Even Anne Chung!

I’ve come to the understanding, with the help of friends, that it’s so hot right now to sneer, “be” aloof, act like “you don’t care about anything”, etc. (Here in New York, we blame the trust-fund hipsters of Williamsburg for spreading these diseased attitudes. Jk, ‘cept not really.)

Three things, though:

1. Sneering is ugly. (It’s much easier to show them pearly whites, if you have pearly whites!)

2. Aloofness is pointless. What, you don’t like being contacted in a human form? Like, I didn’t know that Morse Code and coordinating with NASA to schedule a UFO sighting were the only ways to reach you. 

3. Acting like you don’t care about something shows how much you actually do care, but it’s a passive-aggressive behavior that blames everyone else for your narcissism, which is just fucked up.

We’ve all been to those parties where the most attractive people in the room (whether you’ve identified them as potential mates or friends) are off in the corner, by themselves, with their coats and sunglasses on, not drinking, like everyone else. But SMOKING long cigarettes. To that I say: Give me a fucking break.

Two things here:

1. It’s gettin’ hot in herre (we still can’t believe Nelly chose to spell “here” like that. Like, is that French?), so take off your coats — and scarves, hats, prolly those fur-lined boots too, in fact, throw those in the garbage because they are tore-up anyway.

2. Pretty sure the lighting is pretty dim in herre (still not over it). In fact, the room is lit up by neon overhead lights that swirl around the room like the kind you see in dance-rave situations. Alls I’m sayin’ is, if you bump into me in the line to the bathroom (and don’t say excuse me, which with what we’ve already decided about your nonchalance or whatever, is totally within bounds of your behavior) because you can’t see because your dark Ray-Bans won’t allow you too, we are fighting. Then you’ll have to take off that five-seasons-ago department-store Calvin Klein trench. (I should cut in to say that while I enjoy fashion, I’m certainly no “fashion bitch,” but heifer, if you’re going to read people before they’ve even entered the library foyer, please prepare to be analyzed.)

Of course, this always just points to people accusing me of jealousy or whatever. But since I’m not interested in learning Morse Code just to communicate with someone who already thinks they’re flyer than everyone anyway, there’s no jealousy here.

Beyond parties though, because these types of people are usually easy to just laugh off/ ignore in large social settings, most likely because everyone knows these people are being ridiculous: What if someone you’ve expressed interest in starts performing similar behaviors?

There’s this widely-held belief by gay men across America that when you first meet someone, it’s the laws of attraction that turn innocent flirting into slightly comedic, slightly mean-spirited teasing.

This “teasing” I speak of may or may not include the following:

1. Not returning phone calls/ text messages.

2. Responding to phone calls/text messages with sly detachment (i.e. five days after inviting someone out, you get a text saying: “Oh, sry. Busy! Raincheck?” My text as a response, simply: “No.” LOLOLOLOLOL)

3. Beginning something exclusive with someone using language specific to exclusivity (i.e. “I care about you.” “I don’t really want to see anyone else.”), while casually mentioning that “you don’t want something serious just yet, so you’re sort of dating someone on the side” (which was conveniently left out, of course, to string you along). WTF? Which leads us to:

4. Flirting (pretty much making out) with said on-the-side dip in front of our faces, after inviting us out and making us put on our pretty party dresses and using all the exclusive keywords AGAIN: “I’ve told my friends a lot about you; they really want to meet you.” We are surprised we maintained composure during this obvious bout of rudeness and didn’t slap the shit out of failing suitor. But, we remained classy and smiled awkwardly until the social graces of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph allowed you to go home.

5. Lying about said flirting (which shouldn’t be a big deal, so long as you aren’t actively stringing someone along, which actually is the case here), and using operative words like “psycho” or “obsessed” to describe your reaction to having been done wrong.

UGH:

I could go on and on.

For some reason, I’ve been on this kick with watching The City (cancelled in 2010) on Netflix. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s yet another mind-numbing series from the good folks at MTV about rich white girls with fake-but-glamorous jobs and multi-million dollar apartments, navigating all that’s accessible in New York City to girls who can afford to work fake jobs and purchase multi-million dollar apartments, sight unseen. I know the show chronicles heterosexual relationships, but it’s interesting to put oneself in the shoes of the show’s resident doormat/repeated failure to womankind/main “character,” Whitney Port.

She dates truly scummy guys (read: rocker-chic!) who look like they smell and probably are professional slackers, guys with bent philosophies on how dating works, like, you probably should be so honored to date them in the first place because if they weren’t smellin’ up your crib, they’d be doing it to someone else.

At work, poor Whit gets bullied by Olivia (an uber-bitchy socialite-turned-“career girl” for all intents and purposes of this show), which we love for their obvs comedic value, but obvs not for real life. Who enjoys getting dirty looks or being told to shut the hell up by another woman when woman #1 is just trying for female bonding? The worst part is that Whitney never says anything. She just stares at walls (and people) vacantly, with absolutely no expression on her face, even when she’s being directly insulted about her (often-heinous) outfits. That’s the kind of Zen I just can’t get with.

(As an aside: I’m obvs Olivia, in this clip. Obvs.)

See? Doormat. And yet, I empathize with her. Because what I ought to do when boys play those stupid games is tell them about themselves, because they cannot treat me that way, and they cannot think it’s okay to treat others that way. But I don’t. Because I never want to come across as a bitch.

But then I remember: if it’s okay for a potential suitor to come across as a bitch what with the aloofness et al, why can’t I have my fun? It’s because I really don’t play those types of games well. Because lo and behold, the day I finally decide that I’m tired of bullshit is the day where everyone in the world seems to recognize that I’m being a bitch, and choose to call me out on it. (Meanwhile, it seems like the people for whom being a bitch grants them success in life, they continue to be able to act that way.)

I understand that slapping people across the face who offend you is probably not so mature, or whatever, but at what point do I block when someone reaches to slap me across the face? There’s being the bigger person, then there’s being a doormat.

Sadly, because I’ve been jaded for some time now, I might fall into the latter more often than I realize.  Which can only mean one thing:

It’s time to go purchase burn some Ray-Bans and fur-lined boots. While people wear them.

Is that evil?

Lana, the queen of all things ironic and detached, wouldn’t seem to mind. Because she wouldn’t mind at all. That’s the whole point of this post, isn’t it?

Sometimes, I really feel like Khia or Trina. (I’m sure I’ve alienated white readers already, because 1. I called you out. and 2. OMG “Here we go talking about ghetto black girls, Ohmygah.”)

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Khia is the “thug misses” aka “gangstress” of “My Neck, My Back” fame. You know: this triflin’ filth/amazingness ”female empowerment anthem” of wonder that had ladies running to the dancefloor and p-poppin’ across America when it was relevant in like, 2002: 

And Trina (unbeknownst to her) has been engaged in a long-standing feud with Khia, who, in this clip refers to the equally irrelevant potty-mouth rapstress as (cough) Katrina Sourpuss Harbor. Think I’m kidding? Just wait until the K’s, when Miss Khia pulls a wadded up piece of paper from her insane cleave. (Spoiler alert: this gem is like, 12 minutes into the 50 minute rant, in which Khia dissects 2011’s worst moments in black pop culture from A to Z — hint: BET-fare for all you white folks who get upset that there isn’t a “White Entertainment Television” — often citing the ‘hood as the source of her misinformed, albeit hilarious gossip.)

Trina, on the other hand, is known for lots of things, like continuously releasing wackness to the general public for the past 10 years, under the guise of being a “diamond princess.” 

…….

Mess.

As you can imagine, these women are often played to the left, despite the fact they both, whether I like it or not (or, whether the general public likes it or not) have managed to make a dent in the infamously testosterone-driven lovefest of the hip-hop industry.

I am Khia and Trina, depending on which of my straight friends you talk to.  This is particularly the case if they are consumed by relationships. 

Now that I’ve alienated my white friends, it’s time to alienate my straight ones. Looks like I’m officially friendless!

I’ve always been the single one. The tireless adviser, the 24-hour grief counselor, the one who actually responds to desperate 3 a.m. phone calls from my girlfriends and guyfriends in spite of my own need for a good night’s rest. The one who coaches my girlfriends and guyfriends to clarity after being caught in the whirlwind of their circular reasoning and dizzying thought patterns from an alleged “fight” (so, basically, he/she didn’t like that she/he once ate with her/his mouth open, and had the nerve - gasp! - to say something about it, to her/his face.) which leaves them so debilitated for days you’d think they were seriously dying. I’m the one who has to let them know that a fight is henceforth not occurring, no, no, sweetie, you’re just fucking nuts. 

And this one’s especially for the girls: I’m seriously getting a high batting average on the friendship meter from this post.

I’m the one who has to bring you soup and cough syrup when worrying about said fight-that-never-happened has actually made your sickness transfer from your minds to your bodies and you are coughing up blood because ohmygah, he doesn’t love you anymore. And I’m the one who then has to tell you, the crying heap of boiling-above-212-Fahrenheit mess, “No, dear, you’re not messed up, he is! Like, why would he ever talk to you that way? Like, was he trying to call you fat?” REPEATEDLY after hearing over and over again from you, “I’m so messed up. OMG, can you please call him and talk some sense into him? Like, why would he ever say that? (girlfriend then squeezes “stomach” pooch). OMG, I’m fat. OMG, I can’t eat ever again” (Yeah sister, because you and I both know that food isn’t the enemy; your lifestyle of cry-until-I’m-a-prune-and-get-braindead-then-actually-near-dead-because-he-“calledmefat” + Jerry Springer-and-Cheetos + no exercise, however, is the real culprit for that aforementioned pooch, lezbehonest.)

I know what you’re all thinking (if you’re among the brave who’ve made it this far): Oh, Mickey, you are SUCH a good friend!

And you know what? I am. 

And you know what else? I too have my days of woe, of self-pity, of oh-my-God-men-don’t-like-me-because-I’m-not-twinky-or-white-OR-masculine-or-basic-enough.  I know, right? Hard to believe, because I basically had you all thinking I was perfect. (Admit it; that is precisely what you were thinking.)

So, when I need something, where are you, o wayward friends in constant mourning? Where art thou, o damsels in distress? What doth thou sayest when thou needest a 3 fucking P.M. pep-talk (because I’ll do many things, but they rarely come in the form of making someone listening to me whimper at 3 A.M.)? Why aren’t thou answering the phone whilst I am calling, whilst I am need? Et tu, Brutus?

…….

Exactly.

So many of my straight friends get that sort of attention from me so often, that I’m starting to think that they might even feel privileged to. Like, it’s basically expected of me to be so flexible. Like, it’s their birthright because they are just so liberal and progressive or whatever to have a token gay friend to divulge all their secrets to, and talk about shopping and reproducing and fashion and career goals and scoring and getting married and oh-my-god-you-have-to-be-in-my-wedding-sorry-if-it’s-awkward-though-because-I-might-not-be-able-to-be-in-yours-because-it’s-not-really-legal-yet-sorry-didn’t-mean-to-offend-oh-and-by-the-way-would-you-like-to-be-my-live-entertainment-at-my-wedding, so of course, I should be so honored to be an *honorary* member of Heterohappyland.

I can now assimilate! I can hang with straight dudes and it not be awkward! I can have straight friends in the first place, which of course means that I have more opportunities at advancement in my career, in my ability to earn some money (but still barely enough, but I should be grateful I was even considered)! I can do all the things that straight folks can, because they are on my side, because I am NORMAL! I’m not one of those crazy queens! I’m a regular queen! (A Banjee girl, for those of you Paris Is Burning elitists!) I’M A REAL BOY!

(For reasons that are implied and should pretty much be understood, I refuse to actually go into why all of the above exclamatory realizations are boldfaced lies; fill in the blanks yourself.)

Do you understand, straighties, that what you are actually doing to your opposite-orientation brethren by hogging the relationship with all your #whitegirlproblems, is that you strip them of their agency to have some room of their own in the relationship? As in, you take away room from their own equally legitimate problems (that are far less likely to fall into the #whitegirlproblems arena). Like seriously, get out of the way, and stop expecting so much, and I don’t know, straighties, could you, like, be a friend? And like, could you stop acting weird to your gay friends with problems because you think you can’t relate because they’re gay, and you’re like, not? Basically, plz stop playing your token gays to the left because your problems are somehow inherently more important.

It would be so nice, thx!

And for those of you brave ones who’ve made it this far and still think that the reason I want my straight friends to be better friends — well, it’s not because I’m fucking jealous. And of course, nor is it because I’m somehow the “bitter single one who doesn’t understand how tumultuous a relationship can be because I’m not currently in one.” 

So, as we close, let’s get one thing straight, Diane:

And if I’m buying into some warped form of jealousy, I wanna see the receipts.

To whom this may concern,

Once upon a time, I used to work at Abercrombie & Fitch. It was freshman year of college, which means I was fresh out of high school, which means that, if I remember correctly was a phase where I swore I was just like all the white kids I graduated with. For some reason, it was trendy from like, 2003-2006/07 for(yes, they really were white) kids to do the following (warning, this might all have a lot to do with the fact that I grew up in the Midwest. #sayin’): 

1. Wearing holy guacamole/ripped/distressed/bleached-to-high-heavens jeans with that stupid Hollister pigeon logo on the pocket (you know, the spot on the pants where your thumb would rest if you’re trying to coolly place your hand in your pocket like you’re a revivalist James Dean, Orange County style). Purchasing ugly neon flip-flops to match. Layering those hideous polos with OTHER hideous polos (*nightmarez!*). If your hair was straight and you were a guy — which of course mine was/is/always will be marked by my African kinks so this doesn’t apply — you were gelling the shit out it and getting crew-cuts, and looking like a complete and total douchebag that prolly plays football and cheats on his girlfriend constantly to her face, with her friends, and behind her back (as if homegirl seriously had no clue, though, the way some girls I went to school with acted, you’d really have to wonder). If your hair was straight and you were a girl, you spent hours washing your hair to death, then frying your hair to death FUCKING CON-AIR STRAIGHTENER. (How generic.) This of course, is all prep for step #2.

2. Tanning to a nice, crispy orange a la the cast of the Jersey Shore. Which readied you for the main event, step #3, duh.

3. Going out to eat at shitty bastardized faux-Irish-or-Italian restaurants like O’Charleys and Olive Garden (#sorryimnotsorry), and always ordering THE 8-PIECE CHICKEN FINGERS PLATTER WITH HONEY MUSTARD AND A CAESAR SALAD WITH A SHIT TON OF RANCH ON THE SIDE. But this is only fuel for the bestest most funnest thing EVAR RAWR… Step 4. 

4. Listening to chopped-n-screwed G-G-G-G-G-UNIT/Mike Jones/Dipset/the Murder Inc. crew (OMG remember Ashanti?!) & driving el drunko (off Mike’s Hard Lemonade) or high (off, I shit you not, cough syrup and/or aerosol because it is SO sceneXcore/cool to have the smell of Glade French Vanilla poisoning your brain, hence why you are in the 10th grade and still don’t have your times tables memorized. 12X4 is NOT 124, damn it. Get a damn education, and by that, I don’t mean getting pregnant and not caring about who the baby daddy is cuz you can raise the baby all by yo’self and subsequently majoring in elementary ed or nursing at Testical Tech Jr. Community College and/or joining the Army since there seems to be no other way to exercise mental authority other than grunting around with other grunts/ I know I just pissed somebody off, but we all know this type of person.) within a five-block radius of the high school.

5. Repeat options 1 through 4, in no particular order because they all suck because that’s a shit ton of fun.

While we’re on the subject of highschool, what the hell ever happen to Lil’ Jon? He was truly a yeller, right?/This was the jam for me and all the white kids/for many white kids it still kinda is. Ewww #LAME:

Um. Look at that screenshot. Offensive.

Anywayz, I worked at Abercrombie & Fitch and used to wear those dumbass T-shirts and polos and doused myself in Fierce. You know, that toxic mens scent that LITERALLY comes pumping out the speakers mounted in the corners of the ceiling every half-hour, just as that stankass house music is going through it’s thousandth rotation during your four-hour shift. This was obvs a joke, and a nod to my time in high school spent repeating steps 1-4, save getting pregnant because the hood know I don’t like spawn unless it is Beyonce’s child. All I can say is: there were pictures. I’ve destroyed them because fuck that evidence. I even once listened to some dumb broad remind me of my blackness with the following coup de grace: 

Um, I’m like, so sorry and all, but you like, don’t fit the visual esthetic here, so like, yeah. Sorry ‘bout it. 

(It should go without saying that it took the divine grace of Jesus, Joseph, and the Virgin Mary for me to not run to a CVS, purchase a flat iron, and chuck it at her already dead hair.)

Anyway, that was obvs a traumatic experience on so many levels. 

The worst part is when, before I lived here officially, I found myself in a Debbie Desperate need for a paying job two summers ago while interning for free it’s great experience!! at a magazine in New York. And I applied to:

AMERICAN. EAGLE.

um. 

DOOF. What’s the trend with me and somehow being associated with brands that have dumb birds as mascots? And in Abercrombie’s case, it was a taxidermied moose.

My boss at American Eagle was this totally cracked-out woman with so much fake enthusiasm for pushing us associates to be sales martyrs, while forcing us to push lame taglines like, “Hey, try on our sexy jeans,” that it actually made me want to vomit. In fact, now that I think about it, a huge part of why I ended up walking out of the front door only three weeks in and never coming back after lying and saying I’d be right back because I was going to get my fat ass a milkshake and a Big Mac at Mickey D’s , was because I was ducking into the bathroom during my 10-minute breaks (which I swear I only got one of during a 10-hour shift. Um. Illegal much?) to actually vomit. Or at least I was forcing the vomit to come up because I wasn’t kidding about being that fatass in McDonald’s ON THE REG slurpin’ down chocolate milkshakes like they were semen-flavored vitamins.

The point of all of this is that I may or may not need a second job soon. I know it’s semi-easy to get jobs in retail, but my track record is not too sexy, like the American Eagle jeans I was forced to wear and act as though I was enjoying wearing. (Don’t worry, though, and trust: I made it look real cute and sassylike, because I’m Rihanna what with my at-the-time uber-hipster haircut and penchant for wearing gaudy crucifixes, and my boots with a slight heel. I was kind of ready to conquer the world, one formlessly boxy prep-nasty shirt at a time.)

I’d need that gig just on the weekends, though. New York ain’t gettin’ any cheaper and them college loans is coming in. 

Hire me? 

OK, fine, I’ll show you what I looked like in an AberBOMBie tee. It was kind of rude of me to bring it up, and then, not at least let you see the goods. So get ready for this:

Can we please try to hold our laughter? Thx.

Warmly,

Mickey

Here’s something no one should ever do. Like never, ever:

Do not accept a number from a stranger in a train, plane, or nightclub without following through with a proper line of questioning. Don’t do it especially if you’ve been drinking, because we’ve all heard (and likely experienced) how judgment is often impaired by such a thing.

I let this happen. Fine. Whatevs.

I was already out and had a voracious appetite for the boys — a truly rare thing for those who are familiar with my typically asexual leanings. I was actually out at gay clubs! Trying to meet men! Looking sexy! Flirting! Feeling empowered! And thus, unfazed by any probable shade being cast in my direction!

So basically, THIS.

Btdubs: OMG congrats to Mommyonce for being basically responsible for the Second Coming. Like, obvs, Jesus can now come back to Planet Earth and condemn all you hatin’ ass hauxs.

Me and said suitor — who, by the way, appeared charming and baby-faced when we met and followed up with tentative plans to meet again later that night (minds out of the gutter, peeps. If I’m gonna turn tricks with randos, I’m going to get paid. OKUR!) — his goggles must have been activated too. Because I didn’t learn until DURING “first date” which, by the way, he was 15 minutes late for a MOVIE DATE (so awk, unless of course we had ambitions to fondle each other in the back where hopefully no one would notice — or maybs someone would notice, if you’re into that kind of exhibitionism thing — which so didn’t happen by the way. Anyway, I didn’t learn that he is just a year shy over 40, until, oh wait, four minutes into the movie. (Excuse me, Rudeness!)

And he seemed to genuinely shudder when I told him I was 23, with all the confidence of someone who’s always appreciated a silver fox (because whether or not you think I’m gross for that, it’s true).

But I didn’t want to make things even more awkward, and I could tell that, poor thing, he didn’t either.

It’s obvious that I don’t date, like ever, because I had these chivalrous/Victorian-age oppressive/Sweet Valley High-esque/Reese Witherspoon-in-Pleasantville notions of what should go down on a first date in a movie theater since no hanky-panky was scheduled to take place: (Get ready to vom!)

He was supposed to put his arm around me, of course, like duh, and the theater was cold which means that I was obvs shivering and chattering my teeth for effect and he was supposed to smile warmly and offer me his jacket, though I totally had one of my own, and he was supposed to place his hand in mine and caress my palm ever-so-sweetly, and then after the movie, we were supposed to stroll on the High Line, because duh, what movie date is complete without a stroll in which the two lovable main characters of this tale learn cute tidbits about each other (him complimenting me on my smile; me complimenting him on the true fact that his hair didn’t seem to be graying, because he is, after all, old enough to have fathered me via reckless teen pregnancy — “the condom broke!” “yr momma tried to trap me, but look son, you’re my FAVORITE accident!” — and then he leans in to kiss me and I giddily walk to the train and when I get to the front door of my house, I close it and press my back against it and slide down it in pure ecstasy because OF COURSE HE’S GOING TO CALL ME THE NEXT DAY AND SURPRISE ME WITH A LUNCH, HIS TREAT AT ONE OF NEW YORK’S FINEST AL FRESCO SPOTS AND OK, I KNOW IT’S LIKE, WINTER AND ALL, SO THIS OPTION IS BASICALLY NOT POSSIBLE, BUT STILL!

And of course, none of these dreamy conventions actually came to fruition. He did walk me to the train like a perfect gentleman aka he was headed that way anyway. I told him that age isn’t something I worry about too much (honest!) because, get ready to fucking gag:

I’m very mature for my age.

((Who the fuck am I, Courtney Stodden?! I begin to wonder.))

He in turn gave me a hug in which I was awkwardly pressed into his Jack-and-the-Beanstalk/NBA Neanderthal/Yeti-esque frame, shook my hand how presumably “straight-acting” duded do in a gesture of ill-informed, socially-learned masculinity, and told me:

Hey, man, you’re a nice kid.

Um. Well played, dude.

Now, time to go eat fried chicken to the point of gluttony, and pretending like this little debacle never happened until I fall into a potbellied stupor/coma. When I wake up in the morning, one of two things should likely happen:

A.) I have a text to prove that PRINCE CHARMING does, in fact, exist.

B.) I never date again.

Options A and B only seem extreme because I don’t know how else to be.

I am, just a kid, after all.

Sooo… time for a second date?