He’s a boy, and I’m a girl. Can I make it any more obvious? Also boys have cooties

My title is a reference to the song “Sk8er Boi” by Avril Lavigne. This is rather complicated for me to explain. I was weird as a child and I’m even weirder as an adult.

Being born a girl, and growing up in an extremely conservative environment, I struggled to find my identity. From the early days of my childhood, I wanted to be one of the boys, but because I’m a girl, I’m not allowed to. But when I tried to be like the other girls, I was told I wasn’t feminine enough.

Not feminine enough? Please! I’m a girl’s girl! Just because I’m not fond of playing with dolls doesn’t mean I’m not feminine. Just because I would rather play Pokémon with the boys doesn’t mean I’m not feminine.

There are plenty of other traits that made me “feminine”: I liked pink, I wore jewelry, I played princess, I loved wearing clip-on earrings, I played in my own beauty salon, I liked having ponytails and extremely long hair.

Then puberty came, I was expected to start shaving, which became exhausting as hell as I became an adult. I was also expected to put on makeup to hide my acne, which made my face itchy. Wearing glasses and braces at the same time, and acne, I felt like the ugliest woman alive. My very first period cramp was so unbearable, I thought I was going to die, and that was when I was 12.

But none of those were the worst thing about being a girl. Oh no, the absolute worst thing about being a girl is… *cough cough* boys *cough cough*!

You heard me right! Boys! The more I learned about them, the more repulsive they become to me. Like I said, I was weird. Most girls I know would be repulsed by boys as children and later either be obsessed with them or be indifferent to them as they become adults. My cousin is a good example, she used to hate boys as a kid and she’s two years younger than me. Now she’s getting married.

I, on the other hand, was absolutely naive and would try to chase boys as a kid, but my mom discouraged me because she told me “boys are icky”. I didn’t understand what she was talking about because I was a kid. Then depression came and hit me in the face once I entered high school. All of a sudden, all the girls I’ve known before were already into boys, meanwhile I was starting to hate them.

The boys in my school were absolutely disgusting and immature, and often got me into trouble. I was the problem child in the whole school, and because I was the only student with autism, it made matters worse. I was treated differently and held to worse standards compared to the other students.

My junior year is finally when I realized, I hate school, and I especially hate boys. The girls were also full of shit but not as much as the boys, because come on, I’m not that stupid to hate my own gender. That was the day I realized I was nothing like the other girls. But that was also the day I started questioning my identity.

My mom suddenly did a 180 on me and begged me to get a boyfriend and get married. As usual, I was like “gross! Boys have cooties, I don’t like kissing boys!”. I never kissed a boy in my life, though one time I tried to, but that was when I was little and my mom was still in the phase of “boys are icky”.

When I got in college, my hatred for boys (and eventually men) became even more apparent. Keep in mind, I take my classes online and have never participated in one publicly. At the age of 17, I was starting to learn what misogyny was. Like many Gen Zers (1997 - 2012), I’m very active on the internet. And because there were more boys on the internet than girls, I fell into the trap of learning the experience of boys and their views on women.

The more I listened to them, the more repulsed I felt. By the age of 19, I was learning about incels (involuntary celibates), listening to grown men rambling on about how horrible women are.

What really did it for me however was listening to little boys in real life saying “I don’t like her. She’s a girl and I’m a boy. Girls have cooties”. It completely destroyed me, it had led me to hate myself simply because I am a girl. Because I was born with a clitoris, I am a disgusting subspecies. I was even more depressed than ever, even thinking about suicide. It took me a while to realize I don’t have to stand for this. Boys were being influenced by the men in their lives to tolerate misogyny.

And I had to fight it. With what, you may ask? With anti-man ideology, of course. I mean, if boys want to be sexist, then so can we. I know what you’re thinking, I must really be immature for thinking this way. But that was the only way I could do it to defend my gender. I had a strange kink of watching and listening to girls and women hating boys and men.

Listening to the experiences of girls and women made me feel heard and validated. And it made me proud to admit that I don’t like boys. I’m an asexual aromantic by the way. From that day forward, I refused to identify as straight because that’s how misogyny goes. I refused to associate myself with boys at all costs. Because of what is happening to girls and women today all over the world, it is becoming more difficult to trust boys and men.

To this day, however, I’m still struggling to define my womanhood. I’m told real women shouldn’t act the way I do. And because of this, I don’t feel like a woman. Even at 25 years old, I still feel and act like a little girl. Most kids wanted to act more mature than they actually are, meanwhile I wanted to be like a kid, even as an adult. Like I said, I was weird. But what I really wanted was to be validated as a girl. But since it’s not happening, I’m using my hatred of boys as a coping mechanism.

There’s also the ideology that feminist women want to be men, and I am here to tell you the opposite. Like ewww, why would I want to be a boy, at all? I don’t like him. He’s a boy, and I’m a girl. Boys have cooties.

End of story.