"fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. truth isn't." - mark twain
preface: i just can’t fathom how i could have possibly missed this fact, or how so many of my fellow girls frequently choose to ignore the evidence. please consider this a PSA to my gender.
so last week, i’m sitting at dinner with a dear (male) friend, getting him up to speed on the social happenings of our mutual friends. most of these stories involve interactions with members of the opposite sex, because hey, we’re a representative sample of today’s twentysomethings on fairly solid career tracks. we have degrees, jobs, and places to sleep – what other variable is there, really, besides who might be sharing the other half of the bed? in terms of education, we’re wrapping up. we’re old hands at finding food, tying shoe laces properly, and brushing our teeth. but when it comes to boys and girls, we’re busily trying to isolate the unknown in the equation and calculate the hell out of it…right? not necessarily.
there’s a pattern developing. girl and boy meet. girl and boy hang out. boy says something, or nothing. girl misinterprets. girl takes information to friends. girl analyzes, analyzes again, analyzes to a pulp until she extracts the information she was looking for – boy clearly was having a bad day. boy proves her wrong – he meant what he said. he didn’t want to see her anymore. thus, he no longer calls. girl, don’t be dumb. pay attention.
guilty as the next chick of beating a situation to death in my head, with my friends, in my head, over email, in my head, on IM…i sullenly stuffed my face with naan bread while dear friend kind of raised his eyebrows. clearly, i was about to have a moment, and he wasn’t about to jump in while the wheels were turning. suddenly, i stabbed my fork in the air. “i’ve been thinking about this a lot, and i have words for it!”
“yes?” said dear friend, “let’s hear it.”
“guys are straight shooters. girls have to editorialize everything. would the problems not be solved if girls took everything guys said at face value?”
“i've known this for so long. nice work.”
“thanks,” i said smugly, shoveling in chicken masala.
triumph! i will break gender barriers! i will be even blunter. i will encourage my friends to stop with the fiction and save the adjectives for nights of grey’s anatomy reruns and coronas. i will be helpful and buck the pattern by being the girl who gets it. i will –
flash forward to this morning. i’m dreaming that i’m on safari, hacking through the jungle, leading people to safety. (don’t ask.) alarm goes off. i leap from my jungle tree branch, catlike, and pounce on the offensive noise. i hear a sharp “snork” in the dark. whirl around – there’s a dark object on my floor. dear god, it's moving. it's alive. it's on my floor. it snorks again and begins to crawl out from under my bed – alligator! i glance around the “jungle” for my glasses, scream like a schoolgirl, and make a beeline for…my closet. (sidenote: if you ever need a chick to run UP the stairs in a horror movie with a killer in hot pursuit, i’m your girl.) luckily, i stabbed myself in the arch with the rather sharp heel of a green suede pump, and came to my senses. panic subsides, but the truth remains – the tendency toward fiction dies hard. damn you, X chromosome. i’m in trouble.
so last week, i’m sitting at dinner with a dear (male) friend, getting him up to speed on the social happenings of our mutual friends. most of these stories involve interactions with members of the opposite sex, because hey, we’re a representative sample of today’s twentysomethings on fairly solid career tracks. we have degrees, jobs, and places to sleep – what other variable is there, really, besides who might be sharing the other half of the bed? in terms of education, we’re wrapping up. we’re old hands at finding food, tying shoe laces properly, and brushing our teeth. but when it comes to boys and girls, we’re busily trying to isolate the unknown in the equation and calculate the hell out of it…right? not necessarily.
there’s a pattern developing. girl and boy meet. girl and boy hang out. boy says something, or nothing. girl misinterprets. girl takes information to friends. girl analyzes, analyzes again, analyzes to a pulp until she extracts the information she was looking for – boy clearly was having a bad day. boy proves her wrong – he meant what he said. he didn’t want to see her anymore. thus, he no longer calls. girl, don’t be dumb. pay attention.
guilty as the next chick of beating a situation to death in my head, with my friends, in my head, over email, in my head, on IM…i sullenly stuffed my face with naan bread while dear friend kind of raised his eyebrows. clearly, i was about to have a moment, and he wasn’t about to jump in while the wheels were turning. suddenly, i stabbed my fork in the air. “i’ve been thinking about this a lot, and i have words for it!”
“yes?” said dear friend, “let’s hear it.”
“guys are straight shooters. girls have to editorialize everything. would the problems not be solved if girls took everything guys said at face value?”
“i've known this for so long. nice work.”
“thanks,” i said smugly, shoveling in chicken masala.
triumph! i will break gender barriers! i will be even blunter. i will encourage my friends to stop with the fiction and save the adjectives for nights of grey’s anatomy reruns and coronas. i will be helpful and buck the pattern by being the girl who gets it. i will –
flash forward to this morning. i’m dreaming that i’m on safari, hacking through the jungle, leading people to safety. (don’t ask.) alarm goes off. i leap from my jungle tree branch, catlike, and pounce on the offensive noise. i hear a sharp “snork” in the dark. whirl around – there’s a dark object on my floor. dear god, it's moving. it's alive. it's on my floor. it snorks again and begins to crawl out from under my bed – alligator! i glance around the “jungle” for my glasses, scream like a schoolgirl, and make a beeline for…my closet. (sidenote: if you ever need a chick to run UP the stairs in a horror movie with a killer in hot pursuit, i’m your girl.) luckily, i stabbed myself in the arch with the rather sharp heel of a green suede pump, and came to my senses. panic subsides, but the truth remains – the tendency toward fiction dies hard. damn you, X chromosome. i’m in trouble.
3 comments:
yes, i do, but i would be torn - who'd want to RUIN that face? i lurv him.
Mal. I hate to bearer of this news sweetheart but someone's already beaten you to the punch with this break through. They wrote a little book about it, you may have heard of it as it sold a few copies.
yes, but they were mean about it. i'm not. ::smiles sweetly::
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