It's a term that you hear more times than you can remember when you're younger. It's drilled into you at every anti-bullying presentation that interrupted your class time to watch a movie about differences between bystanders and victims. The meaning gets lost on you and your peers. Not that you don't understand, you know how hurt you can make someone if you told them the first thing you thought of when you met. It happens to everyone, the intrusive thoughts that trickle through your subconscious when you see a stranger. I bet the only thing in his head is how to get a girl. She'll never get a job looking like that. Their hair makes them look like a Christmas tree.

It makes you wonder what people think of when they see you for the first time. What do others think when they see me for the first time? I'm an odd-looking teen with brown hair and glasses, a little more weight on me that I'm proud of, bony knees, thick eyebrows, and a compilation of mental illnesses.

Some of those things are what makes me me; I can't remember how it felt before I got my glasses. I almost don't recognize my own reflection without them on. But what could everything I look like have to do with me? With who I am? It can group me with every other brunette in the world, or person with vision problems, or teenagers with birthdays in October. But it couldn't define who I was inside.

At first glance, people would miss so much. They wouldn't know I'm the great-great-granddaughter of a Mohawk woman; that we share the same nose. They wouldn't know about the struggles of having OCD, about overwhelming feelings of an uncomfortable yearning that sometimes stay with you throughout the day. They wouldn't know about the enjoyment that comes from reading comic after comic, before sliding them back into their protective covers in the safety of my closet. They wouldn't know. They couldn't.

Early on we learn the importance of being unique, but the practice is often lost on us. This is why I strive for an open mind, preconceived thoughts aside. I want to meet others the way they want to express themselves. I don't want to know others as "the girl with the brown hair" or "the guy who's tall." I want to meet the person inside.