Starting in childhood, she is taught that if a boy pulls her hair, it means he likes her. She is given a baby doll toy that pees on its own, and she is taught to take care of it because she will become a mother one day.
Starting in early adolescence, she is taught to aspire to marriage. She is taught to dream of the day the man of her dreams gets down on one knee and purposes. She writes in her diary and plans her wedding.
As she grows up, she is taught that if a boy is interested in her, he will approach her. She doesn’t get asked to the middle school dance, and she wonders what is wrong with her.
She is told by her friends to never, and I mean never, text a boy first. “If he wants to talk to you, he will,” they advise her.
She is told by her mother that to be desired by men, she must play hard to get. Her mother says that men want what they can’t have.
She is told by her father than no man wants a woman who everyone has had. He advises her to “not be easy.”
She wants to ask a guy in her class out on a date, but she knows she shouldn’t. She knows that guys ask girls on dates, not the other way around. She doesn’t want to be seen as weird or desperate. She decides not to.
Months go by. She lays in bed at night and wonders who made these rules.
As she gets older, she realizes that the idea that a princess must wait in her tower for her prince to arrive is only a social construct. She realizes that she doesn’t have to get married or have children if she doesn’t want to. She comes to understand that she is independent, she is powerful, and she doesn’t need a guy to make her whole or valuable.
But, if she finds one she wants, she knows it is perfectly fine to text him first.