Growing up, I was always surrounded by beauties. I was “the friend”, the approachable one that was nice and easy to talk to, while my friends were the girls that the guys salivated over. Countless hours have been spent providing advice for men who had unfortunately fallen for my emotionally unavailable friends, or looking for something else. During Valentines’ day at school, while a few of my friends were peppered with presents, I was the one giving present advice the day before, and the one helping the friends carry them home.

I’m not complaining. Beauty is a gift. This incredible power that people hold and may not know how to use. Some friends (who shall remain nameless) have had skewed, crazy dealings with men because of this. Through the friends that had more attention, I learned about the travails of STDs, pregnancy scares, married men. I have never had to treat “something I picked up” or had to go to my parents crying and saying that I made a mistake and was carrying my boyfriend’s baby at 16.

I was a potato. And a happy one at that. I have guy friends that I’ve gained, and would never have had if they treated me off the bat as a trophy, or a girl they wanted to screw. Conversations were more honest because nobody was trying to impress me much. I got to know so many personalities, gone through so many of my own, that would have been difficult under the spotlight, or the rumor mill, that really basically focused on the popular/and or the pretty.

That is to say I know I have made of mistakes of my own. Growing up, we all do. Picked the wrong men to have years of crushes on. Wasted my first kiss. Accepted things I didn’t deserve. I’m still forever awkward. In fact, last night, while watching the musical I love most in the world, my dress’s zipper burst just as the token song was on its climax, causing me to snicker instead of crying in happiness because, maybe, just maybe, God is telling me to shed a bit of weight.

I have kind of gone off tangent and not really made a clear point. Maybe that I just want to thank my friends for absorbing all the spotlight and helped me realize things through what they’ve been through. For what God gave me because my experience is thoroughly based on the things I was born (and not born) with.

I’d also like to send out a shout out to my fellow awkward girls. Coz we know how lucky we are.