When people tell me I’m pretty I literally want to throw up.

I was out eating with a friend and she couldn’t agree more. We were both feeling crappy about our love lives. Our track record with guys was not looking good.

We suffer from what I like to call “the weirdness”. Sometimes the weirdness hits as soon as we meet a guy, other times it’s after the first date or a few weeks of dating.

It begins like this: I meet a guy and things start of great. We’re talking, we’re engaging, we’re making eye contact, we’re clicking. We bond and make future plans. Everything seems amazing – promising even. Then “the weirdness” hits. Less talking. Less engaging. Then avoidance. Beyond avoidance actually, a feeling relative to fear. As if making eye contact with me will turn him to stone. He ducks out the way when I pass and God forbid he’s ever forced to engage with me in the slightest way. Talking is short, sweet, and forced.

My friend and I wave it off. Maybe it’s him, maybe it’s timing, maybe we didn’t play things right. But after countless times of catching the weirdness we can’t help but to blame ourselves.

So when people tell us how beautiful, smart, funny, and amazing we are, we can’t help but to get a little nauseous.

I know it sounds horrible, but it truly is frustrating.

It’s like people constantly telling you that you have loads of money when in reality you’re always late on the rent.

I truly appreciate the compliments, but it’s hard to find the validity in such statements when apparently all men see is Medusa in me.

What am I carrying – inside or out – that causes the weirdness?

If I really am “the total package” as some have told me, why isn’t anyone here lying next to me? Or maybe no guy has ever stuck around long enough to really see what I can give?

Meanwhile, we try not to bash on the “pretty little thing” these guys run to.

You know the type. She is the woman that everyone says is oh so beautiful. In fact, it’s really the only thing people can say about the girl. She can’t really hold a conversation or assert her opinion, but that’s not entirely her fault because she hasn’t taken the time to actually think. She doesn’t really have a hobby or any big or odd interests. She’s just always…there. Looking…beautiful. So people take care of her. She is a tragic figure, the “pretty little thing”. She’s tragic because too many men are waiting in the wings, ready to take her in and carry her off to happily ever after. She’s so tragic that she still needs a pair of arms to hold her while she debates on whose arms will hold her forever.

Yet, these same guys have told us how much they can’t stand the pretty little things. How they want a woman who’s thoughtful and creative and assertive. They have told me how much they appreciate my humor and how grounded I am with myself. For just that moment I finally feel like things might work out.

Then weirdness. Then the pretty little thing.

If my life is a movie, which sometimes I really wonder if it is, then I am the right girl (unless it’s typical white Hollywood, then I’m just the sassy black best friend). I’m smart. I’m funny. I’m caring. I’m a little rough around the edges. And yeah, a decent face.

So what’s up?!

The weirdness is nothing new. I first discovered it in high school. I started to notice that a guy friend who was once friendly began to look uncomfortable around me. He avoided eye contact and kept conversations short. Then I realized the only time he was back to his old, loud, engaging self was in the presence of other friends. I started to see it in other guys, but waved it off as a high school thing.

Now in my second year of college, out-of-state I might add, I’m seeing the same pattern. Interest, clicking, weirdness, avoidance, and finally I spot them toting a pretty little thing. Either I’m doing something wrong, or my true purpose is to actually match really good guys with pretty little things.

Or maybe they aren’t really good guys. Maybe they’re just undercover tools who use the good girl to fluff them up for the pretty little thing. Maybe the avoidance is so they can keep me on deck just in case things don’t work out with pretty little thing. If they say goodbye then that gives me closure and the freedom to live my life. If they avoid eye contact, they can make their way in my mind constantly wondering what happened and what happens later. I sit and blame myself.

Or maybe I’m over thinking the whole thing. Maybe I should just get over myself. When people are kind enough to compliment me I should be a woman and just say thank you – keeping the sarcastic, self-deprecating joke I’d usually respond with to myself.

So, we sat in the booth, laugh-crying over breakfast food at the undercover tools, pretty little things, and the mystifying concept of “the weirdness”.

At least there’s always bacon.

Olivia