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Boys and Me

Why Boys Scare Me Sometimes and How One Made Me Feel Like a Queen Again

By Reyna CannonPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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My "adventure" with boys really kicked off in seventh grade. I'm a high school senior now, so that was five years ago. In seventh grade, I was bullied by a boy that wanted to date me. But I didn't want to date him. Back then, I wasn't scared to say no to a boy. I didn't realize that doing so would make boys so much scarier to me. I was never scared of the various men in my life because they never gave me any reason to be scared of them. This was the first time I had ever been scared of a male figure. The bullying was all mental. I was scared of the boys who bullied me because they bullied me in a way that made me hate myself. Growing up I loved being me, so the bullying caused a whole bunch of conflicting feelings. I started questioning myself every single day. I became self-conscious about every part of me. My brain was fighting against me.

It was hard to keep growing up when my brain wouldn't cooperate with me. Especially around the age when boys started noticing girls and girls started noticing boys. Peer pressure was not my best friend. I started feeling obligated to get a boyfriend when I was still learning about the American Revolution in social studies. That feeling of obligation morphed into giving myself away with the fear of what would happen to me if I didn't — the fear of what would happen to me if I ever told a boy "no" again.

Over time I started to lose that fear, and it became easier to turn guys down (not that a lot of guys were into me). I was able to say no and not be afraid of what would happen afterwards. Things were manageable. Well, at least, until my freshman year. This was the first time I had ever encountered what sexual assault was like. I'll have to change some names in this tale for obvious reasons.

Alright, so there was a boy I liked. Let's call him Chris. Chris and I had one of those on-again-off-again relationships. For like, a year. It finally went off for good after The Incident. Chris and I hung out at his house a lot, and I was actually allowed in his bedroom with him. His parents were those kinds of people. Being younger then him, I enjoyed having some privacy with him. He, however, took that privacy a little too far. I was never comfortable with my own body, and I was definitely not comfortable with him exploring it. The day he pushed farther than I wanted, I found out that sometimes saying no just wouldn't work. He wouldn't stop. I had never felt so uncomfortable in my life. I pushed him off of me and got as far away from him as I could in the space I had. At that moment, I found myself being terrified of a boy again.

I never let anyone touch me intimately for the rest of that year. I was so disgusted with my body because I felt that I had no control over it. I spent the rest of the year and half of my sophomore year becoming a bit more familiar with myself. I finally became more comfortable with my body. That, however, did not last long. Sophomore year was the year I lost faith in myself because of a boy. In the middle of my 10th-grade year, I met a boy two years ahead of me. We'll say his name was Brandon. Brandon was charming, funny, and I kind of trusted him. So what did 15/16-year-old me do? Well, I gave him my "virginity." I say that with quotation marks because virginity to me is an idea, not an actual thing that can be medically proven to be lost. IRRELEVANT. This guy, I soon realized, was a guy that had never really been told "no" when it came to sex. We had plenty of fights because I didn't want to have sex every single time we were together. He went to Georgia for a little bit in the last stretch of our relationship, and his insistence to have sex when he got back was what made me realize that I couldn't stay with him. We broke up and ended on bad terms. I heard a few months later from one of his friends that he had been spreading rumours that I cheated on him and that I was a slut that did anything and everything sexual. I felt awful. He made me hate myself even more. When I reached out to him to get a few of my belongings back from his house, he accused me of cheating again. I spent weeks crying and not being able to get out of bed because I felt like I wanted to die.

I spent another year trying to convince myself that there was nothing wrong with me. I still sort of am, but it is significantly easier. Why, may you ask? Well, the simple answer is in a name. Nicholas. Eight months from yesterday, I said yes to a baseball player that asked me to be his girlfriend in his truck while he drove me to the park so I could swing on the swing set. Nick is teaching me exactly how every boy before him should have treated me. He supports me in every way possible, and he never lets a day go by without telling me that I am amazing. He always says that he's so lucky to have me, but I don't think he realizes that I am actually the lucky one.

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About the Creator

Reyna Cannon

I write things, sometimes. Duh. My writing mainly revolves around fiction with a bit of shitty poetry. I'm an actress, as well, and I am an avid music-listener. My work is usually fueled by angst or anxiety, so there may be a theme here.

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