The past has come up a lot lately, especially when thinking about old crushes. I remember I "loved" Gordie, Tyler, and Bryan (Brian?) and I would've dropped dead if someone told me the feeling I was feeling wasn't love. But it wasn't love.
Looking back now, I'm so thankful for the douche canoes that rejected me and called me ugly, because if they hadn't rejected me, I would've never have known how to love myself.
We all have those guys...the ones you asked out and they said no for X, Y, or Z reason. We all felt like shit afterward, but if it hadn't been for them (ironically) we would have never learned to be okay with ourselves and to respect ourselves. We deserved better than someone who only saw popularity or surface looks.
They taught us to stop looking at surface looks because looks fade. What doesn't fade is how people treat you and their inner goodness. I remember those boys clear as day and I know if I had dated them, then I wouldn't be who I am; a confident, sexy, intelligent person who is independent and who enjoys her own company. If we had dated those boys, then popularity, looks, and money would've warped us into people we are not.
Don't get me wrong, I think my boyfriend is the sexiest man alive, but not for lack of flaws; but rather because of those flaws...because he is so human and real. What he see's as flaws, I see as beautiful markers of who he is and what he's been through.
The boys I liked they were "perfect" or they appeared so to me, but I'm sure they had ghosts that haunted them. If they hadn't said no to me, then I wouldn't have learned to look inside of people for what really counts. Gordie was sweet, but he taught me that popularity wasn't everything and that I don't want to be like the girls he liked.
Bryan taught me that money means nothing if you use it for personal gain and for controlling people. Tyler taught me that boys are assholes, first of all. I'll never forget the words he said to me that still make me self-conscious, but he showed me that beauty is superficial. Beauty is not some marker of worth.
Inner beauty is the marker that matters. Being rejected made me feel ugly and worthless then, but now? Being rejected made me into the woman I am today.
Being rejected will not only show you your worth but also it will give you more time to find the man who is worth your time and who see's all you have to offer. Not just surface bullshit.