Sunday, March 2, 2014

Look me in the eye and tell me like it is

I was on my way home about a half hour ago, and passed by these two teenagers who were standing at the corner waiting for the lights to change. One was complaining that whenever she's with her boyfriend, he never listens to her because he's too obsessed with her chest.  The second girl agreed, saying how much she hates it when guys never look her in the eye when they talk to her.

This brought me back to a conversation a group of us had back in college. Same topic. This was twenty years ago, but I still remember how the whole situation made me feel.  There were seven of us sitting around the table on break between classes, and two girls walked past, causing all three of the guys to have whiplash. This angered one of the pretty girls sitting at the table, and she ripped them all a new one. Complaining that it was disrespectful of them, and how would they feel if when they were talking to someone they never had eye contact?
I responded to her saying the opposite, how would they - the pretty girls in the group of which there were three- feel always having a guy never breaking eye contact?
That stopped the one girl cold and planted an idea in her head.  She had all the guys at the table close their eyes and describe what each of us were wearing, our hair and eye colour.  None of the guys at the table got the hair or eye colour right of the other three girls. All three got my eye colour right. All of them did manage to get some part of the outfits the pretty girls were wearing right, but not one single one of them got mine even close.
Which, sadly proved my point.

Hearing those two teenagers today, really hit a nerve with me. I know they say certain situations that happen to us when we're young stick with us for the remainder of our lives, even when we think we've gotten over it.  Twenty years ago, it was all I could do to get up from the table and leave the room before the tears started.
Sitting here now writing about it, I just can't help but wonder, when do we stop being what others see?

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