It was so long ago, but it's all coming back to me.

Let me start by saying that I have, like, 12 best friends. My bridal party alone consists of eight bridesmaids and two flower girls, and that's not even including the people I've gotten super close to in more recent years, like Emma, C-List, and Libertine. So believe me when I say that this weekend, I went to lunch with five of my best girlfriends (plus one child, one cousin, and one of my best friends' other best friend).

In a way, it was great: I hadn't seen most of these people in at least a year, and our long table at Buca di Beppo managed to talk and laugh for the entire two hours we were there. But then we started walking through the mall, and suddenly I was back in high school again. Or maybe college - I know these people from different walks of life. Anyway, suddenly I was worried that if I was walking with one person, would the others think that she was my best best friend and that I was ignoring them in favor of her? Suddenly I was aware that my friends were all wearing outfits, while I, ever the low-maintenance, fashion-challenged Barbie, was wearing shorts, a tank top, and wash-n-go hair. Suddenly, I began to feel self-conscious and generally inferior.

I took our little band into the store where B works. B is my male best friend, whom I also hadn't seen since last summer, and our little reunion was everything I'd hoped it would be, with long, hard hugs, and kisses just shy of the mouth: I thrive on male affection, and B is a safe person to give it to me without Lui freaking out too much. Then he noticed just how many of us there were (eight and a half), felt that he'd been backed into a corner, and went into defense mode: charm. Don't get me wrong, B is a generally charming guy - he's a salesman, he has to be - but I had never seen this B before: he was in full used-car salesman mode, you could almost see the slime dripping off him. So of course all my friends who hadn't met him before, and even a few of the ones who had, decided he was smarmy, sleazy, and various other unflattering s-adjectives. In the meantime, he's asking me to set him up with my friend who we'll call Suzy Highschool (because she's my best friend from high school, and is kind of, you know, like that). B's on this quest to reform his manwhore ways and find someone to date seriously. Is making girls shudder with disgust at his flagrant come-ons the way to find this person? Probably not, but he wanted me to feel Suzy out for him anyway. I did. She was disgusted.

But I digress. I went home that night feeling inferior, both because of the previously mentioned lack of style, and because I know I'll never be the girl who stands out in a crowd of friends. Suzy is beautiful, bubbly and outgoing, and ever since we were 16, I've felt like I'm in her shadow when we're out together, like no one will ever prefer me to her, like I'm the sidekick - you get the idea. The fact that B, who is mine in a way, seemed to prefer her to me as well... Well, it hurt a little, and definitely made me feel 16 again. I mean, I know what her faults are, and I know that there are ways in which I definitely measure up and even surpass her. But on first impression... I am in jeans, I haven't styled my hair, my nose is too big, I'm quiet and shy, I can't walk in heels, and there's a good chance I'm wearing glasses that don't quite fit my face anymore because I've lost a bunch of weight since I got them. It's not a good combination if I ever want to wow people.

And yes, I know I shouldn't be jealous of or competing with my closest friends, but I'm a girl and we do that. And I know that Lui loves me just as I am, and tells me so on a daily basis, but sometimes I just want to blow people away. And I feel like I can never do that, and then I wonder if I just might be totally devoid of charisma.

I got over it, of course. B and I talked on the phone, I told him of all these concerns, and he reassured me by talking shit about Suzy (he gave up trying to date her after I told him that her aversion to him might be something as superficial as his height - he's 5'8") and told me that I have the best body of all my friends, which may be true from a conventional standpoint - and if it is, good! I deserve it after all the working out I've done. Like I said, I thrive on male affection, so typically if I need to be reassured about something, I call boy-friends rather than girlfriends. But really, eventually, I need to get to the root of this problem and solve it (it's all in my head, I'm sure), or I may end up feeling second best to my maid-of-honor on my wedding day.