To Play Us Out

This is the third guest post in a row, and it again comes from the perspective of a female.  Basically my goal is to turn To Play Us Out into an all-women’s forum, sort of like the Oprah of the blogosphere.  Or at the very least a Charlie’s Angels situation, whereby these three girls take over the site and you never hear from me again sans these little intros.  Anyway, here’s the submission from our friend “Cassandra”, named of course for the tragic mythological character.  (I did not come up with that pseudonym — I do not find it funny or creative).

As this is my first blog post ever, I realize I am on the chopping block. Every word I write, every reference I use, and every comma I place will be hard-core judged. Since I am obviously am privy to the judgmental nature of my audience, the question may arise: “Why did she start her blog post off with such an asinine title, thus ruining what little credibility she may have had?” — and you would be totally within your rights to ask such a question. I’ll agree the title rivals that of a photo-whore’s Facebook albums, things like “True Life: My Bitches are Hot Messes,” “True Life: We keep Plan B in Business ;-)”, “True Life: You Wish You Were Us” and others of an equally classy nature, all prefaced by “True Life:”. Yes, I know the title is stupid. Yes, I know you judged me. Yes, I don’t give a fuck because I made an executive decision when I realized that I was a “Math and Science Person” that titles don’t actually matter, and that they are a stupid thing for English teachers to take points off for anyway (unfortunately said decision was not as big of a hit with the faculty as planned). So consider this shitty title a stab at all my past English teachers who took unnecessary points off my essays with the words of death, “uncreative title”, scrawled in red. FUCK YOU.

Now to transfer from one rant to another, my life is seriously every romantic comedy you’ve ever seen, thought about seeing, and/or denied seeing, combined. Although, unfortunately for me, my life follows a different “RomCom” recipe: add in heaps of extra awkwardness, a pinch of a crazy family, and for heaven’s sake remove the happy ending with the crown, the glory and especially remove the guy. I am Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles before the wedding, Anne Hathaway in Princess Diaries before the Royal Ball, Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed without the guts to write the article, and Natalie Portman in Garden State any time she compulsively lies just to fuck with people.  The most depressing role of them all, though, has to be me as Katherine Heigl in 27 Dresses. That is, right up until she sleeps with the insanely hot and charming writer she is in love with.

Did I mention I have the fun-loving, confident, hot friend who always fucks the sexiest guys, the bitch who takes the “shame” out of walk of shame, and has been genuinely complemented on her walk of shame attire? I mean seriously: where the hell is the justice in this madness!? Yes, I sleep at night knowing that I am a text book “nice girl” and as relatable as all of the characters in romantic comedies, but if I need that knowledge in order to sleep, what the fuck was Tylenol PM invented for? And while some may attempt to placate my distraught thoughts by claiming that my awkwardness is endearing, my clumsiness is cute, my unintentional bluntness is appreciated, or mumble other forms of bullshit along those lines, no one can tell me where the hell all this it is getting me. I think the only real answer at this rate is: No. Fucking. Where.

Every girl in a romantic comedy falls under a category: the “nice/good” girl; the “cool” girl who is cast as morally superior to her friends; the “nerd”; or the “guys girl”, and all of them are accented with the perfect amount of awkwardness. An important note I forgot to mention — I am fickle as fuck. Seriously I cannot make up my mind about anything. I think this is based on my love of arguing for the sake of arguing, combined with my competitive nature and my irrepressible desire to defend people. So naturally if someone tried to place me in one of these categories, I would denounce it until they either A) agreed with me B) ran out of things to say or C) got so confused about what we were even arguing about that they’d shut up.  I would consider any of said three outcomes a victory.  That being said, no matter what I would say in these hypothetical arguments, I have to resign to the fact that I actually do fall into each and every one of these categories.

Since I have suffered 19 years of being me, I have had a decent amount of time to develop some pretty solid reasons to back up this claim. There is no way of getting around my “good girl” status. It is as annoying as my propensity to defend everyone, not to mention that I am like a fucking second conscience, or, for some of my friends (they know who they are), their only conscience. On to the “cool girl”: I just pointed out my annoying as fuck morals, as for the “cool” part, just humor me and pretend like I am cool by association, please. Next in line is “Guy’s Girl”. I am one of the guys, not in like a hang-with-the-guys-but-they-all-not-so-secretly-want-to-fuck-me way, in a they-literally-refer-to-me-as-“amoeba” way.  That’s right, I answer to a term synonymous with an asexual being. I rest my case. “Nerd?” you may be foolish enough to ask. I am studying to be a fucking engineer, ‘nuff said.  And if you were even entertaining the idea of questioning the awkward factor — don’t make me laugh. I am as awkward as it gets. Accidentally grunt at cute boys, say really inappropriate things at even more inappropriate times, crack-up at things that are not in any way, shape or form okay to laugh at? Guilty.

As you can imagine, bearing any one of these titles could be a bit of an issue, but all of them? It’s hard being me and still managing to go on with my life. Seriously, I deserve some sort of award with the shit I put up with. And while I am on that subject, this award should probably have some sort of monetary prize with it considering all the money I have lost in my inherent clumsiness. Despite the fact that these qualities do nothing to benefit me, there is a silver lining: my humiliating experiences serve to benefit my friends. Lucky me. Seriously, you’ve had a bad day? Ask me how it could be worse, even rhetorically, and I can and will launch into a detailed story about how I was completely humiliated. Trust me, you instantly feel like a million bucks. Sometimes I catch myself listening to my friends claims of “I threw up on myself last weekend all over my girl friend’s futon” or “I ditched this chick that brought me to semi-formal and now her entire sorority hates me” and think what idiots/bros/little bitches they are and how much it would suck to be them. That’s when I remember that neither of them fell on their ass after their chair slid out from under them in the middle of the crowded library, nor did they make a shambly fool of themselves while under the watchful eye of some guy they have had a ridiculous crush on for an unnecessary amount of time, and I bet they didn’t trip in the middle of the damn student center.

Adding insult to injury, my aforementioned hot bitch of a friend keeps a running list of reasons why I am weird and awkward, all of which are apparently going to directly result in me dying alone. Even my mother feels it necessary to add to my personal hell with comments about how she can’t bring herself to watch 27 Dresses because I’m always trying to help people and getting walked all over, but she’s not sure I can change my ways and do something to benefit myself resulting in my own happy ending. Really? Really Mom?!? So much for parental support, I mean come on.

After managing to read this far, I am sure everyone is thinking something along the lines of “wtf, is this girl on the rag or is she just a huge self-pitying cunt?”.  And the answers are respectively “no” and “bitch I might be”. But there is more to this post then my alleged self-loathing. This entire thought process was triggered by a link posted on the “Thursday Morning Link Dump” on October 29, 2009.  While it makes some valid arguments, I think the idea of not taking cues from romantic comedies is ridiculous. I mean do not give up your job and dreams for me (we’ll just end up hating each other), do not be poor (actually word on the street is engineers can make a pretty penny so I’ll change that to “do not be too poor”), do not use a child as an object to win me over (unless it is a he, and he is cute and you can guarantee he will be playing football in college, then and only then is it okay) and seriously, if some miracle ever occurs that someone wants to marry me do not, I repeat, DO NOT, ruin my wedding, because it will be the last thing you do. But how am I ever going to get over the pathetic rut that is my life if no one else is living their life as if they too were in a Romantic Comedy?

See the thing about Romantic Comedies is that behind every stereotyped girl, there is the guy that turns the whole plot around, or the friend/family member that gives them that extra shove to do something about their miserable existence. So this is my version of a public announcement. I want to say that as cliché as Romantic Comedies may be, they actually make some valid points. I know I cannot be the only person leading a life equivalent to the exposition and rising action segments (to borrow a few terms from my past English teachers, you are still bastards) in a romantic comedy. I can’t be the only person who karma is bitch-slapping or who really does just want the nice guy, and not make a complete fool out of herself every day. Come on people, make it easier for me and others to go on with our lives! My awkwardness should be legitimately embraced and people should find my weirdness quirky and endearing rather than just saying they enjoy it in vain attempts to appease me. And honestly, a nice serenade coordinated with the marching band (even if you get arrested) or a boom box playing “In Your Eyes” outside my window in the middle of the night might be a damn good idea.