Not That Kind of Girl.

Sometimes I feel like an outsider among my own people. People who study the same stuff as me, read the same books as me, apply to the same schools as me. But why do I come out of class detached with a deep-seeded feeling that one of these in not like the others?

I have not always been a fan of Lena Dunham. She blew up in the last couple of years, gaining accolades that she maybe doesn't deserve as an innovator, feminist icon, an average looking person. After watching a couple episodes of Girls, I decided it wasn't for me, but friends would keep me up to date as they assured me they only watched on because it was great "water cooler talk". As if a bunch of twenty year olds in college were in dire need of such a maniacal product of corporate America.

But like most people, I was fascinated by her. Here was this not-glamourous girl living a particularly glamourous life. And I was pissed. How did this happen? Why is she being heard? When did people start giving a shit about positive body image?

I did not understand why I hated Lena Dunham but also needed to read her book. As sad and pathetic as it sounds this is the truth: I thought I was better than her. That I could be better than her and that people needed to see that. Because as far as I could tell, people didn't.

What's weirder than thinking you're cool when nobody else does? Today I saw a dead canary in front of the library on my daily rush to a class to which I'm already 10 minutes late. And I stopped and looked at it and said "That's sad. It was so pretty."  to my friend before moving on. All of this happened within 5 seconds. A life was gone and mourned for 5 seconds.

My confused feelings towards this big-bottomed lass is everything personal. She accepts herself and doesn't care if others do or shoves her ass in their faces before it loses its shock factor. Normal continues to be my tyrant. I borrow hair ties from girls and talk one pitch higher than I should and take the same classes as them because I can't fight the power. I can't be honest with my weirdness but she is. And while we might  hate the things in others we see in ourselves, I hate that I can't see myself in more people.

If there's one resonating theme in Not That Kind of Girl it's that Lena Dunham is the Taylor Swift of sexploitative literature and I love it. She confides in strangers details that can only be entrusted to a very drunk girl in a unisex bar bathroom at 3 in the morning. I feel a camaraderie with her that I haven't felt with anyone else in a very long time and that both scares and excites me. Turns out I'm Not That Kind of Girl either.