Lack of Sexual Identity Much

I've had a quite a different childhood from most other people. I grew up in Bombay and my parents sent me to a strict all-girls convent school, which is not that strange a thing to do in India, even though we are not Christians. I never realized until I came here the perception people have of convent schools. Its true it was a rather strict religious school, but I can assure you that we weren't brainwashed to follow a set of beliefs that we did not want to or flagellate every time we did something wrong. Yes, we prayed thrice a day, but it was something that I had unconsciously done since the age of 5 till I was 14 and it never seemed to be such a big deal. Also the prayers made us lose 5 mins of each lesson after break and before going home, we used to gladly welcome the praying. We also had quite a strict uniform system and other rules regarding nail polish, jewellary, make up and hair and other stuff. But then again, school in India gets over at 15, and so hair and make up didn't matter at all until the last 2 years or even less.

So the main problem with single sex schools is that people complain that they don't get enough interaction with members of the opposite sex, which is quite true according to me. Surprisingly it was not the case with me. The children in the apartment block where I grew up were only male, apart from 2 girls, one of them was 4 years younger than me, so I never interacted with her and the other was 2 years older than me and I was too young for her to bother with me.

So here was a strange case, I used to spend all day in school with only girls and my evenings with only boys. I grew up to be quite a tom boy. I had short hair for a long period of time, I used to play games like cricket and football, climb trees, walls and other dangerous precipices, make fun of the horrible old woman who used to chase us with a broomstick (I know, we were terrible, I still feel guilty about the old woman, she continues haunting me in my dreams). At that time, the difference between our genders was never an issue, I was a part of the group.

As we grew older and became teenagers, I started consciously realizing that I was not a part of them. I still remember the exact day when I realized that I couldn't always be like them and do the things that they did. I think this was when I was about 11 or 12. One evening I saw that my friends were not following our normal routine evening game of cricket in our yard but were going somewhere else.

Me: "So guys, what are we all doing today?"

Male no.1: "We're going to play today in the other building with the older guys"

Me: "Oh, alright, lets go"

Male no. 2: "umm...actually, you can't really come with us"

Me: (surprised) "Why not?"

Male no. 1: "Well we are playing a serious game today and the other guys with whom we are playing are really old; some of them are in university. You're a girl and so you're not allowed to enter that place"

Me: (speechless)

I admit it, I was wounded. I never saw it coming or realized how different I was from the others. But from that day onwards, it was an unwritten rule that when we played amongst ourselves I could always join in, but when they played with the older guys, I wasn't allowed to do so. As time passed, I got less and less interested in sports, they got more and more into it. I was introduced to the joys of literature and definitely preferred reading to sports. Of course, we were still good friends. Most of the times our routine involved was playing cricket till it got dark and then after the game, we used to sit and chat or play some other neutral games that did not really require light. This routine worked out to be great till the day that the infamous Strumpet moved in the apartment block next door.

The Strumpet as I fondly like to refer to her, was exactly my age, in my grade but in a (thankfully) different school. The Strumpet greatly changed everything because every male I knew was in love with her. She refused to hang out with any of us or acknowledge my presence because she was too good for me. I disliked her immensely and I have to admit the feeling was quite mutual. She always looked at me as if I was a piece of umm... bird poo. The Strumpet also happened to be the hottest 13 year old I and all the males around me had ever seen. Every time I used to tell my friends how much I disliked her, their reply was always the same, "Well, you are just jealous, all girls always hate other girls."

Well, one day the guys were busy discussing the various anatomical parts of the Strumpet's body and were being generally annoying and male:

Me: "Guys, this is not exactly the kind of conversation you should have in my presence"

Male no. 1: "why not?"

Me: "umm...its embarrassing to discuss female anatomy in front of me because I'm a girl"

Male no. 2: "Not really, its not like you're a real girl like the Strumpet or her strumpetty friends" (sorry, I substituted the word 'strumpetty' for the actual word that he really used, but I couldn't resist)

Me: (speechless)

So I was 'the girl' when it came to playing cricket with the older guys, (not that I wanted to, but it was still unfair) but I was not a girl when it came to discussing pretty girls.

As time passed, I grew out my male friends because I started hanging out more with my female school friends, school became difficult and I hardly got time to go out, realized that you actually had to study in order to pass a grade (seriously, till 4th grade I never realized that you had to study to go to the next grade!). I also preferred reading in my free time. Then, at 14 we moved to Italy, so I left Bombay forever. Two years ago at age 16, I was in Bombay for holidays, I obviously went to visit my old friends and I still remember how strange was my first conversation with my old male best friend. Firstly looking at a boy who used to be as tall as my shoulder before I left two heads taller than me with a stubble and a deep voice was quite a shock.

Me: "wow, you sure have changed...!"

Male no.1 (deep voice) : "Not as much as you, you look so different."

Me: "Well, I'm almost 17 now... you've become so tall, its weird. I preferred you when you were shorter than me, it felt much nicer"

Male no. 1: "You look really pretty now, with long hair and everything and no school uniform and braces"

Yes people, I was acknowledged to be pretty by the same male who refused to view me as a girl 4 years ago. I think that was the nicest thing any male has ever said to me and I was content for 3 whole seconds before he had to go and ruin it.

Male no 1 (continues): "But you've gained some weight, haven't you?"

Me: (speechless)

The conversation slowly turned towards Strumpet:

Me: "How's the Strumpet?"

Male no.1: "She has become quite a slut, you were right, she is not that pretty, just easy"

Me: *evil cackle*

Male no. 1: "She always hated you for hanging out with the guys you know, she was so jealous of you"

Me (surprised): "She was jealous of ME? I think it was quite the other way round"

Male no.1: "Well, you were always so cool and unapproachable when you were here because you always hung out with the guys. She never had the courage to speak to you because you always looked at her as if she were beneath you. She was so glad when you left, she told me. We used to go out for a while before I dumped her. She was rather irritating"

Me: (speechless)