Spineless

Gigi lives in the flat above mine. We spent 3 years smiling awkwardly as we passed each other in the stairwell before finally becoming friends. She is much nicer than me. Gigi is the type of person men generally like because she is charming and sweet.

I, on the other hand, am a Snake Bomb or some other kind of Independence Day trick -- fun to stare at in wonderment for a minute, but then what? The reason for this is because I am very defensive. My usual ploy is to hold people at arm’s length with my wit. Then they eventually lose interest and I feel let down. My mentor always says, “Don’t make things so difficult! People just want to be with someone who is easy and fun. They don’t want to constantly be challenged on everything.”

Unfortunately, I can’t seem to get the hang of being non-defensive and charming, like Gigi.

I went out with a chiropractor this weekend. The conversation went something like this:

Him: I’m a doctor of chiropractic. I just signed on with the Denver Broncos.

Me: Oh. So you’re like a witch doctor?

Him: Excuse me?

Me: Oh you know. Like, Oh hey, I’ll come see you and you’ll press on my bones magically and then BLAMO! My migraines are gone! Sounds like witchery to me.

Him: [Long, drawn out explanation of what chiropractic entails]

Me: How interesting. I’ve never gone to see a chiropractor. If my back hurts, I just find the biggest teacher at school and ask him to pick me up and shake me out. It works great.

As you can see, these conversations do not show me at my best. Actually, I’m not sure I have a best. I’m too prickly to do well in the dating world. The only other extreme I have is exhibiting disinterest and boredom. In that scenario, even my wit deserts me and I stare at my date and wonder what his head would look like on a dolphin’s body or something.

Between being boring and being feisty, I’m hard-pressed to say which is worse. My dad always tells me, “Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor.” He wants me to eschew sarcasm and be sweet and kind, I guess. He’s probably worried about me because I’m old now. He once warned me that if I didn’t get it together, I’d be left alone in life, an old maid by 26.

LOOK WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, POP!!! I’m an even older maid than you ever dreamed!!!!

Wait a minute.

The point to all this is that I need to be more like Gigi. When someone asks me to have dinner in the CWE, I need to not say things like, “I can’t. I’ll start cursing on the 20 minute walk from my car to the restaurant and then I’ll lose my car because I parked so far away and I’ll end up wandering around forever and hating you because you are the reason I lost my car.”

I need to learn to smile sweetly, bat my eyelashes and say, “Whah yeeees! Ah would luhv to have dinnah with you!” (bat, bat, bat). That’s what Gigi would do. She would throw some dimples in there, too, for good measure. Then she would come home and yell to me about everything that’s wrong with the guy.

I hate letting down my defenses like that, though. Even the thought of it is very unsettling. My friend J-Mo says I have a marshmallow center, but I suppose I’d rather have the feisty, prickly part of me rejected than the soft, squishy inside.

That, and when it comes to following the path of least resistance, I prefer amusing myself over catering to the expectations of what I should be and do and say. I know Midwestern girls are supposed to be demure and beautiful and modest and acquiescing. I just can’t seem to force myself. It kicks against the goads!

I’ve decided there must be a balance. From now on, when I’m on dates, I’m going to pretend Gigi is sitting next to me telling me nice and adoring things to say, such as, “Wow, the Denver Broncos! You must be so talented at pressing people’s spines!”

I’ll say those things until I start seeing dolphin-heads. After that point, it's every man for himself. I can only bend so far.