A goddess

When I was a teenager, when instant messaging was just at its onset, my screen name was Artemis****. There was a boy who I more or less grew up with, and I had the biggest crush on him. Sometimes he would talk to me about his problems. He said I was different than other girls. I was reserved, practical, and dependable: gee, the three words every girl wants to hear. For all I know, he was comparing me to UPS pick up.
One day he got home from school and he IMed me.
“Hey, we learned about Artemis in school today. You’re exactly like her.”
At first I took it as a compliment. After all, he was comparing me to a goddess. But then it occurred to me, quite some time later, that he would never see me as anything more than reserved, practical, and dependable. Artemis is the Greek goddess of the hunt. She is the protector of children and animals. When she was three years old, she asked her father, Zeus, to grant her eternal virginity. She vowed to remain chaste forever, and would shoot any man who tried to go near her.
He compared me to a goddess who protects the weak, but would essentially remain alone forever. What girl wants to hear that? She’s no Aphrodite. I couldn’t make him go weak in the knees, but I watched as other girls turned his knees to jelly, and there I was—the true protector of the weak-- dependable old me. As we grew older, we grew apart, and we no longer keep in touch.
And you know, I’m not a goddess. I’m just a girl who hopes that one day there will be a man out there whose throat gets a little dry when I’m around. His knees will shake, and his palms will get clammy. And when he looks deep into my eyes, he won’t tell me how practical and dependable I look.
Maybe he will call me strange and beautiful...