As a small child I vastly preferred the company of girls. Most boys were mean and liked to use me as a punching bag. Most of my friends were girls until I was 8 or so, when I was forced to socialize with more boys via scouting. I loved the idea of hiking and camping, but we'll say I found myself at the bottom of that pecking order right away. I had very few friends at the time, most of whom were also social outcasts and rejects. Sometimes the neighborhood boys would actually put up with me, the weird, smart, fat kid. I wasn't invited to birthday parties and was frequently intentionally excluded from activities. I basically got my ass kicked almost every day until I was in high school. All this time I wished I could just trade places with any of the girls I knew. I didn't fit in with them exactly either, but it was a much better fit than with the boys. Playing dolls and hopscotch just never ended with the ridicule I'd get from trying to play baseball, basketball or football.
When I got to high school, I promised myself that I was not going to be victimized anymore. Over the summer, I had grown to 5'10" and got my first "guy muscles". I still had no real friends, and (of course) I encountered my first bully on the first period of the first day. I don't know how I landed the first punch I threw, but I loosened his front teeth and was left alone for over a year. I didn't really have any close friends at all until I was 15, when I discovered pot and booze. Turned out I fit in pretty well with the stoner musician metalheads that cut classes. I still wished I was one of the girls, but I learned to numb myself as part of my coping repertoire. I also became a pretty good musician when I discovered that learning guitar could take my mind off of my gender issues for hours at a time.
