I wonder what I would have been like if my mother had demanded - at an early age - that I be a girl. I wasn't a tomboy, it's not like I kicked around in sweats growing up. I ended up in that strange middle place - children of very intelligent, academic-minded parents - who just grow up without a clue. I was never told that sweatshirts and leggings didn't flatter, or that sneakers and short skirts didn't mix. I couldn't operate a blow-drier until ninth grade. (I'm not putting myself down - I could prove Kepler's laws, speak three languages and write novels. I just couldn't put on eyeliner.)

My 13-year-old cousin knows all this and more. I'll go visit and she'll offer to straighten my hair. She'll give me make-up tips. In vain, I talk about current events, politics of race, great literature. Our conversations are about how cheerleading is hard and basketball players are the hottest. And she loves to educate me. She's always asking, "who do you like?" I told her about a boy I liked - choking on the words, by the way, because another of my many flaws is that I hate talking about feelings - and she said, "Well does he like you?" She popped her bubblegum and fixed her eyeshadow while I thought about it. "He thinks I'm smart," I offered hopefully. "He said that?" she asked. "Yeah, more or less." She turned around, real sadness in her eyes. "Oh, jij, that means you two will never get together."
"Why, you think that means I'm not pretty?"
"No," she sighed, like I just didn't see something totally obvious. "It just means you won't."
She was right, of course.

But my question is, where do women learn these things? And how did I learn the opposite? It reminds me of the story of the first time my parents met. "What did you like about each other?" I've asked them both, separately. "I loved how your father was so educated. I remember we had this brilliant conversation about what we wanted out of life, and he and I agreed about so much, and he spoke so intelligently." That's my Mom. Here's my Dad: "I don't really remember much except that your mom looked really pretty that day."

And of course, they've spent the past 25 years in a marriage of four people. The people they expected, and the people they got. It hasn't always been harmonious. The point is, maybe we're all deluded, or at least, maybe delusion runs in the girls of my family. We're deluded at a young age into thinking that intelligent, worthwhile men want the same things from us that we should want from ourselves - fearlessness, ambition, dedication, brilliance, charity, wit - I could go on for hours when it comes to these meaningful adjectives. And what I now realize is that this is all lies. No one cares about these things. In fact, very few people actually want what they should want. And in the end, everyone does what they actually want. And it really just makes me very sad.