Now I'm One of Those Crazy Girls

I've always thought of myself as a pretty self confident person, sometimes verging on egotistical and narcissistic. However I find my inner-self doesn't quite come across the same when I interact with others, and I become incredibly conscious of this when I'm around the opposite sex. I suppose I want to come off as vulnerable, and sometimes I even fall for my own self-consciousness.

It's funny. Recently I've gone on dates and been complimented more than I've been complimented in my lifetime and I still walk away feeling like shit because, well, it just doesn't penetrate. We're taught from a young age that a man's approval is a very important standard to gauging our self worth; yet we're also taught to not trust a word one says when he has that "one thought" on his mind. No matter how conscious I am of this conflict it's not an easy thing to brush off, and no matter how many men I do or don't sleep with I don't think I'll ever work through this paradigm. I'm know many, many women are on this same boat.

I suppose this also leads into how conscious I've become of my evolving humor, or lack there of. I think the best way to describe my breed is as a "tumblr feminist." The website has really helped evolve my views a bit, which is rather awkward because I feel like I was way late to the ladyparty (my fault alone, I've always had access to the information but have chosen ignorance) and micoposts don't do the ideologies justice. I'm the generation of TL;DR.

I was hanging out with a likeinterest and his friend and they were joking about the friend picking up a couple chicks. I'm lucky in many respects in that I can come off as a pseudo-intellectual and can almost be "one of the guys", something I contribute to having a very socially awkward brother and a former /b/ lurking best friend--I've been exposed to and can bond over nerdboy humor.

"Send her a dick pic" my likeinterest joked. I laughed along. The joke continued for a few more minutes and I could feel myself disagreeing with these jokes more and more even if they did not have any imminent impact on the girls' lives, I was consciously quelling the urge to voice opinions that I knew would make things uncomfortable. I felt like I was that girl who was waiting expectantly at my phone for a text back. I have been and probably will be again and again. I have and will be the butt of those jokes. The fact that I was feeling uncomfortable voicing my opinions on something I know better than any guy--being a girl and being hit on--is kind of messed up. I feel myself moving away from that boy's club that I once thought I was tiptoeing the perimeter of.

(Please excuse any typos, I'm on Monster #3. Finals week has commenced!)