The Rules
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Somewhere around my 18th birthday, I was gifted a book called, “The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right”. If it’s currently in your collection, I recommend using it as kindling for your next dumpster fire.
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But I digress.
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I had just broken up with my high school boyfriend and I was desperately trying to jump into someone else’s arms.
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The trouble was that I couldn’t find anyone who wanted me.
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“It’s because you’re so intense,” I was told. “You’re too much. You’re not ladylike. You dress too crazy. Boys don’t like that. They want a girl who dresses pretty and lets them take the lead.”
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I had suspected that this was the case.
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But to hear it actually said out loud made it clear: I needed to become someone else.
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I read “The Rules” and memorized every word.
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I switched out my wardrobe. Dyed my hair a “natural” colour. Traded my opinions for sex appeal.
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And it worked!
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Suddenly, I had tons of dates!
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I reconnected with an old crush from summer camp. We met in a candlelit hipster pub in the annex. I was so excited to watch him fall madly in love with the “new me”.
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“You’re different,” he said. He left early. Later that night I read his online journal:
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“Where is that wild girl I once knew? All that’s left is a vapid facsimile.” I swooned over his vocabulary and then cried myself to sleep.
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It’s taken me almost 20 years to unlearn that goddamn book.
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I still have to fight the primal urge to shrink myself. To stay quiet and agreeable.
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I’m learning to love the parts of me I was told to abandon. Actually I’m beginning to think they’re some of my best qualities.
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- I laugh really loud, sometimes to the point of snorting.
- I have HUGE feelings.
- I refuse to operate at the surface level. I go deep or don’t bother.
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If this scares you, you’re welcome to find someone else to talk to.
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Today, the only “rules” I follow are my own.
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I’m not “too much”.
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And never again will I diminish myself to fit inside someone else’s box.