Sharing time! Everybody get in circle and hold hands. TW for self-esteem issues and some body issues.
When I was about 13, I sat in a fast food restaurant with my mother and told her, with complete sincerity, that there was really only one thing I wanted in my life: for a boy to like me. I could die perfectly happy and fulfilled if I knew that, at some point, a boy had liked me. I didn't have to even know it at the time or have any sort of contact or connection with said boy. Just the knowledge that at some point in my existence a boy had deemed me worthy of his affections. He didn't even have to be the most popular or wonderful boy - just a bit more popular than me, just a little better than me, to help raise me up. A prince of relative standing.
I think at the time I was proud of myself for my pragmatism. Sure, it was an idealized, maybe impossible, dream - a lofty life's ambition - but hadn't I made it as achievable as possible? Surely it wasn't too much to hope for? If I was just sweet and winsome enough, if I didn't get fatter, if I figured out how to be friendlier and more likable, surely then it would be within the realm of the possible.
