My best friend in middle school was a leggy, blue-eyed blonde. She turned heads everywhere we went, especially because at 13, she looked more like 16. My other close friend was a full foot shorter than me and looked like a little doll. So!
There were always boys around us, drooling over the one friend and flirting with the other. This was fine, until I actually liked one of them. It was bad enough that both of my friends liked him as well, worse that he paid zero attention to me, and horrible when one day he was telling three why he liked each of us- the blonde because she was “hot”, the doll because she was so pretty, and me...I was funny looking.
After that, I was asked out by a guy who was trying to get closer to my blonde friend. He dated me for over a year, but I found out he was “hanging out” with my friend behind my back.
Basically everyone I’ve ever liked has liked somebody else better. Kind of a devastating thing, through my teen years, and for a while, I Did compete- but, never being a truly competitive person, I just ended up making a fool of myself more often than not.
The few guys in my past who truly pursued Me... well. I used to be an easy target for a lot of things, and it wasn’t Me they were after at all.
My husband was the exception to all of this- he liked me in high school, he asked Me out. I was too busy trying to run off and marry a soldier to pay much attention back then. But a couple of years later, when I ran into him again, he asked me to a movie. He didn’t know my friends. He didn’t play games. He just...saw me, and wanted to know me better. I never wondered if or when he would call me, I never wondered if he would stand me up or be seen somewhere with someone else. For the first time, I was somebody’s first choice.
So I married him. And we haven’t lived happily ever after, but I’m still his first choice despite everything we’ve been through...and despite the fact that I turned half his work clothes pink in the wash this morning.