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I've secretly been trying to post something witty and adventuresome every Tuesday and again around the weekend.  This of course requires that I do at least two witty and adventuresome things a week to write about.

Which I haven't.

Unless of  you count banging my brain against mini-tab all weekend and desperately trying to remember what a chi-square test even does.

See, the first draft of my senior thesis is due this Thursday.

I'm writing on some of the differences in debitage we see at a certain site between layers dated several hundred years apart and the implications those differences hold for stone tool production in that particular town.

Would you like to hear about it?

No?

That's okay. I don't really want to either.

I guess that means that I'll have to default to talking about my feelings, and specifically my sense of self- confidence.  If that offends your sense of entertainment, just remember, I could have been talking about my thesis.

Generally speaking I'm actually a very confident person. I know that I'm smart, witty, and good learner.  I also know that I'm funny, and that I'm good with kids (except for putting them to bed for some reason, I need to work on that.). I also know that I have many talents and that if I really wanted to I could learn to do just about anything.

My fears are much quieter than that.

I'm afraid that no body likes me, and that somehow even the people I've hung with for over a year just can't figure out how to politely get rid of me.

I know,  it's a silly fear. Yet, just because you know that something is completely irrational doesn't keep it from coming back to you in those quiet moments.

The thing is,  I've seen this situation happen before. It's even happened to me on occasion.

There was this girl who sat at my table for a year during middle school.  She a little loud, she tended to exaggerate, and try to over-familiarize herself with people she didn't know that well.  The first impression you got from this chick was that you should take a small step back and smile politely.  Still, she was nice, and overall she seemed alright to me.

Except all my friends thought she was really annoying.  Sometimes they would whisper in angry tones about how they just wished that she would go away.  They even conspired to pointedly sit somewhere else once or twice.

Sometimes, when  I'm doing something slightly outside of my comfort zone, like chatting up a new acquaintance, it hits me all of a sudden that I could be this girl. The annoying one. The one that everybody secretly wishes would just go away. 

Honestly this doesn't bother me so much now. I have been blessed with awesome friends, who happen to like and care about me.  However, it's turned into another, more specific form of the same problem.

I don't find myself datable.

I don't think I'm pretty, and I'm quiet enough that most guys don't notice me.   I also feel like most men out there  are put off by the whole 'so short that her feet never touch the ground when she sits' thing (n=1). I doubt that guys even perceive me as dating option.

Let me put this in perspective for you.

More geriatric old men have told me out of the blue that I'm lovely or that I "have perfect proportions" than guys in my peer group have actually asked me out.

That affects a girl.

And yes, I know that I have the opportunity to take boys out on dates myself.

But what if they just say yes because they don't want to hurt my feelings?


I have enough quiet doubts to ruin a night.

Look,  I'm not trying to throw myself a pity party. I just know that I lot of people struggle with loneliness and confidence issues.

So, you're not alone.  Okay?