Who Is Samantha

A loving wonderful outgoing brave beautiful friend. The hicky queen. The heart throb of most of the boys and a lot of the girls at camp.

Thank you to whoever wrote the above. I am honestly flattered and not a little embarassed to be so highly regarded. Especially as it is very far from the way I see myself.

On my AllSoRad page (and the UnCrushables page) I look something like this: Popular, outgoing, beautiful, flirtatious, sexy, the (ack!) Hicky Girl, brave, physically affectionate, caring, friendly, snuggly, etc. This is heartwarming to read, and it makes me feel like I must have done something right if people especially Camp people see all that good stuff in me.

But... I do not feel that way! At least outside of Camp. Frankly, inside camp I was unable to fully comprehend just why I was suddenly a "popular" person. Not that I was complaining at the time, mind you! Being popular is an incredible trip. Me? Loved and adored? By people who barely know me? But its uncomfortable, and it's all too easy to remember the times when I felt unpopular and excluded. Which would be all my school years, all my years singing in Chorus, and my first three Camps. So I made a special effort not to just hang out with the loud, bouncy people, and to really get to know the people who seemed to be saying little but thinking a lot. Most of the time, they're the ones worth listening to.

And as for beautiful and sexy, well, this year at Camp finally drilled into my skull that maybe I was attractive. Usually, it's my beautiful blond, curvy, tall, knock-out sister who gets all the attention walking down the street. Plus, I have this habit of being a bit of a tom boy, and have always played second fiddle to all those pretty, sweet, feminine girl-next-door types. I still am, and let me tell you that it's really fucking painful to be attracted to someone and find out that you're too masculine/feminist/extreme/butch for them. I felt more accepted and attractive at Camp this year than I have ever felt in my entire life. It was wonderful! People accepted my personal style for what it was, and I didn't feel torn between loyalty to myself and my feminist sensibilities and my need to be attractive to the opposite sex. Plus, girls found me attractive for the first time in my life. I can't even begin to describe how wonderful that was. Beautiful girls everywhere, and some even liked me back.

On flirtatious, and especially regarding that hicky thing: So I've been pretty much socially inactive for all my teenage years, dating-wise. Why? The two activities my life revolved around, kung fu and Chorus, were not exactly breeding grounds for romance. I became an instructor in kung fu at age fourteen, so when I really began to get interested in the opposite sex, all the guys my age I came in contact with were my students getting involved with one of them would have been unethical, to say the least! And in my all-female Chorus, I was constantly surounded by beautiful yet stubornly hetrosexual girls. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. Sigh. So you can imagine the effect a place like Camp had on me. Teenagers! Snuggling! General openness about anything sexual! Of course I, fifteen at the time and rather... frustrated, started the hicky thing. Now I'm kinda embaressed about it, but everyone's heard about it and keeps it going. I guess I could stop if I really wanted to. Or pass it off to Carsie or Mario or Emily. Anyhoo, that's why I'm flirtatious at Camp: I can't be anywhere else, except maybe on the dance floor, and then it gets misinterpreted.

So, yeah. I guess at Camp I come off as outgoing and flirtatious and popular and all that, but "in real life" I'm quite a bit more uncomfortable around people my age. I have huge issues about my competence and intelligence and general self-worth. I feel like a social klutz and a failure when I don't "succeed" at something. I rely heavely on other people's opinions of me to keep my self-esteem from taking a daily nose-dive. I think I look much better when I wear make-up, thank you very much, and I recently found out I have a tendency to get physical with someone who doesn't particularly care about me just so they'll like/respect/accept me or because I feel unattractive. Plus I can be selfish and annoying and make stupid mistakes and stomp all over people's feelings and irresponsible and condescending. I am not, in the least, perfect. If that was ever even called into question.

There! That was probably more than you ever wanted to know about me. I guess my point is that popularity is a silly thing to inflict on someone, 'cause then the "popular" people cease to be real. And the people worthy of notice, usually the ones who think a lot and don't call too much attention to themselves for whatever reason, get shoved under the stupid, hurtful, self-inflicted carpet of unpopularity.

Or maybe that wasn't my point.

Whatever.

-Samantha

Wow, brave girl! Thank you for your honesty! Jessica