There’s always somebody—that one girl in your class, on your team, or in your club or sorority, that you would give anything to be. No matter how happy you are or what you have going for you, she’s always one step ahead. She’s got it all: the grades, the looks, the friends, the talent, the boyfriend. Boys want to date her, girls want to be her, and every time you see her you experience the simultaneous urges to become her best friend and punch her square in the nose.
News flash: It’s time to snap out of it. The truth is that That Girl doesn’t really exist, and the sooner you figure it out, the better. What does exist is an illusion of perfection and a confident demeanor that doesn’t leave room for you to wonder how miserable she was pulling all-nighters for her exam or how long it took her to style her perfectly-tousled, seemingly-undone-but-miraculously-gorgeous hair. I was lucky enough to get this reality check sooner rather than later.
It all started in my preteen years, that impressionable stage at which you look more awkward and unfortunate than you will at any other point in your life. It was then that I fell in love. Not with a boy, but with That Girl. It’s sort of like the opposite of a bromance (a girlmance? I’m not sure). That Girl was a senior in high school and one of the best dancers at my studio. In addition to scoring the coveted lead role of Aurora in our studio’s production of Sleeping Beauty, she also danced for her high school dance team and participated in NHS while maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA. Of course, she also defied the common perception that smart and successful women are usually not so cute with her long, red curly hair, tall, thin frame and perfect skin. (Oh, and did I mention she also modeled a little on the side?)
She had tons of friends. She always wore the cutest clothes and looked pretty despite the fact that she never wore a speck of makeup. When she danced she looked effortless, like she came out of the womb doing leaps and pirouettes. I’m not sure how, but she also mysteriously sweat-free at all times. When she walked past my class, my heart would soar if she gave me so much as a sideways glance and a polite smile (probably only because I was awkwardly staring anyway).
As you can easily imagine, there was nothing I wanted more than to jump out of my dumpy, pimply, prepubescent figure and become That Girl. I would stay after my dance classes to watch her rehearse through the window and pray that someday I might be so lucky as to attain a fraction of her success as a human being. Admittedly, my obsession may have been a little creepy, but don’t act like you don’t know someone who made (or makes) you feel this way.
Fast-forward six years. I had just finished performing the coveted lead role of Aurora in my studio’s production of Sleeping Beauty and wrapped up my last season on my high school dance team as well as a stint as NHS secretary. I was about to graduate sixth in my class with a 4.0 GPA. My mom had just received a card from the mother of a little girl at my studio telling her that it made her daughter’s day when I talked to her at one of our rehearsals. To her, I was That Girl. But what she didn’t know was that I wasn’t That Girl. I spent years toiling over schoolwork, failing tests and having to pick up the slack, sweating profusely at dance as I tried not to fall out of that turn for the tenth time and having nervous breakdowns because I was just plain stressed out.
I thought about the That Girl of my preteen days and how much I had learned about her (and about life) since then. I came to find out that she had struggled with an eating disorder throughout high school and was often unhappy due to juggling an absurd amount of schoolwork with friends and extracurricular activities. Was it worth it in the end? While I can’t speak for her, I can say that yes, all that I accomplished was worth it, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t scraping by and busting my butt to get there. Sometimes you just don’t see it through all the seemingly flawless stuff.
In case you were wondering, That Girl went on to be very successful. She just graduated from a grad program at Georgetown University, got married and is moving to London (another one of my dreams, of course). I ran into her over the summer at CVS, and she gave me one of those polite smiles, like she knew me from somewhere but couldn’t quite place it. But for me, the spell was broken. She was awesome, but she wasn’t That Girl. Nobody is.