This question came up during my spring break journey home to the Navajo reservation. Let me give you the tea of that day.
The day I was travelling to fly back to Pennsylvania, my family gathered to celebrate the first birthday party of my little uncle. All my grandparents were there and I made sure to talk to each of them before I had to leave once again to the Wild Wild East Coast,
As I left, there were small reassurances, words of advice, and the usual constant reminder to "LEAVE THE BOYS ALONE" was expressed to me. No matter how many times I reassure them that there is NO ONE out east for me (For several reasons. Refer to my article "As A Navajo Woman, I Can Never Casually Date And That's Totally Fine").
I'm not complaining that they are only telling me this because they understand that relationships create a form of additional distraction or stress, but I am complaining that the responsibility lies primarily with me.
Does anyone tell their sons, nephews, cousins, etc. to leave the girls alone?? Do they explain that womxn have different responsibilities or expectations that may not leave room for relationships? Were they taught to mind their own business and develop themselves before they desire to have relationships with womxn?
Then after all those accusatory questions I began to wonder how I, as a desirable young womxn to some, could get boys to leave me alone. I voiced this out loud to my mom, aunt, and cousin sisters. Their response, "You'll just have to deal with it." "I don't know." "I don't know what to tell you."
WTH! Highkey those are unfair expectations placed on me because I'm expected to ONLY be friends with males and the expectations go a little something like this...
1.) Be their friend, but don't lead them on.
2.) Be nice, but not nice enough to where it seems like you're flirting
3.) Dress nice, but not too nice so it doesn't seem like you're asking for attention.
There's more that I'm sure others can add to, but you get the point. Therefore, I'm still left with this question, "How do I get the boys to leave me alone?"
I could be mean ("bitchy"), never dress cute, never speak to males and avoid them, repeatedly say I'm not looking for a relationship on my social media feed, publicly post that I don't want males to add me (I've actually done this on FB several times throughout the years), keep a lowkey social media feed, etc. THe problem is... I'VE DONE ALL THAT AND IT STILL DOESN'T WORK.
Again, how do I get boys to leave me alone? I leave that question to my readers to PLEASE help me out because it is bothering me that I don't have an answer to this.
