One of the girls or one of the guys?

In high school I was a very diverse person and still am today. I like to do a lot of different things and belong to many groups, sometimes though they clash so much that I don't feel as if I actually belong in any of them.

The 2 most contradicting groups that I belong too was the football team and a group of my friends and I who went around and did 'girly' things; Example: pageants. I never really took them seriously and really didn't like doing them. I consider them really egotistical and hate the idea of people judging people based on their appearance. Anyways the real reason I did them was so I could have something to do with my friends over the summer and it was kinda fun to spend a couple of hours getting dressed up, which I normally didn't do because of football.

At the beginning I knew things weren't going to work out. I had done pageants when I was younger and knew the judges don't really like girls with huge bruises covering their arms and legs. I wasn't doing it to win but my friends would get made at me and say I wasn't taking it seriously, which I wasn't. I didn't care what a group of strangers thought about my appearance I just wanted to have something in common with my other friends since I spent so much time with other football players. Needless to say my friends didn't want me to play football.

The football team thought it was kinda cool at first but after a while they got concerned. Surprisingly they didn't like the idea of me being judged based on beauty. They didn't like the fact that I couldn't hang out with them on pageant days and thought that it was giving me low self esteem. At the same time my female friends thought football was giving me low self-esteem. Either way they both began to hate each other.

I was able to continue doing pageants throughout high school, in the end I realized that I really hated them but they were constructive, I am no longer afraid of public speaking or being in front of a large group. I actually won a few awards mostly personality awards and I did have fun being with my friends before the pageant. I would have never given up football though, and I'm glad that my guys never made me choose sides and just let me be one of the girls for while instead of always being one of the guys.