I considered myself unpopular at BYU. My hair was very short, kind of a punk rock ‘do with bleached bangs. I often wore tie-dyed jeans and a men’s thrift store blazer with a concert tee underneath. In Pennsylvania, I never had a shortage of guys who were interested in me, including lots I thought were totally out of my league. Men hit on me all the time. Maybe they thought I was easy because I didn’t wear a prayer bonnet. Whatever. When I got to college, I expected this male attention to continue; instead I felt like I disappeared completely.
I have read a few female Mormon memoirs that resonated with my own experience. In Therese Doucet’s A Lost Argument, she describes feeling invisible inside the church, particularly at BYU, and contrasts that with being noticed by men outside the church who had deep discussions with her.