intimidated all the way....

So I am this kind of person who gets intimidated by almost anything and everything....like the last thing that intimidated me was jackfruit! No. I aint kidding. This is serious stuff you know. This calls for more than a shrink. But anyways,

So I was in school...I call it the big shot school. The place where all the kids from my little NRI community went.
I would have liked to think we lived in a Malory towers sort of theme with ballerina shoes and an accent, mid night parties and a yummy poooool! But no. This wasnt one of them. It was this building with kids who either belonged to the 'cooool' clique or the 'totally vanishing species- like you dont even see them if they are right in front of you' clique or if you are the lucky few, you could belong to the 'i am original and I dont know the others are doing with themselves' clique. Aaah! well....that was my school. It was this building, several blocks actually. A huge play ground in the middle, basketball courts splashed in between and school children, lots of them and you HAD to belong! Maybe my insecurities stemmed out of this theme they played in school. Maybe because I always wanted to look good and be popular but somehow felt like I was the inconsolable unanimously voted for president of the glee club, the other pseudonym for the second clique I mentioned. Can you imagine?

My life for twelve long years was THIS. My problems started out with the frizzy hair that I once had. ( typical malayalee types). My mother on the other hand looked very punjabi with glossy hair and light brown eyes and how? Oh! dear God! Did you hate me so much??!? - that I ened up with frizzy hair in big school?

So I tried many a time cutting it thinking a fringe ( bangs if you want) would solve this issue and transform me. But like all those other missions of mine at transformations, this one was one I always repeated and the one that without fail made me the president over and over again. I mean...who invented the fringe?? My mother would ask the hair cutter to not let them fall over my eyes so she would keep cutting them off till they could barely reach my hair line! AAaargh! Of all that went on in my life- I vote this the worst!
Anyways enough of hirsute jargon! You get the picture right?

Then there was the issue of the school pinafore. The length. It hurt me to see my hirsute legs being covered with that blue checkered cloth! Really! And I do remember trying my hand at the rasor when I was 14 and getting hugely reprimanded by my mom who felt I was way to young to be shaving, and she had warned me -'that is the beginning of all the troubles you can get'. So I refrained.

So here was me- quite thin, frizzy hair, bangs that clenched my hair line (which thankfully hadn't started receding), looooong pinafore checks and all, long socks which met my pinafore half way up the legs and all in all a look that made me call myself N-U-N. What was the chance that I stood with all those gorgeous boys, those adorable ones that you wished would at least come up and say a hello to you, if not a kiss??
So like the rest of my clan, I stood and watched while the cute boys dated the cute girls, who by the way had hair that was silky and bouncy, legs waxed, and glowing like butter under the moonlight. All of those years, I wished and waited for that one boy who would whisk me away, whisper in my ear and make me laugh.

Then there were the parties. A big No No at my age. Boys and girls went to those parties, danced to music, danced in groups, lights out, some kissed, some held hands, some like me just stood (if I ever got invited i.e)
and watched it all. Sad life uh? True.

Now where were we again? Yes. Intimidation. Thinking back , maybe the life then at school, brought out all these insecurities in me. I kept thinking- Am I not good enough? Will I look like this all my life? Why can't I be a natural at being cool? Why isn't it that not one guy has so far walked up to me and said he's got a crush on me? And when that one guy did finally walk upto me and said hes got the hots for me, why then? was he embarrased to introduce me to his friends? Why did he go for all those parties alone? Why even after high school, when we met again, and this time around, 5 years later was he still not introducing US??
why why why????

So now, when I see a girl wearing a pair of too cool jeans, wearing a corset, holding a teeny classy bag, her hair like she just shot for cosmo, her face- picture perfect, the all-fragile-girl, like the one who also happens to have 10 other girl friends who all look like her- I run. I run for my dear life coz I am intimidated. I am scared, I feel that its the end of me and girls like me. We stand no chance. No chance at all. We as the famous line goes, are going to die alone, eaten by alsations!