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The original was posted on /r/twoxchromosomes by /u/bleachdrinker2001 on 2023-08-30 11:45:47.
The thing is, I’m turning 22 in a few weeks, and I can’t stop thinking about how dead my dating life is at the moment. The other day I was talking to a friend about how I used to have always a guy after me when I was in high school. Don’t mistake me, I’ve never been the type of girl to make head turns, I was chubby and nerdy, pretty average I’d say.
But I always had a few guys over me. Some of them my age, but mostly older men. When I was 16, I dated a guy who was 21. Only now, with the perspective of time, I see how fucked up that was. I was the high school girlfriend to some college dude. I also was approached a few times on the train or the bus by random adults asking for my Instagram or directly my phone number.
And I was thinking, have I changed that much in 5 years? The answer is no. I’m obviously older, I look more mature, more adult. I was very developed for my age when I was a teenager, but I still had a “baby face”.
My friend and I talked about something that I didn’t really wanted to realise before: this men didn’t want me, they wanted the feeling of the forbidden fruit of a teenager. I was legal (age of consent is 16 in my country), yet I was too young, too innocent. Now I’ve learnt to put my boundaries and mark my lines, and this kind of men don’t like that.
And I look at my pictures, the same body but with a baby face, longer hair and a few differences… but why did the 16-17 year old me felt so beautiful and now I feel hideous?
Now I’m not in high school, but I have a college degree and I’m pursuing further education. Now I have my own money from working my own jobs. Now I should be even more “valuable”, but I’m not. My mind is a mess trying to make it have sense