Yep.
Being ‘that girl’ comes in assorted flavors just like skittles and toothpastes but regardless of if you are grape or minty fresh you know that feeling. It’s a cross between wanting to bang your head against a wall until you forget how you behaved and cocooning yourself in a comforter and laying there with your eyes wide open trying to “clear your thoughts”. One minute you are ‘me’ and then suddenly, without warning, you are ‘that girl who kisses boys on New Year’s after midnight drunkenly in front of people and then runs away’. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!?!? What can I say, old habits die hard. When the inhibitions take a ride down the lazy river filled with Captain Morgan and warm Pepsi (Warning: product placement – I should be getting paid for this lovely free advertising) some wild things can happen.
Let’s take a closer look at the historic and surprisingly adept evolution of an average looking Econ major withamanagementemphasisandaconcentrationinmediastudies to ‘that girl’. It all started at a high school reunion NYE party my freshman year of college in my best friend’s basement. Things were wild – everyone was drinking shitty alcohol out of plastic water bottles with the wrappers conspicuously removed, I was wearing a casual blazer, everyone was having an unspoken contest about who ‘loved where they were at’ more and who most ‘found their place in college’. Long story short, I drank an entire bottle of white wine, which I mixed with Sprite because eighteen year olds have low tolerance for old grapes and I still hadn’t figured out the whole ‘underage drinking’ code of ethics yet. I was chatting up my high school prom date. We had gone together both years mostly, I thought, because we were the only single ones in our friend groups and we enjoyed the same sense of humor. My high school friends were serial daters – which is like serial killers but worse. Being single was a hobby for me, it made me different and distinguished and I was so terribly afraid of the unknown that I pushed every single suitor that lined up at my door away. This hobby of mine kept me from thinking of Prom Date as anything more than a friend, although the nostalgic side of me always wondered if something should have sparked between us. I did learn a very valuable math equation from all of this though: Booze + Sentimental Feelings = Embarrassment. I would say this equation is about as fundamental as the concept of gravity.
So it’s about an hour after midnight in the basement and I’m chatting with Prom Date. He is really putting on the charm – lots of playful nudging and drowsy eye contact. And I think to myself, “You know, right now I think I am going to stand up in the middle of this basement filled with my high school classmates and start making out with Prom Date. Just right here, where all our treasured friends can see and take photos that will haunt me until the day I die.” It sounded foolproof. But about twenty seconds into this long awaited passionate demonstration of ‘this should have happened at some point so why not now?’ I realized what was going on. Not sure what shook me out of it. Maybe it was the sobering effects of my best friends yelling, “HAHA GET IT” or maybe it was the flash of a thousand cameras. All I know is that I said, “Sorry, I don’t think I can do this,” and then I ran upstairs and poured my heart out to my friend’s mom while she made me tea and spoon fed me brownies.
Now if I had been a one-time offender I would have never become ‘that girl’. But like I say, if at first you don’t succeed, keep doing it until you have to live under a rock and are put on house arrest every December 31st. For two years, I kept my record clean and got by with only being known as Me: A Person Who Made a Strange Drunk Decision and is Sporty. That all changed the night I rendezvoused with Morgan, Captain Morgan. And also Ball, Fireball. And their festive friend, Champagne. She just goes by Champagne. I’m a college junior now and feeling two years younger than 22, so I know my way around a shot pong and keg cartwheel, okay? Either way, I forgot how to say enough is enough that final night of 2015. I arrived at a small gathering, smashed, but still coherent and classy of course. It was a mix of the serial daters from the good old days and sullen college bros who were “just lookin to chill and drink beer with the guys”. As the night progressed, I was drawn to one particular gentleman, Edward, who shared his beer with me and went to elementary school with my cousins. He also “wants to get into commercial real estate” and knows how to deal black jack. Sooo yeah, he was a catch and everything I had ever looked for in a husband and our souls are connected by the stars or something. I was conveniently/inconveniently in the bathroom when the clock struck midnight but no worries! The stroke of midnight was just my queue that now it was time to embarrass myself in new, live color just in time for the New Year! After successfully (how is success really measured?) getting my flirt on with Ed for a while, it was time to leave. But not before I kissed him in the hallway at the suggestion of my good pal, Leslie, who then proceeded to watch/photograph the event for posterity. I smoothly asked for his number (got it – but that’s a story for another time) and then held his hand as I slowly took two steps towards the door then let go and barreled through it, into the arms (car) of our Uber driver. Then I ate wings, pizza rolls, and pizza, IN THAT ORDER, to try to make sense of it all! That was when Leslie casually suggested, “Hey, this is kind of your thing now.” My mouth dropped open, and a pizza roll fell out. “Yeah,” she continued, “you are that girl who kisses boys on New Year’s, after midnight, drunkenly in front of people and then runs away’!” The last thought in my head before I went unconscious from banging it against the wall was…
This is awkward.
yepthisisawkward 