Being six feet tall and sort of athletically gifted, I have naturally been drawn to the realm of sports. There is nothing wrong with this, as I am an unreasonably competitive person who loves to be active, but there’s another side to the story. The second I picked up that basketball on the playground in second grade, I became “one of the guys.” Of course, I want to flip the stereotype that guys are the strong and athletic ones, but from my experience and my small-town background, girls were always the ones who dressed up and played nice. Growing up, I didn’t care about this stereotype at all. I got to play the sports I loved to play and I didn’t know any different. But as I grew older and older, I grew closer and closer to the guys and I made some amazing friends along the way. As school went on, however, I continued to be “one of the guys,” and this is why I don’t like it:
1. Judgment from other girls
I know that for the most part, no one truly ever tries to hurt another person’s feelings. Yet, all throughout high school girls would say some pretty mean things due to my friendly relationship with guys. First, it was judging my clothes–always saying I could borrow their brother’s clothes if I ever needed to. Then, it was the jealousy. One girl always glared at me when I played basketball with her boyfriend. I thought that shooting around with the guys was harmless, but to her, it wasn’t.
2. Self-consciousness about dressing up
I love doing my make-up and wearing heels as much as anyone else does, but you can only hear “Wow, you clean up nice” so many times before you start to wonder if your identity is so rooted in athletics that you can’t be anything else. God forbid I could wear anything other than sweatpants and a sweatshirt.
3. Impossible to date
As “one of the guys,” most of my friends in high school saw me as a sister, not someone they could date. However, the problem ran even deeper than that. I always felt like guys were intimidated by me. I can’t generalize all guys into acting this way, but part of my high school experience was always some boy’s pride getting hurt because he lost to a girl. I don’t know if it is a threat to their masculinity, but no guys ever wanted to be seen as the weak one in a relationship. That could just be high school, but being competitive didn’t help my dating life.
Being competitive and athletic is part of who I am. No matter how many times I try to be more feminine so as to not intimidate a guy, there is no getting around the fact that this is me. And why should I try to change? Shouldn’t I be respected by others and wanted by a guy who likes me for me?