A collection of souls

Theo

I met Theo studying Spanish; we sat next to each other and shared a common interest, doodling. My first impression of him was that he was a nice guy, if not slightly awkward. His sense of humour caught me off guard too; he made jokes about life and himself; referring to himself as 'trash' and other such names.

Theo has green eyes and he had short hair, a sort of honey or light oak wood colour, which I think is beautiful, and I made sure to let him know that too, he dyed his hair a year ago so it is sort of a fox-fur colour now. He is a nice person who doesn't necessarily talk to people, and gives off a sort of defensive vibe to strangers whom he feels will not relate to him- he did this to me too at first. His style of clothing is black skinny jeans and black shirts with skulls on them. He has a thing for beanies, chains, studs, rock bands and all things death related- so when I strolled in with light blue jeans and a hoodie saying 'life is great'.. he didn't exactly see me as someone who would get him. Luckily for me (or I may not have had the chance to get to know him) at about 13 I was craaazy about rock bands, all things suicidal and was pretty much him, bar not being male or owning a fabulous pair of green eyes, so I had my own little arsenal up my sleeve and struck up a conversation about MCR and how Panic! At The Disco was breaking up (for those who don't know, they're rock bands).

 Aaaand I was in- we got along like a house on fire, I tried reassuring him that things would be better because he was going through a rough stage, and he self-harmed and found comfort in the internet, books like the Mortal Instruments, and sad music, he was a really sad guy (I mean this in the way that he felt sad most of the time not that he was pathetic- he wasn't, he is one of the strongest people I know). He was also anaemic, and not mildly, it was so bad he had to go to the hospital so many times, even now he isn't attending the lessons because he is in the hospital. 

I don't know what the point of writing this is, I think it's because I've over heard so many people talk badly of him and they had not *once* tried to have a decent conversation with him, or just listen to what he had to say; and he did have a lot to say about everything, and that they didn't talk about him the way they would when a girl acts that way. Those who approached him generally viewed him as a romantic interest, and fantasised about him being a love interest, because he had that brooding look to him they pegged him as the bad boy, but when they found out he had anaemia they left him, because it didn't match up with what they had assumed he be like. I feel like yes, there is a lot of sexism in the world. Females are not yet viewed as equal and I really don't like that. But while there are misogynists (people who are sexist towards females), there are also misandrists (people who are sexist towards males) and something I really don't like is when they call themselves feminists.

I am a feminist. I believe in the equality of genders. I do not hate men. I simply don't want to be treated differently because of my gender. When I was younger, I felt the need to prove I was better than men by putting them down, but really? You shouldn't feel the need to do that. That makes you just as sexist as the people you are calling sexist.

I feel like I've gone off on a tangent here, but the point is, Theo was misunderstood, used and thrown away by so many people because he didn't live up to what was stereo typically masculine. And that sucks. Please don't do this to people, I know sometimes it makes you feel strong- putting other people down. But that really isn't what strength is, as far as I'm concerned, real strength is when you have control over yourself and have the so much power, but you don't have to use it. I feel like I'm not explaining this correctly and I'm going off on a different topic again, ughhh how do I put thisss.

This has been bothering me for quite some time now, because I don't really know how to define power. By the way, if you're not interested in reading onward, don't I'm just venting frustrations right now and I don't exactly know where my vocab has gone. Someone once told me (and this person is extremely respected, I respect him SO much and he has accomplished a whole lot but this is just one thing I don't agree with him on) that strength isn't how much you can take. But I think that's plays a huge part in what strength is- but this may just be because of the stuff I've gone through and it may be me being subconsciously narcissistic and my brain is just grinning to itself lik

"Yo! You got through all that, and still love them and still never once broke from your morals and still managed to show kindness to them, even though you had to take so much!" you probably don't know what I'm talking about, but you get the point.. probably. Maybe strength is different to different people. To me strength is maintaining your promises and your morals and being there no matter what. To someone else, strength might be opening a can of beans (I am literally hopeless at opening anything; doors, crisp packets, jars- maybe it's the universe telling me there are frogs inside and I should let someone else open it so the frog attacks them instead). I don't really know anything yet. 

But hey, thanks Theo. You made me think.