…a box where she was expected to be sweet and sensitive (but not oversensitive); a box for young and pretty girls who were not as bright or powerful as their boyfriends. A box for people who were not forces to be reckoned with.
There will be all these fifty-year-old women wearing hot pants and squeezing themselves into pretzel shapes and then there will be me. Just reaching for my toes like they’re China. ‘Hello there! You’re so far away, I can’t get to you! Can you even hear me?
Frankie appreciated both the accolades and the rejections equally, because both meant she’d had an impact. She wasn’t a person who needed to be liked so much as she was a person who liked to be notorious.
My problem is I can think whatever I think-girl power, solidarity, Gloria Steinem rah rah rah – but I still feel the way I feel. Which is jealous. And pissy about little things.
And this is my life, getting dumped with no warning. Or liking people who don’t like me back, or who don’t like me enough, or not as much as they like someone else.
There’s something about seeing a guy’s feelings written down, something about him taking that risk and committing that heart to paper, that means so much more than anything he could just say.
I looked at her. my lovely, tall mother with her pretty coil of hair and her hard, bitter mouth. Her veins were never open. Her heart never leapt out to flop helplessly on the lawn. She never melted into puddles. She was normal. Always. At any cost.
Maybe a friend is someone who wants your updates. Even if they’re boring. Or sad. Or annoyingly cutesy. A friend says “Sign me up for your boring crap, yes indeed”-because he likes you anyways. He’ll tolerate your junk.
The opposite of the life where the girl can’t even speak to the boy she likes; the opposite of the life where the friends aren’t even good friends, and lots of days are wasted away feeling bored and kind of okay, like nothing matters much.
They do sometimes go crazy, these people, because the world is telling them not to want the things they want. It can seem saner to give up-But then one goes insane from giving up.
8. Fact: It is a bad idea to date a known cheater, because even if he doesn’t cheat on you, you will always know he’s capable of it and will never fully trust him. Then you will become even more insecure and neurotic than you already are.
