The Overview

The quick back story is that my family is composed of two men (dad and brother) and a mother who sees no point in makeup. Then, when I was little, my best friend was the neighbor boy. I played with him and his friends and, because I was the only girl playing soldier games, I felt the need to out-tough the boys. In short, I spent a few of those important developmental years getting in touch with my masculine side.

Throughout much of my life I've been more comfortable being one of the guys than one of the girls, and I admit that a lot of it was a defense mechanism. Once I was no longer playing soldier with the neighbor boy and his friends, I was negotiating high school. People were pairing up left and right, but I never really had the hang of the dating thing. I tried, twice, but the first boyfriend cheated on me and the second was using me as a test to know whether or not he was gay (he was). During this time my best friend was no longer a boy, but a girl who tended to use her sexuality as a weapon. In her own words, she was the pretty one, I was the smart one. So, I'm still not feeling especially feminine here.

When I was nineteen, I had my first serious relationship with a guy who wasn't in to girly-girls, and I spent a lot of time hanging around with his guy pals. We were together for a couple of years, got engaged, and then split up. When a guy can look you right in the eye and say, "You're the best thing that ever happened to me," and still walk out the door for good, it does not instill much confidence.

Also, I spent about three years being a cocktail waitress where my only real experience with my girly side was drunk guys staring at my boobs.

I have never been greatly confident in my feminine wiles. All together, my feminine experience has been based on being a tom boy, or being that thing with the boobs. That, my friends, is your overview.