Woman

Past guys have been on my mind a lot lately. Can’t say why. Have you ever been driving (driving is the ultimate past-time and one I spend way too much time doing immersed more in thought than in driving) and thinking at the same time? Wading through your past experiences when something, not a new realization, just a new way to look at an old experience, hits you? And you are stuck musing through your left turns, red lights, accelerations and lane changes?

So lately I’ve been thinking about guys I used to know. Guys from my teenage years. Perhaps I’ve hinted some, but my teenage years were rather tumultuous. Most of that was my own doing, or rather, undoing. I knew a whole slew of less than wholesome public (or less than public) figures. I think I get stuck in that time period of my life because sometimes it is hard for me to believe. That and it is just so damn different from anything I would ever dream of incorporating into my life nowadays.

Guys I used to know. Guys I used to date as a teen. So I was 16 and totally head over heels for this TWENTY-NINE year old. I was 14 and I kissed a THIRTY-TWO year old. Now this is by no means meant to be a kiss and tell, but honestly, as I am turning 29 this year, that just icks me the hell out. What the hell was I doing dating a 29 year old at 16? What the hell was wrong with that guy? (No blame for me on this one, I had not the tools to pick a decent man, and I was seriously misled by what I realize now were some obviously sick souls.)

When I was eighteen I was just breaking up with my boyfriend of 3 years (off and on) who was at that time 24. That means when we started dating he was 21, and I was 15. Fifteen. Twenty-one. Need I say more? I remember wondering why I never had a decent romantic relationship. I ignored the obvious fact that I had chosen to date only men that had clear issues (as dating children is a readily apparent violation of social mores, eh?).

I’m sure I’ve always known this fact, but only recently has it started to kind of gross me out. Grown men. Children. Girls pretending to be women.

The fact that I was a child at 14, 15, 16, 17……These are indisputable facts. Hell the fact that I still acted as a child well into my twenties is also an indisputable fact. And I just can’t believe these guys, that somehow they felt it was okay(acceptable), and imagined that I would somehow stick with them, date them, love them, in any way that is appropriate and understandable.

I don’t think that making choices as bad as I made as a teen concerning men are inevitable choices. It is just a shame that there is even a choice, that there are men out there that just don’t understand the unacceptability of dating girls that act like women.

You can look like a woman. You can act like a woman. But sometimes, no matter how much you pretend, the only way to womanhood is taking the time it takes to get there.