29/30: Misunderstood

29. What is the thing people most misunderstand about you?


I am a big fan of Thought Catalog, found here.  The other day I was perusing the site and found this article: I don't know how to be a skinny girl.  Here's a little clip of the article that is most relevant to this topic:

And you would think that would make me feel overjoyed, freaking amazing, ready to run a marathon because I’m so excited by the prospect of finally being where I’ve always wanted to be. And to a certain extent it does, but there’s another part that looms saying that prospect is scary. Terrifying, even, because of one thing.

I don’t know how to BE a skinny girl.

And that sounds weird to say. There shouldn’t and isn’t really a way of “being” a skinny girl or a fat girl. You just develop your personality the way you develop it, and for some that means different things than for others. But the thing is, I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t overweight. I started gaining a lot of weight when I was about 12, and went up and down throughout the next 10 years of my life. I got used to being the fat friend, the fat classmate, the fat family member

...

But my personality developed around those roles. I learned to use sarcasm, self-deprecation and dry wit to gain people’s affection, making them laugh. I learned nuanced details about friends that others didn’t take the time to do, and I was always, ALWAYS there for them. I learned to seek out the misfits like I felt I was, and let irritation and jealousy take over when it came to the girls I secretly wanted to be more like. I learned to dislike them for their popularity with boys, for the way their clothes would always look better than mine, for the bikinis they wore all summer. I would never be those girls, so I might as well hate them (though hate is a strong word… I just strongly disliked them).

I discovered that this has been my issue in the past, especially with the girls that date my brother.  I obviously love my brother and being the oldest I am super protective, so lets just say I have been less than welcoming to the girls that he has dated.  


To give myself a little credit, some of those girls were actually terrible horrible influences in his life and I am glad they are gone.  A few of them though were legitimately good people and I was not nice to them.  I have a problem getting defensive and putting up a wall around people I perceive to be "better" than me, and this article put in words what I couldn't for the longest time.  My brother told his current girlfriend that I am "sort of a bitch" or something like that, before I even had a chance to meet her.  I was ready this time, he made fun of me that I "practiced being nice", but that is something that I was willing to do to make an effort and try to flip the situation.


So... I think that the most misunderstood thing about me from people who don't know me, is that I am not a nice person.  That I have an attitude and I am judgmental, it couldn't be more opposite.  If I am like that around you {which I hope doesn't happen anymore since I am trying to correct it} it is because you intimidate me and I have a perception of you as being better than I am in some way, shape or form {usually appearance/attractiveness}.


Here's to working that issue out and being the nice person that I actually am 100% of the time.