I stuck out the second I opened my mouth as a kid, and it was impossible for me to hide, making it really challenging for me to feel like I fit in. I spent a lot of time on the Internet, as a good nerd did. And as most boys do, I browsed porn, but I never really enjoyed any of it. These girls were supposed to be hot but to me there was something missing to make them as “perfect” as my friends thought they were. Jump to 2008, and I stumble across a picture that sparks something in me. I can't even explain what the feeling was in a word, but it's a mix of fascination, admiration, confusion and longing. The picture was sexual, and I was definitely attracted, but it was like she was too beautiful and intimidating to look at sexually. As a teenage boy I nearly imploded with confusion. I never felt this or anything like this before. All from a simple post online:
So I showed it to my good friend to make sense of it, and he was strictly terrified. She wasn't having sex, you couldn't actually see her naked body, she was pale, her hair was colored, and she had strange makeup. To him this was nothing like the porn he liked so he told me that he didn't see anything he liked about it. I knew my other friends would respond the same, so I stopped showing it to people after that, but I didn't give up. The logo was at the bottom (most times people crop it out), so I looked into it and found the SG site. It was like I discovered a whole other world that I was supposed to be a part of...
I remembered I was on a mission, so I searched through every model at the time, in alphabetical order, looking for this girl. I saw so many beautiful girls during that time, and when I finally found her, it hit me, I knew why she was beautiful to me: She embraced her inner self. She didn't hide who she was. She was unique. And it inspired me. I'll never forget her for that. If it wasn't for @porphyria I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be me, I wouldn't enjoy life the way I do, and I wouldn't have made the friends or have the relationships I have made.
Everyone I know describes me as weird, and I love it. I've never been accused of not being true to myself since then. But still, I grapple with being normal and trying to not scare people away the second my mouth opens. We'll see how that goes...