2006-06-19

The Good Girl

"Honey, he probably wants to fuck everything that moves and he knows you're not that kind of girl."

"Really?"

"Yeah - it's not like you're a hooker or slutty or anything.
Anymore."

"Shut up!" As if to make my best friend feel BAD for calling me a Notstitute.
I just made up that word.
It means Not A Hooker.
It was an ironic conversation for Sunday morning, considering that we'd spent the better part of Saturday morning talking about our lives six or seven years ago and how both of us really haven't been slutty since we started dating the boyfriends from around that time.
You know... Steve.

The subject that brought up our interesting dialogue?
Details that aren't for the World Wide Web, mes amies, and I only say that because they aren't my details. I learned enough about Coffee yesterday to imply all kind of romance-novel conclusions but since I'm not involved in any of these stories, I'll hold back until such time as I have used trickery and maybe some voodoo to lure him into my lair of Bad Relationships.

See?
Dammit! There's that infernal self-deprecation, rearing its lying head, and it would only totally be hilarious if I had ANY significant relationships recently on which to base it. Since it's not particularly true, it's infinitely sadder and frankly, not necessary. There's no reason to talk like that about myself.
And my BFF was right - he must view me as something I don't because he offered that he was going to a really kick-ass bar downtown tonight but it's kind of a little rough in there. And then he gave me this take-back smile, like 'Wait a minute. You listen to a lot of Kelly Clarkson and nothing seems to be pierced.' He looked at me like he'd made a mistake to think I would want to hang out there on a Monday night and said, "But.... you don't really go in there, do you?"

Oh, Wunderkind.
What you don't know about me and Viele's Northend Planet is, ummmm... a lot. It's very flattering that you see me as a super girly-girl because it's been a long time since I have not been painted as a Bad Girl from minute One. And as I love to say, I'm a Good Girl with a Bad reputation.
Little does he know that although I do love Death Cab for Cutie and Laguna Beach on MTV, when The Surly Wench first opened, me and my friend Matthew were in there pretty much every night.

If we hang out more, Coffee'll figure things out a little and most likely turn to me and say something like, "You're so adorable but if we had been in the Donner party, you would have strongly advocated for eating me when I died, right?"
Hey, what can I say? A girl's gotta eat.

Here's a good place to tell a story from the YMCA. My friend Monica and I started 'working' there when we were 14 and 13, respectively. It was our parents' solution to find something for us to do that wasn't summer camp. We were a team in many ways - not that good of friends but during many summers, we did everything together, all day long. We both ended up working there for YEARS.
We ran around in our Speedos and wore those little white gym towels as skirts and basically thought we were hot shit. While we were sheltered and naive enough for the older guys to watch out for us, there were plenty of opportunities for us to cut the man-eating teeth that those older boys encouraged us to grow. One summer, probably around age 15, we were hanging out in the lounge and waiting for rides home while several of the guys more around our age sat with us while we all flirted overtly, albeit awkwardly as 15 year olds are wont to do.
One of the boys keenly observed, "You two are like hamsters. You are so cute but you would bite me if I tried to pick you up."
Some things never change, I guess.


I like it better when I am getting to know new people and they see Sarah before they see Trouble. When people assume Trouble, I am immediately transported to any number of bad memories from my late adolescence when my mom and some of the nuns thought they saw Trouble but really, I wasn't up to anything. Like the time I got arrested at a party and I wasn't drinking. Or the time Sister Kathleen Ann thought I was sneaking into Homecoming after I'd already left (NOBODY gets back in) but really? I was just plain leaving. Court was over and I wasn't doing anything but my general proximity to the door signaled Trouble to her godly eyes.
Oh man!
And the time that my journalism teacher thought I had taken booze from the mini-fridge at a journalism conference when really?
Pete Pacha and I had never seen a mini-bar and we totally picked up a couple of bottles in awe. We put them right back and moved on to more pressing journalism geek-squad matters like, "Their editor is a Freshman! Ewww!"
Who knew that once mini-bar items have been removed from the shelf, the room in automatically charged and there is no indication if they are replaced un-opened?
The Campus Crier representation had to wait for the manual count that I demanded upon being interrogated.
I was not charged with that teen-age crime.
And yes, I was the only person questioned.
No way would she think that Pete Pacha or Mark Messenger had anything to do with it!

Nevermind that for awhile in college and shortly thereafter, I reached into that reputation and tried to BE that Bad Girl.
The results were as disastrous as they would be for anyone trying to be anything she's not.
I think for myself and for some reason, that's still weird to some people.
Notably, many of the people who show interest in sleeping with me see Trouble and between me and The Web.... people who see Trouble and want to have sex with it are disturbed.
Trust me.

I dated someone once who thought I was this vixen, right off the bat and he never could get that I was just being myself. He could never get around it. His questions about adult subject matter were eventually relentless and came to pass as the preferred conversation topic for him on any given night out. In retrospect, I suspect that rather than his mission being to get in my pants his mission was to get me to go to the strip club with him.

It was seriously weird, I know.
I actually did eventually get naked with him, long after we had gone to the titty bar together and he said something during that tryst that was...
well.....
I wish I could repeat it because heaven knows how much I love to make fun of the people I've slept with, especially on the World Wide Web, but I can't repeat it.
It violates so many confidences on so many levels.
If my life was a rated R movie, it would be a cringe-worthy moment that viewers would walk out of the theater repeating to each other and laughing.
But repeating it to desensitize themselves from it.

Anyway.
I don't know why I still think of myself as Trouble.
I'm really not even close, except that I guess I forget that a lot of people are not sure what else to think about women who are not afraid to be themselves, even when that calls for words or actions that someone who is not that woman might call "deviant."
If THAT'S the issue, then I'll stay Trouble and wait for the guy who comes along and sees that being a pretty girl and being smart are not things that I am willing to change.... and neither is thinking for myself going to change, regardless of how threatening it might be.

But the proverbial he should hurry it up because I've not shared it with the Internet, but I'm going through a little bump lately where I REALLY miss having a boyfriend.

arizonasarah at 12:16 p.m.

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