To my souls sistah's....... we unite against a common enemy. Bring out the brooms, saucepans, and the stilletoes!! It's WAR!!!!!!!!

The saying "can't live with them, can't live without them" is a phrase repeated by females the world over. It can't be more true. But, while we beat ourselves up over the fact that hardly any respect is ever shown to us, in the roles of mothers, wives, sisters, friends and girlfriends, we forget to realise that it is because of us, the fact that we weakly submit to the whims and fancies of men everywhere, that we have been brought into this deplorable situation. Some of you, while reading this might think that I'm being melodramatic. Talk to a few other teenage girls, they'll reflect upon the same toughts that I'm having. It's tough being a seventeen year old, And it's even worse being a seventeen year old girl .

It's a stage where you fall in love with every good looking guy you see and go look at the mirror the next minute wondering why on earth God has been so unfair to you. Fat ankles, freckles, frizzy hair (not just on a bad hair day mind you!), and everything else about your apperance you can find to criticize. Have you ever walked down the street, and walked past an extremely good looking boy, and all of a sudden you want to lock yourself up in a closet and hide because you think you'll never be good enough for the guy? That's the problem with us, We're always trying so hard to adapt to other peoples expectations of us, or what we expect ourselves to be for them, that at some point in time, we just lose track of the person we were in the first place. Pink shorts, A big toothy grin, hair in two pigtails. The essence of childhood. Or what used to be...

Did you ever wake up one morning and look over into the neighbours lawn expecting to see the familiar face of a sweet eleven year old girl who used to be in braces, chasing her puppy around the lawn and rolling in the dirt, While instead you see a sleek haired, well brushed eleven year old girl in fishnet stockings and a mini? Girls these days, are growing up way too fast, we experiment, we fail, we try yet again and we fail. The cycle is endless. We just get so wound up in trying to please everyone that you end up running circles around yourself and in the end, underneath all those layers, you uncover the real person you are. And unfortunately no amount of make up can hide that.

When we were young, the only magazine that we knew about was tinkle, the only parlour that we went to was the local one to accompany our mothers, the clothes that we wore were the ones stiched by the family tailor and the only music we heard was the one coming out of the radio. Do I make 10 years ago sound like a century? It sure seems that way to me. In the short span of these 10 years, while change is inevitable, the amount of exposure that kids get these days, and it's not always necessarily good, is phenomenal. I mean, I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing seven year old girls walking around in stilletoes and talking on cell phones, it's a... weird sight, to say the least.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, I'm painting the existance of females in shades of black and whilte, and ignoring the little "perks" that come along with being in any realtionship with a guy. But it's my story, and right now, the only shades i seem to be seeing around me are those which are beginning to make me doubt all the fufilling and healthy relations I've had with a number of males in my life.

I'm not what you would call your conventional girl, I have four close girlfriends I know I can trust and the rest of my friends are a battalion of boys. Yet I sound like I'd like to get rid of every one of them. Go figure. Despite the fact that I've spent half my life around guys, when I think about it, there have been four guys that have been consistant, and that's including my dad and brother, which puts the count at two actually. Pathetic. My best friend? we fight ever two months. My boyfriend? We haven't spoken in two months. It sounds like a lovely situation to be in don't you think? The reason that I'm writing this is all down is because I think I need to get away to an all girls retreat. That sounds like a great idea right about now. But I keep deviating, My point is that we need to form some kind of task force to get rid of all the unwanted scum. Stupid Boys.

Rewind Eight Months......

I've been in love (or whatever you describe this godforsaken situation to be) with a guy for the past four years, I was getting tired of being jerked around, and having to feel like my heart was in a washing machine. No matter which way I turned, I always seemed to be facing the same direction. I tried everything, I flushed his photo down the toilet, burned the nicest picture I could find. I felt gorgeous for the next two hours and as soon as the euphoria weared off, I saw something or the other that remeinded me of him, and reality came crashing down like the aftermath of an earthquake. I looked up, shook my fists and wondered what the hell I had done to deserve to be treated in the way that I was.

I sound so moany, I tell myself, I should stop being such a drama queen and get some sleep instead. Being the pig headed seventeen year old that I am, I pay no attention to the fact that it's three thirty in the morning, and Continue to write.

So back to my story, this guy(stupid guy) has been my on-off best friend for a while now, We'd gotten a whole lot closer over the past month, and I guess, we were starting to feel something there, what, I wasn't sure of but there sure as hell was something there. The sad part is that I had told this guy (Lets call him Bob), Bob, that I'd liked him three years ago, and he did not take it so well. It was a nightmare! He called me names, b****ed about me, and just about stopped being nice. I was called "Thing" for three months in a row, people were ashamed to be around me, my 'best friend' was talking about me behind my back. That's partially the reason that I take time to trust girls, and even then I'm still skeptical, experiences like these learn to make you careful. So all in all, my life was as messy as a teenagers room, and the worst part was that I had no one to turn to. So much for friends right? You learn to not let people in completely, you lock up a tiny little portion of you that is necessary to keep you sane and whole. Lonely when you're surrounded by people? Funny feeling.

Bob and I, we were close, we were being teased by everyone, we talked all the time, it was a very 'couply' atmosphere, but I knew better than to get my hopes up. It was Bob, you end up with the guy you've been dreaming about for the past four years only in the movies right? It never worked out right in real life. Sucks. So I pushed aside everything I knew would never work out. He knew, the whole time, how I felt about him, he never mentioned it once, I guess we were both comfortable with our arrangement. It was working out just fine. Then we had to go destroy that.

It was September First, a bunch of us were at school that day and we were just goofing off. We finished our work and got onto the bus togo back home, It was just Bob and I from our side of town that day so we sat at the back of the bus and just talked. At some point of time, My head found my way to his shoulder and he put his arm around me. We looked at each other, and we realised that we'd crossed that line, there was no turning back now. We were together. We sat silently, in that same positon, until the end of our journey, It was just...right. We each knew that we were important to the other person, and that at some point of time, this was eventually going to happen, we'd just beenputting it off. call it cliche, but I didn't want to risk what we had. It was better than anything else I'd gotten used to and it was too important for me to sacrifice, call me crazy.

It seemed like we were made for each other, we fit perfectly in each others arms, and I felt so soft and secure, I could have stayed there forever. It was beautiful.

Fate on the other hand, has different things in store for you, just when you're beginning to enjoy what you have, it's snatched away from you just before you're fully satisfied, and you're left thinking, Why me? We were happy for the first four months, then our bloody exams came along and screwed everything up. They should just forego the system, it spares paper and our insanity. Did I mention being a seventeen year old girl was hard? Try being a seventeen year old girl doing her boards that year. You're wrapped up in a bunch of subjects you really wish were thrown into the garbage can years ago, and the only subjects they judged you on were music and P.E. God, life would be so much simpler.

Our exams came by, we drifted apart, he spoke to me less, Spoke to everyone else a whole lot more. Do I sound jealous? I sure as hell was! I tried talking to him about it, he didn't seem interested, and kept telling me that it was the exams. Bullshit. I doubt the rule only applies to me. It was pretty weird. So we drifted farther and farther apart. It got to the point where we were pointedly ignoring each other and lookingfor excuses not to be in the same are together. We had a common best friend, I'm guessing that made it pretty weird. We were phone best friends, Bob was his best friend. I'd never had a best friend before, and the whole time I kept telling myself that it wouldn't start now.

Fast Forward to now.......

No more boards!!! I Practically ran out of the examination hall. It was such a BIG relief. I don't have to worry about all India examinations for an other two years! We were jumping about, hugs galore, Smiles plastered across all of our faces. Then I saw him, my face dropped instantly, he wasn't bothered. What was I hanging around in this relationship for? The only thing I ever got in return was a frown and the occasional forced smile. Why was I beating myself up over a guy that didn't give two hoots about me?! I wasn't ugly, and I'm talented and I've been told that I'm a fun person to be around. Getting another guy surely wouldn't be a problem. That's when I realised what the biggest problem was here... I didn't want to let go, I would take any amount of pain and suffering if it meant that I could have a few special moments with "the" guy.

THIS is precisely why we go through so much trouble to please the men in our lives, cause it makes us feel good about ourselves once in a while. Even if it's just a cursory look or a casual wave, we feel elated, like we're standing on a specially erected pedestal, and the moment keeps replaying in our heads. We're the more mature gender, as it is widely believed, it's only because of the experiences that we're subjected to that we learn, or to be more accurate try to learn from our mistakes.

God distributes qualities equally right? I'd like to see one female agree to that. We get stuck with monthly problems, have to carry around baby weight for nine months, are more emotionally and physically fragile, whose opinions aren't given as much importance as our male couterparts. While males have all the opposite. How is that FAIR?! On the bright side, them being jerks I think balance out all our shortcomings. And besides, we are Way smarter.