I went back to earlier writing and found a lot that surprised me. You learn how unreliable you are as a narrator, even to yourself. The more I looked, the more I realized one story—of how I was this homely teenager with few romantic options—was wrong. I had several boys who confessed their love to me, and this really good-looking boyfriend, but the facts of your life are not always the most important. I was so invested in this idea of being unattractive, I had to live my life that way, to be like, “Any guy who’s interested in me is weird, there’s something really wrong with him.” That feels so feminine: considering yourself from an ambiguous male vantage point. You’re trying to satisfy an ideal, but because it’s not the ideal of a real person, it’s impossible to meet the requirements. You exist in an aspirational state of failure. {read}