Dashing in Dark, or Pretty in Pink?

A couple of days ago, I dressed up in this girlie outfit. I don't dress like a girl. At all. In fact, up until this year, I had considered skirts to be pointless, and bras a necessity, not an accessory. Before, I dressed in black cargo pants, chains, and boots. Now I have a more feminine side, and I own a dress--other than one for Halloween.

Anyways. I told I was dressed like a prep because I lost a card game to my best friend. That wasn't the truth. But everyone was asking me if I had lost a bet, and I thought, 'Sure. It's plausible,' so I just rolled with it. I really just wanted to see what people would say.

It's a real ego-killer when you get compliments when you show some leg, but you look like a guy when you dress in your normal clothes. This class bully--a family friend of a friend--kept calling Kits and I dikes and all that fun stuff. We just laughed at him and his friends. And when I dressed in preppy clothes and a mini-skirt, suddenly he couldn't take his eyes off me. We all know who the real loser is here, now don't we?

Since I was eleven, I've had a fascination of all things dark. I discovered black lipstick in sixth grade on Halloween, and I wore this goth getup the day of at school, and everyone stared. Ever since then, I've lived for those stares. I enjoyed the attention, enjoyed exchanging witty insults with the bullies, enjoyed the fact that black lipstick was not in, and yet--somehow--I was. I am popular, for some reason. I've loved that, and have used it to my advantage. Not in a back-biting, two-faced way, but I love having a lot of friends and people who think I--Cheri--am cool. And though I've dropped the black lippy over the years, and traded temporary tats for peircings, I still have bunches of friends--from geeks, to emos, to skaters, to preps. Hell, my current boyfriend is a football player, and one of my exs is as well.

But, while I love the dark clothes and everything paranormal, nearly everyone thinks I should hang up my chains and switch them out for pom-poms. I don't look awful in pink, but black is my color. Still, even my awesome step-mom says I should dress in more pink and stuff--and she has an eyebrow ring, a nose ring, and she married a biker (my dad). Should I really put away my biker boots and wear high-heels instead? Trade ripped black jeans for skirts, arm-warmers for gaudy bracelets?

Which Cheri should I be?