Holdin' On For That Teenage Feelin'

I have a pretty clear idea of what my boyfriend's taste in women is. Strange first sentence, I know. But considering that we've been together for nearly 4 years and friends for over 6, it's not surprising.

An Artistic Interpretation of Dating at a Small Private High School

It's sort of strange then that he doesn't fully understand my taste in men. What's even stranger is that he probably understands my taste in men better than I do. I've spent some time reflecting on why. The best reasoning I've come up with is as follows:

During their teenage years, most people figure out who they're attracted to. During my teenage years, I was more interested in figuring out who was attracted to me. This sounds pretty convoluted in retrospect.

To provide some context, I've always had a relatively distorted body image—like most girls and women, I'd imagine. I was (am) also cripplingly awkward and quitting sports had made me squishy. Going to a high school full of tanned and athletic teenagers certainly didn't help either. Teenage bodily insecurities aside, my experiences with boys in high school were pretty much what one might expect: experiences with boys in high school, which is to say, mostly disappointing.

Somewhere in my sophomore year of college I started gaining some self confidence. Because dammit, I'd decided, I was cool and if nothing else, I was totally adorable. I also started dating my boyfriend around then. It didn't hurt that I'd always thought he was majorly attractive and suddenly, he was crazy about me.

So where has this left me? After a few years of trying to form some sort of concrete opinion, I can boil it down to a few things that are pretty strange and pretty persnickety. I'm not wild about boyish faces. I don't give two fucks what someone's hair looks like, but something douchey and high-maintenance will automatically lose points. Not too much shorter than I am (though there are exceptions to this), and not usually any smaller than I am. I'm not into the emaciated brooding types, but I'm not into muscle-bound gladiators any more than most of my guy friends are into plastic tits. And I'm guilty of judging books by their covers: when guys look smart, I get a little swoony.

Of course, these are in no way absolutes, but hey. How's that for the first post in over a month. Now, to sleep. (Perchance to dream)