Somebody said something today that I have never really thought of before, but it really struck home. He said that from a young age, girls are brainwashed. Little girls are told that the boy that makes fun of you and pushes you on the playground really just like you. So, from even from our first interaction with the male species we were preprogrammed to let boys treat us disrespectfully and to let them walk all over us. How awfully twisted is that? Yeah, my face exactly.

After all of my years of interactions with those "mean boys" I have found that all they really are is just that, mean boys. The boy that doesn't answer your calls, knows that he is singlehandedly ripping your heart out piece by piece, and who makes you out to be the psycho girl to his friends does not treat you like that because he "likes you". No, he treats you like that because he does not respect you. Somewhere along the line, he wasn't taught how you treat others. From a young age, he was made to believe that it was okay if he treated girls like crap. So no, that boy does not like you. He really just doesn't have the decency to treat you how you deserve to be treated.

When I have a daughter of my own, I am not going to tell her that the boy being mean to her likes her. When she comes home all upset because a boy in her class made fun of her in the lunch line, I am going to tell her to run. Run as fast as you can from boys like him and don't look back. Do not give boys like that the time of day or the honor of having a place in your kind heart. I am going to tell her to respect herself enough to walk away. That there are boys out there who will be nice to her. There are boys that will include you in their game of four square, and there are boys that will give you a heartfelt valentine. One of those boys may become her best guy friend, and every girl needs a best guy friend in her life that she knows will always have her back. One of those nice boys that she meets along the way will love her truly and genuinely.

He will never intentionally hurt her, and he will be kind. That is the kind of boy that likes you, and that is the kind of boy that I am going to tell my daughter to hold out for. I have had my fair share of lying and disrespectful guys in my life, and I am still having to accept that those boys really don't like me. Be it the boy in fifth grade who made fun of my pre-puberty weight to the whole class or the boy who currently ignores my every text and every phone call, those boys don't like me. Those boys do not define me, and I am waiting for the boy who gives me his handkerchief to wipe my eyes when I'm crying. So run little girl, and don't look back.