Not Every Eight Grade Girl Needs a Boyfriend

I wrote this last semester for my ENG 101 class just never posted

Eighth grade was the year all of my friends came together, without me, and decided on boys as the new fad of our lives. In previous years this was easier to ignore–since virtually none of the guys found me attractive and called me gay any chance they could get. This year added a different kind of pressure, for some reason men were actually relevant to me. Never before had men around me outwardly expressed their opinions on my body, let alone positive ones. This was uncharted territory and gave me an overwhelming sense of what I envisioned as my coming into womanhood, or independence, or confidence, or whatever other perversions my mind twisted this daily sexualization into. I put these pre-pubescent boys on a 5’3” pedestal and expected them to make me a woman. To this day, I regret giving these oafs this much credit. I wish I knew there were no man-shaped holes required to be filled in order for me to be a person; only recently have I come to understand my seemingly perpetual need for validation. Searching for self-worth and identity through external approval makes it impossible to feel truly content.

I remember assuming bodily autonomy at the ripe age of twelve or thirteen. It was too hard to be a recluse in middle school and all the boys had just learned what porn was so there was no escaping their testosterone. If I closed myself off from these boys there would be absolutely no personal gain and I might get bullied out of school; but if I overlooked the discomfort I felt, at least it was some form of gratification. Hedonism was ever-present in my tween years. Pleasure, however, was a rare experience so of course I recognized this as easily accessible attention–for which I was grateful. 

I wouldn’t describe myself as boy-crazy, it was almost comparable to behavioral analysis, there just happened to be benefits I intended to reap. For a short while this attention was generally satisfactory; eventually, things got weird. One guy got too weird and my mom had to call the school resulting in an uncomfortable conversation between me, my teacher, and my self-proclaimed protector. I shuddered at the thought of relying on this boy for anything of importance, this was the first time I felt let down in this regard. Why did he have to get weird? I thought he was supposed to fulfill some expectation of mine but I couldn’t even tell if I had any expectations there for him to fulfill; he was just some guy after all. I wasn’t done though, this just wasn’t the right one. Men had to be the answer to my attention depravity. Moving onto his best friend. 

We were all laying down in the dark math room, it was our routine “calm.com” meditation of about twenty minutes after lunch. I don't think I'll ever understand why they did this. All of us on the floor, obscured by numerous kinds of furniture in this forced meditative environment soured by the male ego. On this specific day I was sprawled out on my stomach, a space left between my legs. My jeans were skin tight hollister jeans which made my butt look extra soft according to my protector's right hand man. He was good enough. I intended to fall asleep during this time as I usually did, until I noticed his feet right next to mine inching their way towards the space between my legs. I kept my head down pretending to be asleep, subconsciously yearning for the fifteen minutes to be up. I wanted to know what he was going to do, I wanted to know what he wanted. I so desperately craved knowing what it was that men could do for me. Why were they so highly reveled and expected to be great in ways I wasn’t. But all he did was perversely caress my inner thigh with his bare foot. What the fuck was was that? There was no way that this was the reality of the male species. 

I told my friends what happened during our meditation time. I didn’t know what reaction to expect from them or even from myself. How should I feel about it? On one hand, this boy obviously had some interest in me whether or not it was centered around my body, and on the other hand, I hadn’t even given him a sign that I was awake. I felt weird, like I had accomplished something but I didn’t know what it was or if it was at all valuable. My friends giggled and clustered around me, asking if he was going to be my boyfriend. This reaction helped me infer a positive connotation over the entire event. I guess I did want him to be my boyfriend, that seemed to be my expected next step, maybe there was something I was missing.

Consequently, I avoided interaction with my new boyfriend at all costs. Everything he did was cringey and annoying, constantly seeming like some attempt to prove himself as a man. I wanted him to prove himself, I couldn’t believe that this was who I was attracted to. He was just a boy, I know that now, but I expected more. How could men be these great beings of power and leadership when this one just shot and missed a basket he dedicated to me. I was better at basketball than he was, I was stronger than he was, I got better grades than he did, I was regarded as better looking than he was, and yet I was referred to as “his girl” by most of our grade. I felt exploited. I never let him kiss me except for once on the cheek and any fondling that occurred was less than desirable. I wished that this was what satisfied me, but he just freaked me out, compulsively touching my breasts as if I were his mother. What had he done to deserve these intimate parts of me when I had only recently become aware of them. He wasn’t someone that I could rely on or expect anything from; he didn’t even know me. But I didn’t even know me. 

I still depended on verbal or even physical affirmation of my self-worth from other boys in my grade whether or not my boyfriend was aware of it. It’s not as if I could’ve stopped them from inflicting their masculinity onto me but I wasn’t complaining about it either. One exception to my lack of complaints came in the form of my boyfriend’s previously mentioned best-friend, and my self-proclaimed protector. He was among the boys who actively voiced their opinions about my looks, and personality in rare cases. He was the one that got too weird, too fast, and broke my perception of men in general. I didn’t even expect it to get to a point where I would be weirded out, since I craved this attention so much, but he seemed to think I needed him for something and that really rubbed me the wrong way. He emphasized this need to protect me and sat by me in every class so he could have the constant opportunity to talk to me. I felt belittled and untrustworthy as if it was absolutely necessary for me to have this young boy keep an eye on me and I hated it. Having to tell my parents and get the teachers involved was a truly depressing task for me. To admit that this boy creeped me out was to admit, not only, that men were not these glorified beings but also that men could not give me what I wanted. It was such a let down.

I was about to do the worst thing I could ever imagine doing, break up with the one boy who wanted to date me. I couldn’t fathom what my friends would think or what they would ask. It felt completely irrelevant to me in terms of importance, as if it could have never occurred at all. My relationship with him had made zero impact on my life in the ways that I wanted it to. I was so frustrated and confused and upset, yearning for completion and understanding from a boy who hadn’t promised me it. I texted him on a weeknight explaining how it wasn’t his fault and that I just couldn’t have a boyfriend right now. He told me he was heartbroken and sent a vaguely sarcastic, sad emoji. I hadn’t really expected him to be sad, so naturally I took this as a compliment, once again relying on external validation as a means for self understanding. At this point I realized what I was doing, taking these small pleasantries from anyone I could and casting them onto my perception of myself. I don’t think I grasped the problematic culture of this strategy or how it related to me until much later in my exploration of sexuality and relationships, but I knew I couldn’t abuse it as I seemingly had been.

After finally breaking up with my eighth-grade boyfriend I made it a point to ignore boys and satisfy myself through my own interests and previously established friendships. I don’t remember the exact aftermath of my breakup but that tells me there was relatively zero fuss on the matter. We didn’t speak for a bit, but we were cordial for what length of that year we had left up until COVID hit. What had I expected to gain from these testosterone fueled goons who saw me as a walking blob of boobs and butt? I really couldn’t recall. This simple revelation of mine disappointed me terribly. It was evidence that I had to satisfy my own desires, even if I had little to no idea what they were. I wanted these boys to have the answers to both what my desires were and how to satisfy them, but that created a paradox in and of itself. 

As of now, I still struggle to pinpoint my exact wants and sometimes my needs, but I am more aware of how I project that onto the people around me. I do not expect my romantic relationships to give me worth or purpose even if I cannot find it in myself. It is easy to forget that everyone else is living life for the first time as well and we are all attempting to find happiness for ourselves surrounding our desires along with our basic needs as people. It is unreasonable to rely on those around you to tell you who you are in any genuine aspect because who you are depends on who you want to be and only you can truly understand your own desires.