the uninvited editor

this morning on the subway i very very nearly went up to a random guy and offered unsolicited fashion advice. (in the end, i was too wimpy.) he was young, fairly good-looking, well dressed, asian. nice scarf, trendy bag. he was also wearing a coat that still had the thread that holds the back vent closed. worse, it was a long coat, so when he walked the gap became painfully apparent. this is one of my extreme peeves. why do so many otherwise-fairly-together people not seem to know about this? okay, i’m telling you now: when you buy a new winter coat, look at the back. is there a back vent? is it sewn closed with a loose “X” of thread? if so, CUT THE FUCKING THREAD. it will make me less irritated, and it will make you look like less of a giant doofus. thank you. crikey.

a couple weeks ago i was confronted with a phenomenon that, while familiar, had not happened to me for a long long while. as in years. this is a good thing. the phenomenon is this: girl walking down street passes guy walking down street. perfect strangers. the guy speaks. he says: “smile!”

ahem. okay, i KNOW we’ve been over this before. dudes: DO NOT DO THAT. IT IS PATRONIZING AND ANNOYING. girls are not there to smile and be cute on command for your pleasure. i am extremely certain that you would not say that to another dude. probably because you don’t want to get your ass kicked. which you totally would, because you are being PATRONIZING AND ANNOYING. yeesh.

i’ll tell you a secret, though, you passing guys, of what rarely goes unappreciated, for me anyway. it’s the nonverbal “you are so cute that you’re making ME smile!” smile. you might even get a return smile for that one. the other way, you most definitely won’t. you might get your ass kicked though. maybe i’ll even smile a little while i do it.

also a couple weeks ago, i was crossing boylston street for my weekly lunchtime browse at marshalls. a dude approached. he was black and had long dreadlocks. he also had a clipboard and was wearing a bright red jacket. he asked if he could ask me a question. i said no and kept walking. he turned and yelled, “you look PREJUDICE!” ahem. okay, let me be the first to say, i AM prejudice. i am extremely prejudice against people eagerly hanging around on boylston street with red jackets and clipboards. sometimes i’m also prejudice against blue jackets. in fact, my prejudice is so apparent that these people by and large do not even bother to approach me. this is a good thing, because i do not like to have to reply, “nah, not really” when asked whether i care about the planet or the starving children ’round the globe. (oh, okay. i like it a teeny bit.) so, yes, usual disclaimer about how indeed i do give to charity and yada yada yada. but, like most people, i prefer to give to charity on my own terms and not because i’m being harangued into it by annoying people on the street. it’s kind of like, smiling when you feel like smiling! hmm!

so just last night i finished reading a book. it was called “millions of women are waiting to meet you” by sean thomas. it was from the library. i get a lot of crappy books from the library. i mean, i look for shiny covers, attractive fonts, and cute graphics. why does it so often go horribly wrong? anyway, this book was a memoir, about a latethirtysomething dude in london and his internet dating experiences. i like internet dating stories, and i rarely get to hear them from guys, so i figured it would make for good subway reading. eh. it started out boring and obvious and tediously written, and it ended up sort of disturbing, annoying, and ultimately depressing. this dude at first seemed like your typical type - kinda hip, kinda okay, kinda funny and smart, but actually not really any of those things. not edgy, or original. basically unimpressive. then later in the book he starts revealing all his past sexual experiences, of which there were plenty. okay, fine. but then when he gets to the part where he’s in his mid-thirties and making special trips to bangkok to hang out in pussy clubs and bang a whole bunch of thai hookers? one of whom he thinks he’s impregnated? because he was having unprotected sex with her? whoa. that’s bringing it up a notch. or down. okay, so i’ve spent some time in southeast asia and have known a few guys who weren’t averse to frequenting similar clubs on occasion, and i didn’t really think anything of it. but they were in their twenties. and they weren’t going to patpong every night for like, three months. guys who did do that (and the term for it is “sex tourist” - ew) were generally regarded as giant losers, and worse. so whatever, writer-dude - you totally lost me. but then we come to the end. basically, after a year of messing around on the internet dating sites (and this was all in the name of research, of course, as he was writing an article about it), he went off it for a bit, and then he went back. he decided he was going to get serious. he was ready to meet someone. he wrote some gal a long email about himself. she wrote back. they dated. they’re married. hallelujah!

okay, UGH. this is just more evidence of what i have always suspected: namely, some dudes just fuck around until they’re “ready,” and when they determine they are, the next chick who comes along who isn’t totally fug is IT. she’s the one! happily ever after! soul mates! thinking about it, i don’t know why i find this so annoying. i guess because these dudes seem so lame and deluded: when they find their IT girl they tell themselves it’s because she’s the one they’ve been waiting for all their lives, not because they just decided one day (usually when they’re losing their hair) that they have finally had sex with enough people. IRRITATING! guess what, i’m ready to settle down! you’re the one, you lucky girl. i’m done banging hookers. SMILE!

gag.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 10:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.