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anna

Everybody's talking about the new kid in town

by anna at 10:09 AM on February 08, 2004

When I was sixteen, a stranger-to-the-sun pale girl came sashaying into our midst. (I have a yearbook picture of her scanned into Easy Photo if anyone would be so kind as to tell me how to add it as a link to a comment.) She immediately created quite the stir. Other gals took an immediate dislike to her. But guys talked about her endlessly. She’s from Boston, and all those northern girls are unapproachable, they’d say. So far as anyone could tell she didn’t eat, smoke or drink, which only added to her otherworldly image. Plus she wore these funky thrift store ensembles. They had to revise the already rigid dress code just to deal with her wardrobe and its frequent malfunctions.

Now I grew up very close to my prom queen sister. She’d always complain that guys were afraid to approach her for fear of rejection. So I knew the supposed aloofness of pretty girls to be a myth. The only question was what kind of ploy to use. (The other teensy problem being that I’d never approached anyone for a Real Date. For those too young to recall this archaic ritual, suffice it to say that in terms of traumatic experiences it’s right up there with awaiting Simon Cowell’s response to your lame audition.) I learned that she was obsessed with David Bowie, or as he liked to be known in those days, simply Bowie. I scored tickets to his concert and asked her if she’d like to go. She wasted no time in accepting my invitation. On the way to the show she shared her life story with me. It was kind of sad.

To make a long story short, she became my first true girlfriend. We dated for two months or so, an eternity in high school. We developed a real friendship as well. But then one day she showed up with her hair dyed jet black and cropped real short. It clashed terribly with her alabaster complexion and delicate features. Shyly, she asked me how I liked it. Tactful as ever, I blurted out, “It looks ridiculous on you. Why don’t you change it back?” I can still recall how crestfallen she looked as she explained how she’d thought I’d like it. And how she sensed that our nascent relationship was already flagging. She thought the change might rekindle things between us. Key difference between males and females: Where I saw merely a bad hairdo, she attached great relationship-impacting significance to the dye job and my reaction to it.

She did try to dye it back to her natural (?) blonde, but alas, hair dye technology wasn’t what it is today. Her mane came out a color they don’t teach you in kindergarten. It was kind of like a sickly pink/green mixture. She took to wearing a scarf over her head to cover it up. My friends started ribbing me unmercifully. “You have got to lose that chick. She looks like a freak show,” they said. I could hear catty girls giggling at her follicle misfortune. Of course, at that age, peer approval means everything. It’s as if these are the only people you’ll ever know. So I ditched her pronto. She took it in stride. The hair grew out.

Before long this tall, handsome older guy in a tasteful leather jacket started pulling up to school in his hot-rod Z-28 Camaro. He would whisk her away after school, as everyone else shuffled onto the bus. Needless to say, the other girls were seething with envy. Their dates picked them up in mom's station wagon.

Oh well. Once she told me that she wasn’t a girl’s girl. She was from a military family and had lived in many places. But wherever she went, girls shunned her like the plague. She thus lived in fear that when she got married, she’d lack bridesmaids. (This was in the days before you could rent wedding parties or mourners.) Part of the reason we clicked was because I then realized that I’m not a guy’s guy. Guys tend to make me uncomfortable, especially those of the gregarious he-man variety. Yes, just as Michael Jackson does children, I simply prefer the company of females. (Oh wait, that didn’t come out right.) They’re not nearly as threatening and they smell a whole lot better, usually.

And I think that distinction, far more than race, religion or sexual orientation, is what divides mankind into two camps: those who feel more at ease with their own gender for companionship and those who prefer friends of the opposite sex.

comments (39)

Wow, what a story. Very good one, Anna... it's so poignant. During my high school years I definitely had more male friends than female. Even now, I have much closer friendships with males than my female friends do. Some of the girls are eternally demonizing guys, especially on relationship matters, and I'm always having to spin things back in a positive direction. Even my female friends aren't very girly, though. We can dress up well enough for a night out, but the rest of the time I think we only shave and shower as necessary, heh heh. I shudder to think of the straight-laced little femme robots from high school and what it might be like to be friends with them. I wouldn't know. If anybody has any experience with that, I'd love to hear about it.

by jean at February 8, 2004 11:16 PM


Jjean for some reason your comment reminds me one of the few country songs I like, Deanna Carter's For This I Shaved My Legs? And glad you enjoyed the story. What reminded me of it was Linz's bridesmaid dilemma.

by anna at February 9, 2004 7:47 AM


Wait, I thought you were a woman?

by mg at February 9, 2004 9:43 AM


I can honestly say that my friendships with both guys and gals are about equally as close. Sometimes I'll feel closer to my guy friends than my gal friends and viceversa, but on the whole it's pretty much the same level of closeness. I think it has to do with me being able to talk about things with one group that I wouldn't feel equally as comfortable talking to the other. Oh, and I've never been able to make friends with the femme bots either, I'm curious as to if that is even truly possible.

by Lucy at February 9, 2004 10:35 AM


I went to my 5-year high school reunion, a few years ago, and got to see what happened to the femme bots who thought they were all hot shit. They got fat and propagated with fat red-neck ex-jocks.

HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW !!!

by BitterMrBlank at February 9, 2004 12:05 PM


First Asshat and now Femme Bots! Femme Bots! Incidentally, I had the same experience at my reunion.

Now is someone going to clue me in about posting the picture?

by anna at February 9, 2004 6:23 PM


Oh and MG: Yeah I am woman, hear me roar. Hear me do a mean karioke version of Hilary Duff's So Yesterday.

by anna at February 9, 2004 6:37 PM


anna. dig the story. i think you're dead-on regarding those who hang with their given gender, or hang with the opposites.

girl-girls tend to be catty. guy-girls tend to be easier going. girl-guys tend to be dig sensitivity and wonder why they don't get more girls. guy-guys tend to be dicks that i hate.

by lajo at February 9, 2004 8:34 PM


Or was the femininity in question mine? That's okay, many have been known to be mistaken, especially when I cast creeping death and sic my charmies on them... then they know JUST how level 46 elven Rangers rock!

by jean at February 10, 2004 2:37 AM


Oh I didn't pick up on that. And Lajo, somehow I just knew that guy-guys are dicks that you hate. I don't see you sitting around swilling cheap American beer with a bunch of guys, watching football and scratching yourselves.

by anna at February 10, 2004 7:53 AM


You should hear his voice, Anna. It is like melted butter...

I wonder if I am a guy-girl or a girl-girl. I have girl-girl friends, guy-girl friends, girl-guy friends, but no guy-guy friends, I don't think. I think I'm a guy-girl-girl, like 2 x chromosomes and one y. Maybe. Oh, just for the record, Sean sez it's okay to show
these.

by Linz at February 10, 2004 10:39 AM


How come you guys look high in all those pictures?

by mg at February 10, 2004 10:54 AM


We only look high in the first two. And if I tell you why, I'll have to kill you.

by Linz at February 10, 2004 11:13 AM


Level 46 elven Rangers do rock! Too bad I'm only a level 10 Monk. At least I gots me some cool threads.

Anna, have you gotten help from MG yet? Make sure your picture isn't too big before you upload, e.g. bigger than your screen at 100%. You have to upload your picture somewhere to link to it in the comments. You can use that upload feature in MT and have it give you the link in a new entry. Then either post the link here or put it in a new entry.

by MrBlank at February 10, 2004 2:48 PM


for the record linz, i think you're a guy-girl who likes a little girl-on-girl from time to time. melted butter indeed....

by lajo at February 10, 2004 3:36 PM


It IS though!!

by Linz at February 10, 2004 4:27 PM


So, I used to be a guy-girl, but now i'm more of a girl-girl, although most girls I hang out with are lesbians, which makes me feel like they're exempt from the "girl-girl" category. I do hang out with a few girl-guys and even a few guy-guys (being their sole female friend), but I think that very few of them really fit into the stereotypical categories. I think what I'm trying to say is that Madison is not your average place when it comes to girl-girls, guy-girls, girl-guys, and guy-guys. Unless you're talking about the university and the frats/sororities. Then those categories are dead-on.

by Leaffin at February 10, 2004 6:19 PM


Listen, I really think y'all will...really... like this picture but Mr. Blank and other well-meaning folk need to understand how lame I am when it comes to the technology aspect of posting. What I need is detailed instruction or else I'm liable to destroy the server or something. I do know enough to resize the damn thing.... Email me if you like.

by anna at February 10, 2004 7:50 PM


Dude. "Log in to Movable Type... click 'Upload File.' Browse your hard drive to choose the file you wish to upload... click UPLOAD." More on uploading files.

by mg at February 10, 2004 10:10 PM


Anna, a tutorial for you. From MrBlank.

by MrBlank at February 11, 2004 3:49 PM


sometimes i thought the words read "lick it" and just giggled.

brilliant blank. no excuses now anna....upload that homemade porno.

by lajo at February 11, 2004 5:57 PM


Anna, if you can't upload now you are beyond our help.

Now, quit looking at MT like an enemy and start seeing it as your friend!

by Linz at February 12, 2004 9:00 AM


She was up here at 6:25 AM, and looking lovely. I don't know where she went. The picture turned out to be kind of big but not server-threatening big. I tried to delete it but then it told me to rebuild files and that turned into a huge thing and...whatever. Now it's almost like a quest that no one but me even cares about.

by anna at February 12, 2004 8:02 PM


c'mon anna... try again! i really need to see this.

by lajo at February 12, 2004 8:30 PM


I've been waiting for this pic too.

by chuck woolery at February 12, 2004 9:34 PM


My lord Anna, if Linz was able to figure this out, you shouldn't be having this many problems. I found what I only assumed was your image on the server and, well, here it is.

by mg at February 13, 2004 1:19 AM


Damn MG, you make it look so easy. Thanks. And now that it's there, it seems like much ado about nothing. But I must admit, this whole pix fiasco has been bugging me.

by anna at February 13, 2004 8:01 AM


mg! that gets an indignant HEY!

Anna, on the right she kind of looks like a pic we have of our mom when she was 20. Did you date my mom?

by Linz at February 13, 2004 8:56 AM


I thought that woman looked familiar. I've been dating someone that looks just like her, but is 30 years older. The commutes to Pittsburgh are killing me though, so I just may break it off.

by mg at February 13, 2004 9:59 AM


Another indignant HEY!

by Shannon at February 13, 2004 11:24 AM


It's good the pic is finally up if only because it satisfied my curiosity. She was (is?) cute.

by Lucy at February 13, 2004 11:55 AM


she looks like the kind of girl who would have sleep with the sex pistols.

all of them. very cute. the myth of anna becomes clearer....

by lajo at February 13, 2004 12:48 PM


With pink/green hair she would have fit right in with the Pistols.

Wait. It took so long to post the picture, I almost forgot what it was we were talking about. You dumped this girl? Idiot.

by mg at February 13, 2004 1:34 PM


*ahem*
correction: the pistols would have fit right in her.

ahhh, give anna a break. he was young. god knows if i could have a few of my stupid decisions, back in hand, to make all over again.... well, i'd probably still screw them up, but at least there'd be some pretty girls to smooch all over again.

by lajo at February 13, 2004 3:48 PM


Well I am old enough to have dated y'all's mom. And yeah she's cute but picture her with jet black hair.

Let me just add that on the way to the Bowie show he was all she talked about. That and what she'd do to him given half a chance. Somehow that didn't make me feel very manly.

by anna at February 13, 2004 6:16 PM


Ow, I saw David Bowie in concert once and he's quite the sexy beast. I think he exudes a magictastical pheromone that renders the female will powerless in his presence. Anyways, going on about him in front of a guy is unfair, like going on in front of a girl about Marlene Dietrich, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, etc.

The girl is pretty.

Blank, do you play online? I was thinking of an old character, but I'm so tempted to play Final Fantasy Online.

by jean at February 13, 2004 10:45 PM


Well I guess there's consensus about the girl.

MG satisfied Lucy. Heh-heh.

by anna at February 14, 2004 8:31 AM


Oh yeah, that's so mature :-P

by Lucy at February 16, 2004 5:59 PM


Yeah, Jean, I am addicted to FFXI. I've had it for less than a month and have killed so many hours playing it. I'm such a nerd.

by MrBlank at February 24, 2004 4:46 PM