Humble Pie

So I am fully aware that I do my fair share of complaining, more than my fair share according to L, but here's an interesting fact about me:

I love my life.

As in not in any superficial, I'm-just-saying-that-until-I-hope-it-comes-true kind of way, but I really love my life. I think it's pretty fantastic.

Inevitably, I get down every once in a while and I need to remind myself of how ridiculously fortunate I am. Without any hint of bragging, I have an awesome apartment in the middle of the greatest city in the world, hilarious and simultaneously brilliant friends, the bestest and funniest sister in the world, and the opportunity to pursue all the things I love from travel to writing.

It wasn't always this way. A little over a decade ago, I was that incredibly scrawny and awkward girl wearing tortoiseshell glasses and shiny braces who was eating lunch by herself in the girls' bathroom while reading my Advanced Math textbooks. Feel free to pity me while laughing at the picture I have painted.

But puberty, contacts, and straight teeth gradually helped me to break out of my shell and become the extroverted lady I am today.

The one downside is that yes, I do come off as very confident to the people who know me.

But the other day, on a date with Dry Cleaner Guy, I was pretty shocked when he said to me,

"Do you always come off this confident? My first impression of you was that you're kind of arrogant, egotistical, and full of yourself."

Initial Thoughts: Not something you want to say to any girl on a date.

Follow-up Thoughts: It's that stupid double standard coming into play again where when a guy is confident, it's an asset, but when a girl is, it's a terrifying symptom of some sort of horrible psychological disorder.

Also, if a guy who has only known me for a short period of time already thinks that I'm too self-assured and has felt the need to point it out to me, he's probably not someone I want to be associating with in the future. Especially since, without being judgemental (because Lord knows, I am NEVER judgemental), he probably has some insecurity issues himself and isn't used to being around girls who speak their mind.

Further Follow-up Thoughts: Despite rationally knowing all of this, for some reason, I couldn't get this guy's words out of my head and continued to dwell on them in the ensuing days.

My main concern was that he might be right, and I might actually be arrogant, and that would explain why I scare away good guys and attract the crazy ones like a moth to a flame.

But then I remembered that it took me years, and a great deal of disaster, to get to the point today where I can go through an entire day of criticism and rejection, and still wake up the next morning and be excited about what is yet to come.

So, if Dry Cleaner Guy can't handle that, then that's his problem, and not mine.

Because once again, I love my life.

In a totally humble way, of course.