Irresistible

There are those who have it and there are those who do not.
Some girls emerge from the womb with the natural ability to draw in the male species. They are blood to the shark. Irresistible.
One of my closest girlfriends happens to be one of these enchantingly dangerous creatures.
Everything about her is both sensual and adorable.
With the simplest tilt of her head, she makes grown men swoon. All it takes is a flip of her silky long hair, a glance through her dark lashes, a wave of her tiny fingers, and she slays men by the thousands.
She is dripping with charming comments and flirtatious responses.

And then there are those who do not have this ability. The rest of us poor souls.

We are equally attractive, yet socially inept and more than a touch old-fashioned.
The thought of trying to make small talk sends us scurrying to our house and nailing the doors shut. Our witty comments are so much funnier in our head than spoken aloud and for god's sake what do we do with our hands???
Our hair always goes flat by the end of the night, a piece of our wardrobe always malfunctions, and there is inevitably a smudge of mascara somewhere around our eye.
We get offended at crude jokes, are embarrassed by advances, blurt out the first most humiliating thing that pops in our head.
We knock over glasses of beer, trip over our own feet, look disabled if we try to wink.
We should never ever be allowed near a dance floor. Ever.

My friend is always trying to teach me her ways, truly believing that if I follow her instructions, I will be as wildly popular in attracting the opposite species as her.

"Naomi," she says, exasperated. "It's so easy. Just watch me."

She'll scan the crowded restaurant for her next victim, choosing a cute, bearded bar tender (side note to all you guys out there- beards are super attractive). She gazes at him over her drink as she sips from the straw, leaving behind little red lipstick marks. Her expression is both seductive and contemplative, as if she's casually wondering if he's wearing boxers or briefs but also pondering how the sky is blue.
When she catches his eye she acts as though it were an accident that she was looking at him. She smiles sweetly and wiggles her fingers under her chin in that irresistible wave that magically makes me look like I have a tarantula crawling up my chin when I attempt it.
Within seconds we have a round of shots at our table "on the house."
He is smitten.

Now it's my turn. I make eye contact with a guy in black-rimmed glasses a few tables over. I smile hesitantly and glance down at the table in embarrassment. My friend kicks me.

"Do the wave," she hisses.

As I raise my hand toward my face, my long fingers catch the straw in my water glass and send it flying across the table, sprinkling water all over us.
We bust out laughing, falling on each other in the booth as we giggle over my clumsiness.When I look up, the glasses guy is watching us. He saw the whole incident.
We make eye contact and he grins at me. I blush (because, unfortunately, that's another side effect of "those who don't have it." We turn uncontrollably red at the smallest occasion.).
Later, as he is leaving, he pauses at our table and says,

"You have a pretty smile."

Naturally, I blush again.
And I am grateful, knowing that even if I don't have the seductive gene, I am still irresistible in my own fun-loving-clutsy way.

How to Lose a Guy...

For all of you ladies looking for a new way to ward off unsolicited advances or to firmly let a guy know, once and for all, that you are not the lady of his dreams, I've discovered a fool-proof deterrent.

Get arrested.

Nothing screams I am not the future mother of your children more than that of the back of a cop car and a mug shot.
How, you may ask, did you dream up this scheme?
I am speaking candidly of my own experience as a hardened criminal and of the poor idiot whom I was casually texting before this incident occurred.
Yes, yours truly has done time in the slammer (albeit, it may have only been 15 minutes in a concrete jail cell at the local police department, but those are precious minutes and countless uncontrolled tears that I will never get back).
For the record, it was an honest mistake. And, I have to admit, I am more embarrassed over my own dumb-blondish carelessness (I'm not blond, by the way) than I am over confessing that I now have a misdemeanor.
A misdemeanor.
(Wow, I am such a badass!).
Turns out that if you receive a ticket for expired tags and then have your tags renewed prior to the scheduled court date and then proceed to forget about said scheduled court date, that your driver's license will be suspended, without any sort of notice, for contempt of court.
And if you then encounter a routine checkpoint on your way to work in the morning and they casually run your license through their database, you will receive the shock of your life when they order you out of the car, slap some handcuffs around your delicate wrists, and haul you off to the local police department.
It was soon after this incident that the hapless chap I mentioned earlier decided to text me to see how my day was going.
"Rather shitty," I replied. "I got arrested today."
Silence.
I then proceeded to explain how it was not really all my fault.
More silence.

Good riddance.
Despite the fact that our families have been friends and neighbors for a number of years, we did not know each other. We became Facebook friends after we both attended our families' annual rafting trip this past summer. He asked for my number soon after and our text relationship began.

Him: Want to hangout sometime?
Me: Sure, what did you have in mind?
Him: u wanna watch a movie?
Me: Okay, sounds good.
Him: At ur place
Me: Sure...
Him: Do u like to cuddle an watch movies?
Me: Not with guys I don't know...
Him: But u know me already lol
Me: I don't know you at all! We've never hungout!

This is how our conversations went, also randomly interspersed with comments like, thinkin about u sweetie or u looked good in ur bikini at the river.
We never actually made it to the point of hanging out. The reasons for that are obvious but I'm going to list them anyways:
(Take notes, guys. These are serious offenses.)

-He did not call to ask me to hangout, he took the easy way out and texted me. (lacks courage)
-When he did ask, he suggested we watch a movie together...at my place. No dinner and a movie. No cost to him whatsoever. This is translated as two things: he's cheap and he's not interested in a relationship. (bachelor forever)
-His conversation consisted of piggish comments focused solely on my physical appearance, telling me that he is not interested in my mind or heart, but rather my body. (looking for a "good time")
-He uses "text language" such as "ur" "lol" "u" (lazy and probably stupid)
-He immediately starts calling me obnoxious pet names like "sweetie." Even if we were in a steady relationship, which we weren't, these would not be acceptable. And they are definitely a big fat NO if you've never actually hung out.

The arrest couldn't have come at a more perfect time in our short-lived romance. It quickly extinguished the flames of texting-induced passions and ever so abruptly destroyed his dreams of the perfect woman (ahem...or a good time...).

So what are we girls looking for in a guy? What are our expectations of them for scoring a date?
It's simple. Be respectful. Be bold (but in a good way). Call her up and ask to take her out to dinner. Make interesting conversation, as in, actually ask her questions about her that show that you are interested in more than just her hot body. Pay for the meal, taker her home, and don't ask to come inside unless she invites you.
And for god's sake if she says she's having a shitty day, REPLY. And maybe send her flowers...

The Forever Girl

"Come home with me," four drunken words whispered seductively in my ear from a guy whose name I don't remember.
Hands slide convincingly around my waist and tug our hips closer as we dance, slowly and unfittingly to the loud music playing in the tiny dive bar.

"You float like a feather in a beautiful world. And I wish I was special..."

"Who sings this?" I ask.
His eyes belie irritation and confusion as he racks his soggy brain. He rolls his eyes and replies, "Radiohead."

We are soul mates.

"I live around the corner. Come home with me," he implores.
And suddenly I'm envisioning him chatting up my sister an hour earlier. I'm conjuring up images of him in this same bar a week from now, after I've flown back home, talking to some new, nameless pretty girl who, like myself, has had one too many drinks and he begs her to come home with him.

And I'm sad.

Aren't I worth more than that? Aren't I more than just a pretty face and an easy target?

I want to be special too, Radiohead.

He kisses my neck and I get tingly sensations and I start to think for a second that maybe I do mean something to him.
"Come on. Just come home with me."

I feel like crying.

"I'm not really a one night kind of girl," I stutter softly. Too softly for him to hear.
"I'll get us a cab," he says and starts to walk away.
I pull him back.
"I'm not a one night kind of girl," I choke out into his ear. I kiss him, impulsively, on the mouth. "I'm a forever girl."

It slipped out of my mouth, an answer born of drunken sincerity, yet completely sober in its truthfulness and significance.
He is surprised. And disappointed. Probably because it's 2:30 in the morning, too late to find a new victim.
He kisses me again and walks away.
I feel sad again.

And proud.

And hungry. "Anyone want breakfast? I saw a diner around the corner."
It's not until the next afternoon as we're reliving our previous night's adventures over brunch that I realize what a hilariously profound statement I had made.
"A forever girl??" my girlfriends hoot with laughter at my phrasing. "Like, he's never going to get rid of you? He takes you home and you won't leave and you stalk him. Forever."
We are crying into our mimosas, tickled by our exaggerations.
As we wipe the tears from our eyes and catch our breath, I'm struck by a thought.

I am a forever girl.

Despite the misconstrued imaging the phrasing evokes, it's no less a true statement. And my girlfriends are forever girls, too.
Not in the creepy sense, but in the oddly-still-old-fashioned-sense.
We are the girls you want to keep forever because we're honest and true and devoted. We are wholesome and good, but also aware and smart. We hold on to our standards and stand up for what we believe.

We are special. We are forever.