mrcandiipants: Don’t tell me I’m not like other girls. It’s not a compliment, not a come-on. It...

Don’t tell me I’m not like other girls. It’s not a compliment, not a come-on. It doesn’t even mean anything.

What are you trying to say? That I’m breaking the mold of your idea of what girls are? Of course I’m not like some other girls, but there’s also a lot of other other girls that I am like. I’m a person, that’s how it works.

We are all, in some ways, like and not like others.

Technically, you’re right. I’m not like other girls. There is no other girl with my specific combination of freckles and cellulite and propensity to cry at cooking shows. But that’s not what you meant.

Don’t try to compliment me while insulting my gender as a whole. Don’t express interest by telling me that it stems from some trait that apparently all other girls lack, and that just by possessing it I am above them in your eyes.

Like me not because of the qualities I do not possess, but love me for my unique combination of personality traits, for my habits and my preferences, for my laugh and my calluses and because I am different but not separate.

Don’t tell me I’m not like other girls. Those ‘other’ girls are my friends and my teammates and my mother and my grandmothers, and I would love to be like them, and don’t tell me that’s not what you meant, because I know what you meant.