June 17, 2013

Modesty and One Direction

I starting writing a new post. I really did. But it turned into ramblings and more of a journal entry. My bad. So instead I am recycling a past well accepted and enjoyed post from my old blog. Background info? I don't know. I met One Direction last summer. That's what this post is about, what I realized during that trip.

I have never been glared at so much in one day. The girls with the most venomous looks were the two in super tight mini skirts and sky high heels. They were at least 50 yards behind the rest of the group. Dressed to the nines but looking awkward and extremely uncomfortable.
I was wearing my favorite coral jeans and a navy and white polka dotted shirt. I was wearing an undershirt so my shoulders were covered. Weird. My jeans weren’t skin tight. Weird. I had more skin covered than skin showing. Really weird.
According to Utah Valley standards my outfit was adorable. According to Cali standards I probably looked like a dork. But I was comfortable.
My friend Tori and I were the only girls who weren’t constantly pulling up our shirts, pulling down our shirts, fixing our spaghetti straps, and tripping in our spike covered heels. We were completely free to jump in joy because we were about to meet five of the most attractive boys ever. Everyone else looked like they could hardly move without revealing even more fake tanned skin.
Finally after a while of waiting the two venomous-dressed-to-the-nines-girls caught up to the rest of the group. Someone came to take Tori and I back to meet 1D personally, that’s when the glares began. It was like death threats were being written down in really girly handwriting, folded into imaginary paper airplanes and thrown as hard as possible at our backs. Too bad they can’t throw.
I had thought through this meeting hundreds of times before it actually happened. On the airplane ride there Tori and I read about other girls who had met One Direction. The meeting usually including Harry kissing them on the cheek, girls proposing to Niall, and cozy pictures.
Our meeting wasn’t quite the same.
We heard them coming before we saw them. Niall was especially loud while coming down the hallway but he got kind of quiet when he actually walked in. They didn’t kiss us on the cheek. I wasn’t even really next to one of them in the picture. And we were both too nervous to propose. The boys were very respectful, very polite, very removed.
Maybe I am just extremely awkward and none of them were interested in me. I don’t think that’s it.
The lady who was with us through the entire experience, who took us backstage and documented the visit with her camera phone, said herself that there was something different about us. At one point she started going through a list of rules, telling us we were not allowed abandon our self-control and attack the boys, or anything like that. She stopped midway through her lecture and said, “you know what? You two girls don’t look like trouble.” And of course Tori and I kept hold on our self-control.
Even now, months later, every time we discuss the time we actually met One Direction Tori’s mom starts talking about how proud she is that we weren’t like the rest of the girl’s at that concert. She talks about how the five boys of 1D seemed to hold themselves a different way, they seemed more respectful she said, because Tori and I respected ourselves. We didn’t try to attract attention to ourselves by wearing revealing clothes, our super attraction power was simply the light of Christ.
As teenage girls in the LDS church we get lessons about modesty all of the time. Our leaders loves to tell us, “just be your shiny self and boys will love you!” I have been skeptical of that myself, I promise. Maybe you’re thinking I know that the goody two shoes, respectful boys will be attracted to a girl who is modest, but what about the more popular guys?
Well I don’t know. But here is what I noticed the day I met 1D. I respected myself and the fact that I am a daughter of God and five of the most popular teenage boys in the world right now noticed. And they acted accordingly. And even though I stood out in a crowd full of worldly girls, I was comfortable in my own skin.
Not to be cheesy, but modest really is hottest. Wow, that really was cheesy…. scratch that. Just be your shiny self and boys will love you ;)

No comments:

Post a Comment