One of the boys.

I was undoubtedly a tomboy until about ninth grade. Even then, it wasn't until I had my first real relationship with a boy that I saw myself morphing into a young lady.

By college, I had found an enjoyment in shoe-shopping, wore some kind of makeup nearly every day, and loved an excuse to get all dressed up. I had always held onto my boyish attitude however - the laid back personality, adventurous nature, blunt and sarcastic sense of humor and willingness to talk about just about anything. Don't get me wrong, I still have my most feminine moments. They make their appearances most often in romantic situations or around spiders and other creepy crawly insects (Go ahead and call me a baby...). As an only child, I don't really know why I started out as such a rough and tumble little girl, but I do recognize that half of my best friends during high school were boys and the other half of girls were just tomboyish and punky as me...or was it the other way around? In addition, and you may disagree with this influence at first, I think that the 14+ years that I spent in an ice rink for figure skating practice played a major role too. While you may find it odd that a sport with such a "graceful" and "feminine" reputation may play a part in my tomboyish teenage life, what you don't know is the behind the scenes events of a figure skater at practice or running around her "home rink". Sure, my closest friends at the rink were girls, but when you spend hours on end day in and day out in the same place with the same people, the boys around you start to rub off too. I have so many memories of all of us causing trouble and getting dirty (get your minds out of the gutter pleaaaaseee) with the boys.

The reason I mention all of this is because it was pointed out recently that this very tom-boyish nature that peeks its way out once in awhile may be an attractive characteristic of myself to the males around me. Where is the line between being "one of the boys" and being merely a female friend of a boy - or is there any difference at all? And if it's possible for a girl to really be seen as "one of the boys", is this a quality that males find appealing? Maybe this is an idea that we, as girls, create because we feel that it is so. Thoughts?