Just One of the Guys

I was always one of the guys and I loved it. While all the other girls were calling each other fat and crying in the bathroom at the Christmas banquet, I had the full attention of the cutest guy there. At the retreats while all the other girls fought over the two mirrors and the two showers, again I had the cutest guy’s attention. Sure, he wasn’t flirting with me. We joked about the other girls, tromped through the woods, and claimed to have not been in on the biggest pranks. Truth be told, we had nothing to do with the pranks, but no one would ever believe a word of it.

When I got to college it seemed to me that things were the same as always. I made friends with the guys. All my friends outside of school were guys and it was completely natural that the friends I would make at school would be male.

When I wasn’t eating with my best friend, on occasion I would get lucky enough to eat with the military. They very rarely acted any different around me than they would any other guy. It was the way I liked it. At least that was what I thought…

There was this one occasion where I headed into lunch with the military and uncommon to their normal behavior a few of the guys playfully fought over letting me into the school cafeteria. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I secretly enjoyed the minor change. In the end, the guys did have more fun in the competition of it than the actual task of opening the door. But that’s the way things were!

As we all gathered together we started eating the sandwiches we brought, the hamburgers we bought, and the odds and ends we probably swapped with one another. Per the usual order of the day the conversation turned to hot women. Apparently the women who worked at one particular bar were voluptuous and rather desirable. Nothing too out of the ordinary conversation-wise until talk turned to the women at our school.

The guy who originally brought up the bodacious babes from the bar brought up just how ugly “all the women” at Tech were. Heads around the table nodded in agreement and I sat there feeling like I’d been slapped in the face with my anime character book bag. He blabbered on and on about how no girl at the school could tempt him. Everyone was homely and not worth his time.

It just went on and on.

The “gentleman” of the group finally looked at me as if he just realized that I was indeed a woman sitting there--at their table--not just any table…theirs.

I wanted to cry.

He sat their staring at me as the offender continued his long-winded speech. As he stared he caught the attention of the other males at my table and they joined in on the staring. My face was turning bright red as the other 7 males turned to look at our idiot of a friend who finally caught what was going on after at least 5 torturous minutes.

I can’t imagine what he saw when he looked into my eyes. But something made him stop and say, “O J…I didn’t me-mean…You-you’re one of the guys!” He knew he had messed up and I was hurt.

I lifted my chin in the most defiant way I could without actually being the girl I wanted to be and start crying. I looked him in the eye and simply said, “I know. I’ve always been just ‘one of the guys.’”

After a moment or two the awkward silence ended and the conversation moved on, but I realized for the first time that perhaps I wasn’t as comfortable with my role as I thought.