…on being an outcast

as noted in my previous post, i wanted to write about being an outcast…

*MY FRIENDS, I’M SORRY IN ADVANCE IF I HURT YOUR FEELINGS, JUST KNOW, I MAY NOT BE TALKING ABOUT YOU HAHAHHAHA – or i might be, but you can pretend for sanity’s sake i’m talkin bout people you don’t know.

where to begin?

well, for one thing, growing up i was NOT the cutest thing ever. i had glasses by the time i was in the 3rd grade. i had a huge overbite that i didn’t know of until my mom said my sister and i were going to get braces. and by the time i reached the 5th grade i already had an acne problem i tried to hide behind bangs. my sense of fashion was by no means typical to those around my age – always borrowing my grandma’s clothes and wanting to cut random holes on my pants, but on the ass… then forgetting i did that while i climbed up the tether ball pole to prove how fast i could go and then having everyone below me laugh at my holes because they saw my yellow so-en panties.

ANYWAY – i’m going to fastforward to my middle school years.

where i grew up, there were a TON of filipinos. kindergarten through 5th grade however, was a different story. i was so used to being surrounded by all types of ethnicities and being filipina didn’t define who i was as a kid, to me, i was just another tomboy who enjoyed the company of her united benetton selection of friends.

6th grade comes along and i enter middle school. i’m at the height of my geeky awkwardness, yet i still maintained my sense of style, had contacts and started plucking the eyebrows – oh, and my acne situation slowed. so yes, i looked a little bit cute.

it was here that i was engulfed into the “cliquey-ness” and the “trying to fit in” stage. there were WAY more filipinos at this school. i didn’t know HOW to act. *my cousin went to a different elementary school than i – his school was on the other side of the south city / daly city border – he on the daly city side = little manila. anyway – i was always kinda jealous of his elementary school bc they had WAY more cuter guys, but with the cute boys, came the cute girls. his school had this one clique… they were all pretty filipina girls – like REALLY pretty.

when i found out we were all going to be in the same middle school, i soooo wanted to be apart of that pretty filipina crew. they were cute, they were popular, they had great style, they got all the boys – why the hell not? i mean, i wasn’t THAT ugly.

for a while my other friend and i would sit at their table and they would acknowledge our presence, but wouldn’t really involve us in their conversation. they were so snobby. they thought they were the shit. so finally i realized, why am i going through all this trouble trying to fit in with a crowd that doesn’t even want me or treats me like shit?

they were cruel – although never physically abusive, they were totally emotionally abusive. for instance, they knew i liked a boy and the boy liked one of the “cool” girls. that “cool” girl decides to egg him on to flirt with me, but then at the end of the day, would diss me for that cool girl and she would laugh at me like i was so stupid for thinking the guy would ever like me… talk about MEAN girls right?! i spent much of my middle school years trying to be one of them and i lost most, if not all, my childhood friends trying to be one of the cool girls.

i came to the realization that this was just PURE BULL SHIT.

once i entered high school. i vowed NEVER to be involved with cliques.

i had many friends in high school, but again, tried to avoid the whole clique scene, although i had a group of friends i would have lunch with, it wasn’t like we spent weekends together or had slumber parties… i had a select group of people i enjoyed being around, but i never gave too much of myself in fear of losing my own identity and being sucked into a life that was not mine.

in a way, i became an outcast because some people thought i had the “i’m too good to hang out with you” attitude – ESP my filipino friends.

i went on to college and the same thing happened… i mean, its not that i feel like i’m too good to hang out with my filipino friends – its just that i’m like that with ANY group of friends – filipino or not. why do “they” have to be soooo judgemental?? what? i can’t have white, black, samoan, latino friends?!

a lot of these same people ended up hating on me more for moving to ny. again, the whole “oh, you too good to be around us so you gotta move to ny?”  too many questions on why i was moving to ny were being asked. i always felt interrogated and i was left alone with no support for my decision to leave the bay area.

so, instead i began to shout to them in my head, “how about shut the fuck up and let me live my own damn life.”

and yet, it were (was?) THESE same people who ended up asking me for favors once they saw how successful i was becoming… talkin all this shit and NOW you wanna ask me for shit???

anyway – i really had a point to this post, but now i think i’m going all over the place.

oh! ok, so i guess my last point is… well now, a lot of the girls back home that i wanted to be like, you remember, the “mean” filipina girls, well, now that they’ve basically done NOTHING with their lives – i mean seriously, i visit home and everyone is doing the same shit they were doing when i moved away 3 years ago and STILL living at home –WTF – well now, some of them are wanting to move to ny.

blasphemy!

why now? why ny? wtf?!

i feel like all the people who shunned me are now wanting to live the life i’ve made so comfortable for MYSELF. yes, for ME, NOT for you. i didn’t moooove here just so i could help you figure out if you could make it here too. i moved here to better myself, live life to the fullest and PROVE to everyone that i CAN do anything i set my mind to – ok, the last point i just threw in bc i wanted to lol.

now, i ask… what’s YOUR reason for moving here because really, all i see you’re tweets tell me that all you want to do is party party party.

sorry folks, ny is for the strong.

sure, work hard and party hard. but if you can’t work hard, you’ll fail miserably.

so, thank you all you crazy filipina bitches for making me question myself everyday of my adolescent life. i am now much stronger than you can ever try be.