I think I spent half of my teenage years being afraid of what other people thought about me. If I had a dollar for every night I spent at home instead of going out with an “unpopular” girl, I’d have. well, at least enough for a couple of plane tickets to Hawaii. I can think of at least a dozen nice girls who would have been fun to date, and at least a couple of them should probably have been girlfriends. But I was always so afraid of what people would say because I wasn’t dating “the right girl.” Truth be told, most of those feared guys didn’t have girlfriends most of the time either.
Looking back, I don’t know what I was afraid of. Other people’s opinions might carry a little weight, but they’re more like bits and pieces of information that are part of the overall big picture. And ultimately, unless that information is something like, “That girl just got out of prison” or “She has a highly contagious disease” or “She is the biggest drug dealer on campus,” the information probably doesn’t carry much weight. The reasons people talked me out of dates were typically superficial reasons like complexion, height, weight or athletic ability. I liked one girl who was a competitive swimmer, but I had friends who convinced me that dating someone stronger than me was a bad idea.
There are a lot of things about that younger version of myself that I don’t like, and I’m glad I’ve grown out of them. I’d tell that kid to grow up, stop listening to the nonsense and go have some fun. And I’d tell today’s kids the same thing.
That is so true because life is beautiful