Marilyn Manson. In between songs, he would go into desperate diatribes about how he wanted me to like him. Kirsten...(sigh) why don't you like me? Oh wait they just put on Smashing Pumpkins! (Back to K-Rock). For hours. Looking back, he had the best music taste of anybody in 7th grade, and I should have been the only person who cared and even I didn't.
George was annoying.
So, anyway. Back to hotness. That's how you attract boys in real life and I didn't know how to be hot. I knew how to be smart, how to be funny and how to gush about music. The internet let me put those things in front of my appearance, putting my best foot forward. It's funny that I still think it does, because all the guys I talk to online now saw my photo before we ever said hello.
But let's back up for a second. I need to tell you that I went to all girls school until 7th grade. I had no interaction with boys besides a handful of older ones I knew through piano or choir. So, when I saw the "hot" girls (the few who had been treated well by early puberty because they were the daughters of Brazilian royalty or something), kissing their boyfriends after school, it clicked: you have to be hot to kiss boys. End of story.
My parents were clearly still in love and I saw them kiss growing up, but that was a marriage, not a boyfriend/girlfriend situation. I couldn't mentally connect the two...or my mom must have been a Hot Girl to get my dad in the first place.
Ok, so that's where that fallacy originated. My first boyfriend, Dan, and I got to know eachother via instant messaging for months before we even exchanged photos. I had to mail him photos of myself, which I took with a disposable camera.
The interaction fulfilled my fantasies of things being different, of a world where only smart girls who liked ska music got to kiss the boys. Rather, other girls were kissing boys but I was kissing the hottest one because I liked ska music.
WOW what the fuck! In all my fantasies, the boy HAD to be top notch grade A fucking HOT. A total babe. He had to be a total fox who liked me for "bigger" reasons. (Things never change, apparently, because I still have this fantasy at 31)
***end of installment one because I don't want the livejounal app to erase this while I'm driving***