Just tonight, I was rummaging around my tiny dorm room, looking for a pair of shoes when I stumbled upon a bin underneath my bed. Curious, I looked inside of it, and of course I got carried away with what was inside - stacks of notebooks, with scrap paper floating around in between the notebooks and the box. This happens a lot; I'll find some old writings and delve back into the past for awhile, laughing quietly at my younger voice, how I thought, the things I wished for and the ideas that I came up with. This writing in particular, I wrote four pages about how I felt when people looked at me. I was nineteen when I wrote it, and I guess I was looking back at me from high school. I guess after reading it, it was too insightful not to share. So, here are my thoughts, a product of my streaming consciousness written down on paper.

All my life, people have seen me a certain way, but it didn't fully happen until I entered high school. I was entering this weird, chaotic world that obtained no gray areas - only black and white, this or that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that from Freshman year on, we were really put into boxes, locked in with only the personality and traits that people stitched onto us. It felt so permanent sometimes, that the pressure became too prominent to live up to those descriptions.

Here is my story in particular. When I was about fifteen, I realized I liked a lot of different things for a girl my age. Black and white films, Jerry Lewis, Audrey Hepburn, tap dancing, reading old books about historical cities and finding pure joy by wandering off into the woods with a blanket and good book and falling asleep beneath the branches. And it was the way that I dressed, too; the music that I listened to, all the things that I liked. My world transformed completely when I was introduced to bands like The Shins, Lucy Rose and Best Coast and Mr. Little Jeans.

At first, I had fun, I won't lie. However, it was throughout the dating scene that I was beginning to see how guys viewed me. And it was generally this: a perfect, cute, innocent, kind, happy go lucky girl with quirks who could do no wrong. I was seemingly perfect to them, that I couldn't do anything wrong no matter how much I tried to let them see my inner demons and insecurities. The pressure was unreal, to live up to their perception of me, and to be constantly on this pedestal. I would do something stupid and make a mistake, hoping someone would see. But, to them, my downfall was "endearing" or "adorable", which resulted in making me a more likable person. To an extent, maybe, but couldn't they see . . . I wasn't who they wanted me to be? It was almost like they were slowly creating this fictional character in their lives, and I was the leading lady - their fantasy girl.

After awhile, it felt belittling and degrading - to be placed into this category - so cutesy, all hollowed out and so dense. Okay, I know they didn't mean it, but nonetheless, it made me sad. People would come up to me and say word for word, "You are the hipster girl" or call me (and I quote) "Indie bullshit" (what does that even mean???)

Sometimes I wasn't sure when a comment was a compliment. I do remember feeling the sense of establishment, though, specifically. It was the period, or era, whatever, you want to call it - when I was dating my first serious boyfriend. I was in love with him and together we were practically invisible. But it was from day one where I felt like we had this label placed upon us, the way we acted with each other, the dates we went on, our common interests. When we performed for our high school talent shows, I sang and he played acoustic guitar. People were referring to us as the "cute hipster couple" and from there, even when we broke up, something came along with me - the illusion that I was this adorable dream girl with little to no background or something - no content.

From the outside looking in, it was almost like I was the mystical being in a trope role - a girl who made someone okay, for a boy - that being him - to feel like he was going to be happy and complete. I liked what he liked and we hardly fought when we were together for awhile. But, because we wanted to remain on that high pedestal our peers put us on, we had to appear like the ultimate dreamy duo.

But this is just how I saw us.

This is how I saw myself.

Throughout high school, I was trying to find myself - just like any seventeen, eighteen-year-old girl. Those were my prime years . . . I had encountered people who had pre-conceived ideas of who I was, what kind of music and movies I liked, who I would date - even down to the small things like my appreciation from the simplest of things. I know this may not make total sense but please bear with me. At the time, I loved the attention, how guys liked that I was "seemingly perfect" or that I could "save them", or give them meaning or whatever. Back then, I was kind of self-absorbed, but that is because I was younger and immature. And that's my fault. But, maybe, maybe something caused me to be this way, too. The way people perceived and judged me.

I was "that girl", "the girl who was weird and so quirky", just because I like Juno or 500 Days of Summer, made weird YouTube videos or wore dresses almost every day with pink tights in the eleventh grade. Because I had straight across bangs and wore band t-shirts and drank coffee and tea, and rode my bike places and pretended like I was in a music video and MAYBE I felt like it was okay to skip down the street because I could and because I was so happy. Do you a see a pattern here? It was the stereotype, and I could feel myself being pushed tight into a concealed box labeled "DREAM GIRL, HOPING AND WISHING".

But it was just me, a girl who happened to like all of these things, and in seconds my feelings felt justified and I felt so diminished and broken - as if I was on display or something. There are hardly any gray areas in the world because our society is so comfortable with placing people in tiny boxes - it's just "easier" There always has to be some sort of label. It shouldn't be that way, though. It makes me feel less like a human, and I don't feel as if there is much value to what I am passionate about.

This stereotype followed me into relationships that continued out of high school, and I've finally realized it looking back, now. I thought maybe the guys back then genuinely liked me - and for the most part, they did. But all they saw of me was what they wanted to, and what they constantly mentioned:

"You're so cute"

"I like your hair"

"I like your eyes"

"We have so much in common"

"I'm here for you and I'll do anything"

"You're so different"

Okay, yes, why am I complaining??? But it was how it came off. All of it was temporary. It was fluff, almost. If they had gotten to know the real me, they'd might have realized I was a human like them, too. I was like them, battling things, like depression and heartache and trying to overcome my own struggles.

But they didn't truly see.

They saw what they wanted.

I was a stereotype?

It was all temporary.

I recall scrolling through Tumblr when I was nineteen and reading an old post from my first love, and my ex-boyfriend. He said things like "I want to fall in love. I think I've been in love, but I'm not sure, really. Maybe I wasn't".

Then he said something that interested and offended me at the same time.

"She was perfect. But in a literary sense".

I know it sounds lame, but to this day, I try to analyze what he means by that. We even got back together a few times after I read that, but I never asked him what he meant - I just pushed it aside, hoping to ignore and forget.