So here it is. This is the part where I have some explanation for why I am the way I am. This is when I tell you about a relatively insignificant moment from my childhood that is supposed to pull back the veil on my life-my modus operandi, my ethos, my soul. Well, I can’t tell you.

You wouldn’t get it. The thing is… “ay, there’s the rub.” I don’t get it. How do you sum up a person in a sentence? Since when do brief interactions, words, feelings, constitute a whole person? They don’t. They just don’t. Shame on everyone else for making me try to condense myself into a person that can everyone can comprehend.

Men see me in two ways: some “exotic” foray into the unknown, or an artsy girl who falls under the definition of “quirky.” I am that someone you date in college or in your “early twenties” who allows you to find “clarity” in your life, but who you ultimately cannot see yourself with in the future. I am not your bitch. I am not your manic pixie dream girl. I have goals, dreams, places to see. In your mind, I am temporary. I am Ms. Right Now, not Ms. Forever.

You don’t want me because I have that dreaded amorphous immaterial past: baggage. I have so much baggage. I am not beautiful enough for you to see me as a prize, not smart enough for you to excuse my behavior, and not feminine enough for you to want to save me. To you, all of you, I am not worth it.

Because once you discover that, beneath all of my learning and enthusiasm, I am just a pathetic shell of a girl. I am the girl you found drunk at the bottom of a closet during a party when she was seventeen. A part of me will always be her, but I am not her anymore. Now, I am a woman-with baggage, and I will be alone. I am alone. I always have been.

There. That’s your explanation. It took longer than a sentence, but you get the idea.