Have you ever had those moments where you’re standing next to a very tall person and you suddenly feel tiny?
What about the opposite? Have you ever been standing next to a smaller and shorter person and you suddenly feel huge?
This second one happens to me more often than I like. I’m not that tall, but the people where I live (especially the women) are generally not tall. So I find myself standing next to a shorter person quite often. Sometimes they’re just skinnier than me and when I stand next to them, I suddenly want to go for 4 hours on the treadmill, so I can lose all the weight and just stop being so effing huge. I’ve noticed that sometimes I start slouching or I fold my arms trying to make myself smaller when I stand next to someone thinner.
Sometimes when I’m with a smaller person and for some reason, they seem scared of me, I just feel like a predator.
It happened again just a few weeks ago with my sister’s friend. She’s not that much shorter than me, I would say we’re more or less the same height, but she’s way, way skinnier. I was sleeping one afternoon (because that’s what you do when your room feels like an oven), and she suddenly opened my room door. I woke up in a panic wondering who the eff was there. By the time my eyes had adjusted enough to see what was happening around me, she had already closed my door again and was on her way.
Still panicked and disoriented, I shouted, “Who’s there?!” Nobody answered. Then raising my voice, even more, I shouted again, “Who’s there?”
I must have sounded intimidating. You know what it is? I think my “morning” voice is just deeper and much scarier. She came back and opened the door again. She was holding her chest and, in a whisper, she said, “So sorry I just wanted to say hi. I knocked but you didn’t answer so I opened.”
“Oh okay. How are you?” I tried to make my voice less threatening, but it was still loud and groggy.
“I’m okay. Do you have WeetBix by the way?”
“Yeah just check the table.” Why is it so hard to make your voice co-operate after you wake up? She came in and started getting some cereal very quietly. As if she was trying to not to make me angrier (I wasn’t angry. Just my voice wouldn’t co-operate and I was still shaken from waking up in a panic).
Don’t you hate it when people act scared of you? I don’t know how those buff rugby guys do it. You know those ones that speak like there’s a full-sized truck engine running in their lungs? They know everyone scoots over when they walk past. They know you’ll voluntarily give them your lunch money when they walk past you on the playground.
She has acted like that before, like she’s scared of me, and I always hate it. It makes me feel unlovable. All I wanted my whole life was to fit in and to be considered cool enough for someone to tell me about their crazy weekend at the club. I want to be approachable. I don’t want to have an invisible wall around me that people can’t get through because I’m intimidating. That’s just effing lonely, man.
A few days after my rude awakening, (actually I think it might have been the very next day), I was having a photoshoot with my sister (by the way peep my Instagram @neluthecurious – dat promo doe haha) and the girl found us in the street while trying to hike a cab to go home.
Then my sister asked her to hop on in behind the camera to take a couple of photos with me. She looked at me hesitantly, like she was scared to even come close to me. Then she walked up to me reluctantly.
I felt like a huge and grotesque creature that no one wants to approach. I wanted so bad to make her stop being scared of me. I wanted to shrink myself. I wanted the fat on my things to just melt onto the road. I wanted to fold my legs underneath my body and sit down right there on the pavement so I can look up to her. Anything for her to stop looking at me like an ugly lion.
She agreed to take a couple of photos with me. As we took the photos, I thought, let me put my arm around her. Let me hug her so maybe that way she’ll know I’m not scary.
But later on, when I sat down to sift through the pictures and start editing them for Instagram, I realized, I had put my arm over her in such a way, that I looked like I was going for her boob.
Why?!
I was trying so hard to not look like a predator!
In the picture, we just looked like a lesbian couple, and I looked like I was the dominant one in the relationship.
It definitely didn’t help that my hair is short and I was wearing suit pants with a button up sleeveless cardigan and wedged boots. I looked manly next to her. She dressed all proper and girly with a skirt and shirt with a huge pink print on it, and little cute flip flops. And her hair was all curly and feminine.
And the other picture wasn’t much better either. There’s this in-between shot of me laughing at God knows what and her giving me an askance look. Like she’s afraid to even face me directly and she’s just glad I didn’t leap at her and pummel her head until her brainstem fell out.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
I feel like sometimes I just can’t help looking so… “alpha” for lack of a better word. And no I’m not saying that to beat my own chest. I sometimes feel like I come off as strong and dominant even though all I want to be sometimes is approachable. I want people to see that I’m not all that, that I have plenty of weaknesses I need help with, that I haven’t got it together. Sometimes I want someone to look at me and say, “That person needs love and care.”
Anyway, no lesbians were harmed in the writing of this post. Love is love! Rainbow.
The post I Look Like I’m The Dominant One In A Lesbian Relationship appeared first on Nelu Mbingu.