I love you, but you're being dumb

The BBQ Pit
1

Listen up, girlfriend. A year ago when I was hurting from a bad breakup, you told me, “I love you, but you’re being dumb”. You were right and it was an awesome tagline… so now, I’ve gotta throw it right back at you. I love you, but you’re being dumb.

You are one of those “nice girls” who perpetually can’t get a boyfriend. I have heard you say, in an upbeat way, that men just can’t handle your “awesomeness”. While you do, indeed, have an awesomesauce personality, I think we both know that men could handle it if they tried. So lemme tell you how to get them to try.

  1. Try to look pretty. No, not like a slut or hooker. Just try to look pretty. First, get your hair cut. I know it’s thick and waist-length and a gorgeous chestnut color. CUT IT AND STYLE IT. You wear it tightly pulled back from your fore head, which makes you look Amish. Less hair would be poofier and prettier.

Get contact lenses. No srsly. TRY THEM. You might like them. Let me tell you… a day when I have to wear my glasses is a day that I live in Frumpy City. Get contacts, and then…

Wear some makeup. No you won’t be a painted lady! Get some neutral eyeshadow, some black-brown mascara, and maybe a little lip gloss. That’s all you need. You’ve got beautiful skin, and if you could just accent your eyes and lips, you would just about have a pretty face.

Wear something besides skintight scoopneck black tshirts. It’s your “thing”. You have twelve of them. Having one might be cool and flattering (because yep, you’ve got cleavage to work, I’ve noticed). But GET SOMETHING ELSE TOO. Something feminine. No, it doesn’t have to be pink.

Next item…

  1. Stop sleeping with married men and soldiers who are passing through town. Both just want easy pussy, not a relationship. A year ago, I was there too, but believe me… you can get a great guy who’s all about you (provided you follow my advice, and possibly if you don’t, but it’ll be easier if you do). It’s worth it. It’s what you want. And all of these dalliances with unavailable guys… they eat up your time and your emotional energy. Every minute you’re obsessing about what will happen in the week “Ben” is in town is a minute you aren’t finding that special someone.

  2. Start to act like you like men a little bit. This is your #1 biggest problem, honey. I know you’re tired and I know you’re bitter, but girl? Treat them like they’re at least as much fun as your girl friends. Preferably, treat them like they’re more fun. Men like that, and when you’ve got a man who likes what’s going on, you’ll probably find that he is more fun than your girl friends. Your friend who wanted to go home to her husband after class instead of having a milkshake with you? You know why she’s married? It’s because she’d rather go home to her husband than stay out having a milkshake with you!

Smile at them. Make eye contact with them. Shake their hands when you meet them. Try to sit next to them. Ask them questions to keep the conversation going. My dear, you have a very bad habit of turning away from anyone you don’t know, and pointedly ignoring them. That ain’t adaptive.

There. Now go for it. GEE GOLLY I wish you’d ask for my advice, so I could say this to your face!

2

Sounds like a real bitch.

3

The second part of your point? Excellent.

The first part of your post? Take the attitude and stick it. If your girlfriend is such a bitter, man-hating basket case, any amount of make-up is not going to help. Oh, and sleeping with (non-poly) marries men pretty much means she looses the right to be considered a “Nice Girl”*.
-Septima, long-hair-wearing, non-styling, glasses-wearing, non-frumpy chick, who has no problem keeping her man.
*Not that there is anything wrong with not being a nice girl. Nice girls suck, in general.

4

This is my thought as well. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a long haired, glasses wearing girl in a tight black cleavage revealing shirt. As long as she’s into me (in a purely theoretical sense, says a married Cheesesteak) her style doesn’t represent a deal breaker.

5

Psh, whatever to this! I look awesome with my glasses and dumb without them. Maybe her problem is just that she has shitty frames.

6

Point number three seems to be the critical one.

7

If she works on 2 and 3 she can ignore 1. Look around, there’s plenty of guys who prefer no makeup, glasses and long hair and who doesn’t like a revealing shirt. What guy cares if a girl wears the same shirt every day?

8

She’s got thick, chestnut colored, waist length hair and you want her to cut it? Dear God, why? I absolutely LOVE girls with long hair and glasses. I’m totally with you on #2 and #3, but leave the hair alone.

9

I included point #1 for three reasons (knowing that lots of long-haired, un-made-up, glasses wearing girls were going to jump on it).

  1. We were childhood friends then lost contact for a decade. When I moved to her town a couple of years ago, and saw her for the first time, I was shocked by how plain and ugly she looked. Srsly, she needs to be doing more. Yes, her frames are kind of bad. If a straight woman is getting that kind of first impression, I think that men must be, also.

  2. I used to have long hair and glasses and not wear makeup. I also hated going out, to the point of having social anxiety issues. Getting nicer hair, contacts, and wearing a little makeup makes it so much easier to get out of the house, because I know that I’ve done my best. It makes it easier to be relaxed and friendly. It made it easier to flirt. It made me behave differently. My friend, she has confidence issues. Getting gussied up, in a way she can be comfortable with, couldn’t hurt and might help. It would let her say to herself, “I’m worth this bit of trouble.”

  3. My fiance agrees with that. He says that the fact that a woman will take a little trouble to look nice is just as important as her being naturally attractive–it projects confidence in herself, as well as an interest in men (which feeds into my point #3, with which everyone agrees).

Edited to add: about her hair. It’s so long and thick that she has to braid it, for everyday wear. I’m sure it’s gorgeous when it’s down, but I’ve never seen it down, because it’s so unmanageable. If she would cut it to mid-back length, perhaps?

10

Except that there’s a reason she’s like that–people have vastly different tolerances for different types of bullshit. I can’t stand the appearance bullshit. I don’t know why, but I can’t. It just feels like such a criminal waste of time and creative energy taking me away from the things that I want to do that it makes me angry. I recognize that it isn’t like this for other people–it doesn’t make them feel drained and wasteful–but that just shows that people are different, not that one of us is right and one of us is wrong. It’s hard to explain, but I can’t stand the idea of having to schedule regular hair appointments, or to having to take care of my contacts, or to go shopping for clothes or put on make-up in the morning. It just infuriates me to even think about giving up time to do things I love (and I never have enough time to do the things I love) in order to do things like that. I know it’s not like this for other people, and that’s fine. But it’s like that for some of us.

My point is that if those sort of tasks–clothes shopping, getting her hair cut regularly, dealing with contacts make her miserable, then she won’t be able to maintain them. It’ll all fall apart in a year or two. Better to start out with a guy that doesn’t think they are any big deal than to end up with a guy who wonders why you “let yourself go”. It might take longer to find him, but it’s worth it.

11

Okay, fair enough.

poke poke I find contacts are more comfortable and less trouble than glasses…

12

“Seriously”. This isn’t Wheel of Fortune. Vowels are free here!

13

I have to concur with Septima–second half of advice great, first half not great, in all particulars

–Z, married poly guy who would be thrilled to meet a nice, long-haired, glasses wearing girl in a tight black cleavage revealing shirt–provided she gets over the man-hating.

14

It’s almost as if the friend thinks she’s an autonomous being with rights to dress and behave as she wishes.

15

And bitch & moan about how she isn’t getting what she wants.

16

I think for me the sticking issue is simplicity, and that’s measured through accessories. I desperately need (psychologically) to be able to travel with almost nothing. Committing to contacts means a contact case, solution, cotton balls. Committing to a hairstyle means products, blow-dryer, committing to make up means the make-up it self, and the stuff to take it off again. It’s so much to keep track of–the complexity overwhelms me. It’s totally irrational, but that doesn’t make it not real.

17

“Seriously” can henceforth be discarded. Who needs all that length? Everyone knows what “srsly” means.

18

And it brands me as a fan of LOLcats. Which is cute. >^…^<

19

You’re an asshole, Settua.

20

Did anybody else laugh out loud when they made the jump from point one to point two? The conceptual leap from “Stop dressing like you’re Amish!” to “Also, don’t act like such a slut” was a pretty fantastic jump to make. I could almost hear the record-scratch sound effect accompanying it.

Also, Sutta, lolcats are cute, but the assumption there is that the cats are using poor grammar because they’re stupid dumb cats. It’s not half as endearing when the same impression is applied to people.

Yours,
Nitpicky Grammar Jerk