He got more than he bargained for.

Today my best friend texted me a strange question. The poor boy probably got a little more than he bargained for with the answer. 

"What do you think you're best feature is?"

"Mine?"

"Yes yours"

"I dunno. That's a weird question"

"It's kind of a social experiment, I see all these videos about girls and beauty and I wish that all girls knew how beautiful they are it makes me sad.  haha, sorry it sounds dumb. But I wanted to see if girls have things they like about themselves."

"That's sweet:)

So we're talking physical?"

"Let's do both"

"Hmm...

I have an answer for you,

But it's long and I have to eat. 

I'll be back..."

"So the thing with those videos is the girls always seem to LEARN that they're pretty or they have worth or whatever. I already know I'm pretty. I already know that I'm good enough or I have something to offer or whatever. I already know that and I think most other girls do too. They're just not willing to admit it. When we talk about our flaws it makes other people think that it's bad to talk about our strengths. Or when people compliment us, we feel like we have to downplay our strengths to make other people feel better.  Like when people tell me I'm skinny, I never know what to say. When people talk about me being skinny, they're comparing their bodies to mine and I don't know what to say, it's awkward. There's not really a way to down play it without the other person feeling worse. Being skinny has never been something I've cared about, but it's something other people care about. And I don't know how to make them feel better otherwise I would. When girls are talking about how they hate their hair or their skin or their bodies, other girls pick up on the attitude and do it too.  Another problem is the dating scene, girls feel like they're not good enough when they see other people getting attention from boys and they don't. They feel like what they have to offer isn't what people want. 

The last problem is that we can see our own strengths and weaknesses while we can mostly only see other peoples strengths. We compare our worst with other people's best. Some of it is internal but a lot of it is taught. Society teaches girls to hate themselves and then wonders why they do. And then they try to fix it, but they don't know how.

For me particularly, I know I'm pretty great, I'm just not used to other people thinking that too."

Unedited. Unchanged. Original conversation. Food for thought.