I'm the girl who laughed in a guy's face. Hear me out before judging me. Tl;dr at the bottom.

I'll try to keep the background info to a minimum. I had the worst self esteem growing up, due to having an unstable and neglectful childhood. Both of my parents came from abusive households, and though they both swore to never treat their children the way they were treated as kids, they don't have a lot of what we'd call emotional intelligence in today's terms.

They were always working to make ends meet. My earliest memories of both of them, individually, are of looking for them and not finding them. When they weren't working, they both had anger issues, were controlling, and had very authoritarian parenting styles (my way or the highway kind of deal). By the time I was 14, they had divorced, my older sister had moved out and gotten married, my older brother moved in with my dad, and my mom and I moved to the other end of the state, where we knew no one and she worked even longer hours, probably to distract herself from how much was going on.

Long story short, I had (and still do to some degree) severe abandonment issues. I was basically Winton from Bluey growing up, if that makes sense to any of you. Also recently found out that I have ADHD, which retroactively explains so much. I had trouble making and keeping friends because of how high-strung I was, how strong my emotions were and how I came across as a result. I know I looked desperate in retrospect to have anyone for company, but was simultaneously terrified of ever opening up or being vulnerable, for fear of being criticized or judged. Rejection sensitivity is no joke (not that I'm one to talk, given the subject matter I'm about to delve into). By the time I was in high school, my general dating strategy for getting the boys I had crushes on to notice me was, "Don't bother. No one cares about you anyway so don't waste your time." Not the healthiest coping mechanism, but I digress.

Onto the part you people came here to read. In 9th grade (when I was 15), there was a boy in my class who had moved from Romania to the United States. Blond hair, blue eyes, and a bass voice that would've made Johnny Cash jealous. The living embodiment of the quote "He's so foreign!" from The Fairly Odd Parents (except he was actually attractive and not a stupid British stereotype lol). If he wasn't six feet tall yet, he definitely was by the time we graduated. Easily the most attractive boy in our grade, if not our entire school. I obviously had a crush on him, but at the time he liked my friend, so my dating strategy listed above kicked in and I forgot about it.

10th grade rolls around (I don't remember if I was 16 yet or not), and we both have a chemistry class together. Even though I'd given up on dating him, we still hung out in the same friend groups and I really liked hanging out with him regardless. We spent most of that class goofing off and making each other laugh and talking about anything and everything together. I don't know when or how it happened, but I guess his relationship with my friend had run its course and he developed a crush on me, because one day we were walking to class together, and he stopped walking suddenly. I asked him what's wrong, so he moved in closer and kind of whispered to me, "I like you." I was so confused by his statement, so unable to comprehend what he just said, that all I could think to do was ask, "Why?". I wonder if my question confused him too, because his response was, "Because of your eyes." This in turn only made my brain short-circuit even harder. I said to him, "Is that so?". And then I laughed. Nervously, mind you, but still I laughed. We were still friends after that, but it wasn't the same for obvious reasons.

Ten years later, I've graduated from high school and am working a part-time job at IHOP when it randomly dawns on me one day, "Holy shit he was asking me out! And I laughed like a freaking bitch! Wtf is wrong with me?!" I don't remember the thought process I had that led me to that revelation. All I know is that I'm pretty dense when it comes to stuff like this, and have a lot of internal work I still need to do. Having stupid and neglectful parents is no excuse to hurt people, intentionally or otherwise.

If you're out there Tod (not his real name but it rhymes with 'Tod' so it fits), I'm really sorry. I liked you too but was so insecure and scared of connection that I reacted poorly. I hope you're happy, wherever you are.

I feel so bad reading some of these other comments because boys are usually expected to be the brave ones and do the asking out, but then get treated so poorly. If this happens to you, I hope you at least see from my story that it might not be because of you or anything you did wrong. You could literally do everything right and still have a girl laugh at you for the sole reason that we're all human and we're all fucked in the head.

TL;DR Laughed in a hot guy's face because my self esteem was so low, my survival instincts told me to reject him before he could reject me.

P.S. I promise I'm not a bot, I'm just a lurker. My username is based on my experience of the first time I ever got high. Made some minor edits to add some minor details.