I remember one time when I was about nine years old, when I was out shopping with my mom and sister. There were prom dresses at the store, so my sister started talking about what she wanted to wear to her prom someday.
"I'm sure your many boyfriends will be impressed if you wear a dress like this," my mom teased me, gesturing to a dress that was too fluffy and sparkly in my opinion.
I wrinkled my nose and shook my head. "Ew, no," I said. "And I don't have even one boyfriend."
"I'm sure you'll have one by prom," my mom said, smiling. "That's still a long time away."
"I'm not really that interested in boys though," I said. "Boys are weird."
My mom just sighed, but she still smiled, and I didn't like that. She wasn't taking me seriously again. "I'm sure you'll start to show interest in boys by the time you're a teenager," she said.
"How would you know?" I said.
"Because that's how it works. Girls think boys are gross until they're teenagers, and then they start talking to them constantly on the phone and asking them out and all that. You may not think so now, but you'll want a boyfriend someday." That was my mom's annoying response.
I really wish she would stop comparing me to other girls. Or maybe she's comparing me to herself. Whoever she's thinking of, she's thinking wrong.
By the time I was eleven I had started to believe her. I tried to be interested in boys. I actually did try, so no one can say I didn't. I talked with my friends about them and tried to think good things about boys.
Then I let a rumor spread that I had a crush on a certain boy in my class, yet denied it anytime anyone asked me. I didn't actually have a crush on him. I just wanted to think I did. I wanted to think I was normal.
When I was twelve, I gave up on trying to be normal, and everyone forgot that old rumor.
And when I was thirteen, something magical happened. I had developed feelings for my best friend, a girl, like me. And as much as I tried to tell myself it wasn't true, it was, and eventually I had to accept it. She made me feel like no one had ever made me feel ever before.
Now I'm fourteen. I've told my best friend about my feelings, though she did not return them, and all my friends at school know I'm a lesbian. And my sister does too. Because after contemplating it for a couple years, I've finally realized it. Five years after I started thinking I wasn't going to end up with a boy, I became sure of it.
At dinner recently, my mom was teasing me again. "You're so weird sometimes," she said. I must've looked somewhat upset, because then she quickly said, "But I'm sure you'll turn out okay. You'll have a husband someday, and I'm sure he'll accept you for who you are."
"How do you know I'll have a husband?" I said. "What if I don't?"
"You will," my mom said. "You may not think so now, but you will."
I lost my appetite upon hearing that. I pushed my food around on my plate, and my sister gave me a sympathetic look. My mom asked me why I was so sad, and I just shrugged.
In those five years, she hasn't stopped believing it.