The Struggle

Some men are incredibly persistent, you can rebuff them a few thousand times and they still come back. We all have our weak moments, and if these men are try long enough they will catch you at one (or eight) of those moments, and then the cycle repeats itself all over again. Let me tell you about Mr. Smith. I met Smith (Smithy, Smithers, I digress) in the summer of 2016 – I was between jobs, having just finished an intense yearlong fellowship and searching for my new role full-time. This was also the summer when I really dived into the dating apps. I was going on a couple dates a week via Bumble, quickly narrowing down my pool to an older man I really liked and another around my age who I had a surprising amount in common with, but was very uncertain about. The one I really liked was madly in love with his company and could not bear to part with his emails for more than maybe an hour at a time. I let things fade out and expire with that one. Smith was very religious...

Today I wanted to take a deeper dive into my personal story about something I’ve always called ‘Ugly Duckling Syndrome’ – I thought this was an original term, I’ve since been informed that I may have heard it first on How I Met Your Mother. Nonetheless: Ugly Duckling Syndrome, when a young woman was less attractive, or did not have a positive experience that allowed her to feel attractive young, so as she got older she continued to believe she was not pretty, even if everyone around her says she is. I’ve had clinical acne since I was twelve years old, around 18 I started my first round of medication that really worked for more than a week or two at a time. I also learned how to do my make-up well enough to cover most blemishes and highlight my better features at this time. But I continued to believe that because I had acne, I was not very pretty.  At 18, in college, I started getting attention from men, and that was really new for me. I had a boyfriend at t...