There's one woman I know from the gym. She's always so happy. It just radiates from her. And it doesn't seem fake at all. I'm not jealous of but I do wonder what the hardest thing that has happened in her life or if her life has been perfect. I much rather my life- walking through some darkness and being able to really relate to others who have gone down a darker path
Just an observation: I've seen people who radiate what appears to be genuine happiness even on the streets while some who seem to have everything can be miserable. An obscure philosopher wrote about it, on how people who had nothing were grateful for the smallest favors while shrugging off the bad while those who lived in luxury got jaded to all that was good and had no tolerance emotional endurance when times got a bit tough.
I knew 2 on the streets like that, but I wouldn't say either had charmed lives. One was killed by a jealous boyfriend (simply because she talked to him...I know what happened over that talk because I was there, but he got her away from us before he killed her in a rage). I think she and I would've been good friends, had she lived long enough for us to do so.
And as a woman, your self worth should not be connected to the attention of men. I genuinely didn't realise how much jealousy and insecurity can mould a person's behaviour towards others. It is immaturity taken to its extreme I suppose.
Once I was with 2 kids (one a teen girl new to high school) waiting for a friend of mine to pick us up, and ordered a pizza while we waited. I'd pulled out a health bar I'd gotten earlier that day and ate it. I got some hate glares from women that I just shrugged off at first.
And then our pizza was ready and we expected my friend within the next 5 minutes, so we waited outside for her, me holding the pizza boxes. And then I saw 2 more women glare at me, one from within a pickup. And the men didn't (though on that topic, I get a lot less male stares when I was with the teenage girl, glad I wasn't so pathetic as to be jealous about that rather than concerned by how adult men liked to look at the underage teen), so it was just the women, and therefore I was sure something was going on.
So I asked the high school girl next to me if she knew why so many women were glaring at me and she pointed out I was in shape while eating a seeming candy bar and/or holding boxes of pizza. Of course! Glad a high school girl was there to remind me of how the world worked (and that for too many of us, high school never ends), though I added to myself that those women probably assumed the kids were mine (because they couldn't conceive why I'd be with them otherwise) so that adds yet another reason I should have more weight and probably should look older than I did. (They probably assumed that I had candy bars and pizza every day, too.)
It's rather sad. One of the most dreary times of my teen life was when my drunk mother would call me in to show off her old modeling pix (and she tended to put down my looks a lot) which were her glory days. But she was treated so foully by the agency and other models (though she was no sweetie herself) that I couldn't imagine why she'd go through with it. To me, it meant my mother had no self-respect to allow herself to be treated like that, but to her it was quite the achievement that she felt proud of, like someone might climbing Mt. Everest, though she felt her life was never going to be exciting again once her modeling career was over...I do hope she changes as she gets older, but I don't dare hope she will. But there are lots of women who believe their looks and desirability to men are their most valuable, and perhaps only truly important, quality to possess with all else trivial (or bonuses at best).
I'm glad I escaped that, and feel bad for the many who have not.
