I wrote a letter to the YouTuber TashaK about my troubles.
I would like to see what you think I should do.
Hi,
My name is Jayna and within the last two days, I found myself looking at your videos more and more. I actually stumbled across you when I was looking for black women with similar views like mine. I am extremely pro-black and I am glad to see someone like you speaking on a platform so riddled with people who are toxic and ignorant.
So, thank you, and by the way, you are extremely pretty.
I am writing to you today because I want your advice on a situation that has plagued me for a while now. I am not fresh out of high school, but it hasn’t been four years since I graduated and I am still not able to legally drink in America.
I don't think I am pretty and the rest of the letter would give you some insight on why and what happened. Looking back on it, I don't I was as hideous as the people in school were telling me. But I'm still ugly.
I’ll say it for you: I do suffer from self-hate. Not because of the color of my skin, otherwise know as colorism, but because of my facial features, otherwise known as feature-ism. I went to a majority black school. There everyone always told me I was so nice and sweet, people tolerated me and my awkwardness, and people even told me, TO MY FACE, that when I get older, I will be so pretty. I knew that that meant. I was ugly.
In my opinion, and the opinion of most people I have come across now online, that prediction has not come true. I hate my nose how because it is too big and because I don’t have a low nose bridge, my eyes look too far apart. I have masculine facial features because of the roundness of my face and my kinky hair. My alto voice does not help. I have been told, by a few people, that I do have a very photogenic face and I am very symmetrical and I agree, but that doesn’t always mean beauty.
I’m going a little off topic.
When I was in high school, I was a struggle. None of the young men who I had a crush on, who were black men, liked me back. They like the girls (no matter how dark) with the European features like a small nose, thin, and had long hair. I didn't have that. A lot of the girls I know now and in high school wore a lot of makeup, and I don't and never did.
There is nothing wrong with makeup, I love a good red lip, but I don’t go full-fledge drag with it nor do I regularly carry a makeup pouch. Most of the time, I am barefaced. You can see how tired or stressed I am, you can see my acne, you can see my peach fuzz and I don’t give a fuck because that’s me.
In high school, I had very bad acne, crooked teeth, I was was big, I’m tall as all hell and though I was a very nice person, I knew I was annoying. My school uniform never fit because I never cared for it to. I wore ill-fitting glasses and honestly, I looked (look) like a dude.
Anyway, the question really starts from here. In high school, I was in my physic’s class when we were talking about eyesight. As a person whose eyes deteriorated immensely over the course of eight years, I was all too familiar with the subject. I don’t remember what I said, but I know it wasn’t anything bad and I know it made some people laugh. Well, that didn’t sit well with this one young man in the class who never really liked me.
He came up to me and in the middle of the class called me ugly, mean, and whatever other names you can think of. He even called me a black bitch and that I was too manly with my nose and my lips that nobody would like me. He told me that the only way I would have sex is if I will pay for it. He asked me how that felt to be a future prostitute. Mind you, I am still a virgin and this was the second time in my life that something similar to this has been told to me.
It was then that I became self-conscious about my face. I knew, if I lost weight, I would have a banging body, but I couldn't change my face. I was stunned, because this dude was a dark skin African brothah in a school filled with black and ethnic looking brown girls. In fact, looking back, he dated lighter skin ethnic girls more homely than me.
I had to hold a brave face, but that night, I went home and cried myself to sleep. Do you want to know the kicker? He wasn’t cute AT ALL. Even back then, I took me all my might to not say, “well, fuck you, bitch! How does it feel to be the built like the shit that comes off my shoe when I walk into this bitch?!”
Anyway, this was totally unprovoked and when the tirade was over, it seemed like things were unaffected. I was confused and hurt but I was still nice to him, albeit, a little standoffish. I don’t know what was said to him after the fact, but soon he would greet me in the hallway every time I saw him and he was nice to me. It was weird, but whatever.
But he wasn’t the only one.
The next young man, let’s call him “Tres,” was mean to me for no reason. I never thought he was cute, but he wasn't ugly. Whenever I thought about him, I just got mad, and to an extent, I still do. He would call me names, he would disrespect me, he would have me sit on a chair, a chair he knew that was broken, and have it collapse under me. I knew he was saying that I was fat, and although I laughed it off, it still hurt. He would even have other people laugh at me and treat me like dirt. I know I did nothing to Tres because he was disrespected me the day I met him. It was hard to avoid him since I had had a class with him and some of his friends were my “friends” in high school.
I never actively sought out to speak to him. I kept his name out of my mouth and I dodged every inquiry about him. But still, this young man was very mean to me.
Well, fast forward a few years and I met one of the young men again. Please note that I’m an aspiring screenwriter working on my first all-black script in the Steampunk genre. I have celebrities following me on twitter and have spoken to them many times about things I should be doing to break into the entertainment industry. I have great college friends who are encouraging. I am working towards my degree in cellular biology and Theology, I speak French, I want to be a doctor, I am also trying out for a Broadway tour to pay for college, I am learning to style my hair, and I am trying to lose weight. I can’t be happier.
Well, I meet one of the young men from high school again. We are edging towards twenty and twenty-one. We get the talking and I notice that I’m making him laugh and smile and blush a lot. I knew, right then and there, he found me attractive--for whatever reason. It was so obvious.
We both talk about our lives. He has a baby mama and a child who is one, he has a good job at a marketing firm while trying to go to college, and he wants to be a lawyer. While we were talking, I notice he was trying to get a little closer to me and as a result, I kept backing away from him. I didn’t feel threatened, I just felt… detached. Like I hated him and still harbored pain from what he did to me in high school so much that I didn't care about him.
My mama didn't raise a rude bitch, so I still stood there and pretended to be interested.
Anyway, we exchanged numbers and later that week, he’s hitting on me. I dodge every flirt like a pro, but he keeps doing it. We run into each other again and we get to talking once more. He calls me pretty and says that he would like to take me out and get to know me better. At this point, I feel very ill about this; I wasn’t ready for that and I did not find him attractive.
The thing that pisses me off, is the fact that he stood there, acting as if we didn’t have a troubled past. As if he didn't treat me like shit for four long years. Like my feelings didn't matter and I should get over it. He never mentions what he did in high school and how sorry he is. He never talks about how he changed and how he knows better. In fact, he is still the same rude person he was in high school--just not to me, though.
He just continues on pressing me to go out with him and how happy we would be.
I know I shouldn’t be hung up on this, but I want an apology or at least a reason why he did what he did, even if he blames it on teenage angst.
I still text him. I have tried to subtly ask about our high school days but he, like me with his flirts, dodges the questions like a pro. I am not a superficial person and I am willing to give him a chance (maybe… not at all) if he just acknowledged what he did to me on many, many, many occasions. I still have trouble trusting people to this day because of him and his friends and the words he told me has carried on into my adult life and have taken root.
I told my good college friends about this and they tell me that he has NO RIGHT to hit on me. That he thinks I am a fool and I am the same nice person I was in high school. They think he thinks I will give him some ass, because he thinks I still think lowly of myself. I have even shown the picture of the two boys in question and they all think they had a crush on me in high school and knew I would pay them a polite dusting because they were trash.
My question is fivefold. Do you think my friends are right? Do you think I should ask the guy straight up about why he thinks he has a chance with me? Why do you think he talks to me now and does not talk about the past? Should I pay him dust and delete his number? Do I have a right to be mad still?
PS. Below are the pictures of me in high school and now
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