Picture this… I’m 14 years old. It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m having a date night with my boyfriend, Sam. Lisa and Tom are in the next room chaperoning us (as much as you can chaperone from the other room). Sam and I are kissing and before I know it, his hand is creeping under my shirt…
At this point, I stop his hand and tell him “No”. We stop kissing and it’s now time for him to go home. The next day or two go by uneventfully, but shortly after this incident, I find myself single again. Apparently, he wanted a girlfriend that would let him touch something.
The next year was a bit of torture because the story of my New Year’s date ran rampant through our class and I found myself being ridiculed and teased by many of the boys my age. “Michelle… Where’s the beef?” and “No, Sam! No” were phrases that were yelled through the halls of the school, causing me to duck my head in shame.
(Word of note: “Where’s the beef?” was a popular Wendy’s commercial in the 1980s. Used in the context of this story, the boys were eluding to my lack of boobs.)
Events like this did not help my already low self-esteem, but on the flip side, I was a cheerleader and reveled in that fact. I loved to get up in front of the crowd and jump and scream to get things going. Now, try to get me up in front of a classroom to read a report and I wanted to crawl into a hole.
I was shy, introverted, and conscientious about grades. I was a band geek, a cheerleader, and a Jobs’ Daughter. I was quiet, well-behaved, and a rule follower. It wasn’t until I turned 18 that all hell broke loose. 🙂
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