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| -by Crack |
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I had this curse laid on me when I was fifteen. This is not the curse
known as the Mother's Curse wherin the child in question is given the
invocation, "When you have kids, I hope they turn out just like you!" which
inevitably happens, to their fiendish delight, which is the secret of why
grandparents smile so much. No, I got that one when I was too young to
even retort. (Thanks, Mom!) This curse of which I speak was one given to
me by one of my "teen friends" (a.k.a. associates who hung out with the
same crowd), Frank1.
Frank turned to me one summer afternoon and, with no
prompting of any sort that I can recall, spoke the words: "You know,
you're not the sort of girl you date, you're the kind you marry."
Now... what is that supposed to mean? I'm sure, in the grand tradition of Clueless-But-Well-Meaning guys I know, that this was some sort of compliment, but listen up, boyos: at fifteen, this was a death sentence! |
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I tried to chalk it up to the crew I was hanging with at the time:
henceforth known as "The Guys". I was one of those girls who hangs around
with mostly guy friends (in my case a whole pack of them) by dating one
of the members and being adopted by the rest of them. Hardly a Wendy to
their Lost Boys, I was more like the young women on Monty Python who
never achieved name recognition in the wake of her more audacious fellow
creative goofballs.
My beau was a junior, Stephen; very thin (except for his glasses) with
the body of a young dancer or acrobat, a tight smile and silly
disposition. [Since then, he has grown to look more like a suave Dracula
from the movie with a much stronger body, a much wider smile and the same
silly disposition. We're the oldest of friends!]
2
The guys were all intellectual-types into sci-fi and chess and science
labs and math...you
Anyway, since I was evidently a surprise to the bunch, having made my debut arm-and-arm with my guy (Earl actually said he was expecting someone that looked like Stephen with a ponytail), they decided to adopt me for my own good. So Frank, being one of The Guys, was, I'm sure, trying to be nice. But honestly, the last thing a budding high-schooler wants to hear is that she's doomed from the get-go. I mean, no, I didn't want an orgy of boyfriends at my beck and call (...I really didn't!... Honest!...) but hey, I wasn't planning to find a husband fresh out of the gate. I wanted to date, have fun, see who's out there -- and then this curse hit me square in the head. Bummer of a birthmark, gal... Guys: tip for you. If you want to compliment a lady on the fact that she doesn't sleep around, cares genuinely for her loved ones and is faithful in her affections, say so. Please don't put a label on her head that can haunt her the rest of her life like she's taken some career analysis test and came up "Homemaker"! |
know, geeks. Don't get me wrong -- we all were, myself included. But
somehow, I was the type of geek who had permed hair, big earrings and a
penchant for half-tanks and bare midriffs, shocked by the idea of sexual
innuendos, anything but monogamy in the dating scene, or anything like
tattoos or piercings in weird places. (Ooh! Ick!) An innocent
geek-wanna-be, perchance? I am terrible at chess and math; however, the
innuendos stuck. (Thanks, Big Guy!)
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"I have the results right here, ma'am."|
Okay, I laughed it off at first, but oddly enough when high school days
had passed and I had gone off to college, another dose was liberally
applied. "You," said a college buddy, Danny, during a late-night babble
fest, "are the marrying type." I lept on the phrase like a rabid hyena,
which startled him into thinking I was some radical feminist or something
until I could set the precedent. Again, he meant it as a compliment.
Again, I was annoyed.
The final blow came after college: my life punctuated by only a few
long-term relationships from age fifteen to twenty-two (since each was
many years apiece) and I sat on the hood of my car arguing the semantics
of this pattern and my current lack of a boyfriend with my favorite
debate partner, C.J. He shrugged and said it was all my fault. I
vehemently denied it. He shrugged.
"Guys are afraid of you." Now, this didn't sound too bad except for the fact that I still didn't have a boyfriend and I wanted one. Nothing's worse than living at home without some escape plan featuring friends or potential snugglebunnies. The "marrying type" -- what if I didn't want to get married right now? And what did that mean, anyway? I was the type to take home to mother? I challenge readers to go to the "About Us" section of Grumble and click on the picture of Crack and you tell me if that's the chica you want kissing yo' mama. (And I don't even want to think what MOTHER would think of that...3) I mean, June Cleaver I ain't! |
Not to disavow marriage -- as Toots points out, I can't, since I am, in
fact, married (whether I'm the type or not) and my wild dating days are
over (as if they'd ever begun). Ironically, not two weeks after meeting
Jon did we turn to one another and suggest we "just get married and skip
the whole dating thing." [That is a quote and, only four short years
later, we did. Ah, what impetuous fools are we!] So while I may be older,
wiser and no longer "big-haired and bare-midriffed" as I once was, I
still think back on those times and think, "Was that an insult, a
compliment or what?!?"
Either way: Thanks, Frank and right back at ya!
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