Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?: True Stories and Confessions (19 page)

But we kept rolling, and he kept yelling at us, then he switched to yelling at the next twosome who rode by.

Yikes.

Wanna play?

Better Off Watching TV.

In fact, Better Off Watching Infomercials.

To my thinking, both of these guys are really the same type of guy, a variation of Mr. Take Charge. And I always liked that kind of guy when I was younger. I wanted a guy who had all the answers, handled any situation, and basically was a combination of Daddy, Superman, and Bradley Cooper.

This last because, are you blind?

And honestly, I don't think it's Mr. Take Charge's fault that he takes charge, because just as I got the message that that was what I was supposed to want, I suspect he got the message that was what he was supposed to be.

Or maybe what happens is that Mr. Take Charge stays the same, but the women change, like I did.

We grow up, if we're lucky.

We get older and realize we don't need adult supervision.

We are the adult supervision.

And as I got older, I realized that Mr. Take Charge morphs into Mr. Control Freak.

And probably from there into Mr. Ray Rice.

It's taken me decades to figure out exactly what I want, and to be able to ask for it.

And it's not Mr. Take Charge.

It's a margarita.

No more Mrs. Nice Guy.

 

The Mutual Fade-Out

By Francesca

I just pulled off the greatest trick of any dater: the mutual fade-out.

This is the holy grail of the socially anxious. The royal flush of the reluctant in romance. The
coup de gr
â
ce
of the codependents.

For those who aren't familiar, a fade-out is when you're dating someone who you don't want to see anymore, so you just gradually stop returning their calls and texts until they give up on you. No explanation, no honesty, no opportunity for personal growth, no closure, just … a relationship fade to black. It's the path-of-least-resistance method of breaking things off. It's cowardly, really.

That's why people love to do it.

But the mutual fade-out is the only way to get away with the blow-off guilt-free, because you both do it to each other at exactly the same time.

I thought it was urban legend.

In the past, I've resisted the siren song of the fade-out. The thought of leaving a guy wondering what happened and feeling bad about himself gives the codependent in me a cold sweat, so I've always forced myself to offer a tactfully vague goodbye.

Of course, my penchant for half honesty has blown back in my face plenty of times.

I once texted a guy after a second date that I really loved meeting him but I thought we'd be better as friends.

He wrote back: “Yeah right. Why don't you just be honest and say you never want to see me again?”

Um, because I'm not an animal, sir.

See, that was someone I should've faded out.

When I'm truly honest, they complain about that, too. There was one guy who drank way too much when out with me and a bunch of his buddies. After returning from the bathroom to find me chatting with his friends, he hooked his arm around my neck and accused me of flirting with his bros. Then he bent me down into a headlock right in the middle of the bar and slurred into my ear:

“Were you talking about how fat I am? Are you saying, ‘you gotta get him to the gym?'”

I'd never had a guy get physical with me before, but I wasn't about to let myself be victimized, especially not over some dude's lame body issues. I broke free and stormed out.

Headlocks are a deal breaker, and while I would've been more than justified in using the fade-out on this guy, I wanted him to know never to contact me again. So I emailed him a short, civil, note that said, “After your behavior last night, I don't feel comfortable moving forward in our relationship. I have no hard feelings, and I wish you well.”

Well.

He saw my one paragraph and raised me six. He replied with an epic email detailing what a snob I was, how he “expected more” from me, that I could “at least treat him with a bit more respect” and explain myself. He conceded that his behavior “may have been immature, brutish, and insensitive,” but claimed it wasn't nearly as callous—if he knew a word that big—as my refusal to give him a chance to “learn from [his] mistakes.”

It ended with a final paragraph written entirely in the third person: “I'm sorry Francesca Serritella from Philadelphia thinks she's too good to get to know [Idiot's Name Redacted] from Long Island, New York.”

[Idiot's Name Redacted] should be the title of my future romantic memoirs.

So there are pitfalls to being a straight shooter, but in general I think it's the right thing to do.

Unfortunately, I'm out of practice.

So recently, when things fizzled with this guy I'd been seeing, I was dreading breaking the news to him.

And lo and behold, the mutual fade-out appeared to save the day.

He and I both slowly fell off each other's planets at exactly the same time.

It's pretty much the best ever. No awkward conversation. No hurt feelings. No problem.

I pulled it off almost by accident. Looking at our stats, I was on the fence about whether I could get away with a fade-out. We had been on six dates, which is right on the borderline for blow-offs, but, because I was traveling a lot, our relationship was spread out over a couple months, which points to a phone call, at least. I was going to bite the bullet, I just hadn't gotten around to it.

While I was procrastinating, it dawned on me—hey, I haven't heard from him either.

Thing is, I'm kind of surprised. I thought he liked me. I thought it was only me who didn't like him. I thought telling him I didn't want to see him again would hurt his feelings.

So it's good that it was mutual, of course.

Because I didn't
not
like him. I simply began to think we were too different, and the fragile bubble of my crush had popped. The truth is, I might've given him one more chance.

Just to be polite.

I knew we weren't going to work out in the long haul. He'd flaked out on me on our penultimate date, canceling our Friday night plans at 6:30
P.M.
,
after
making
me
get in touch with
him
to confirm. Six-thirty is too late to cancel on a weekend night; I thought it was rude and unreliable. So that was the beginning of the end for me.

But wait.

What if his flaking out was the beginning of the end for him?

That would mean his beginning began before mine.

Maybe when I thought I was giving him a second chance, he was already giving me my third.

Even so, when I said goodbye to him after our last date a week ago, I knew that it would be the last time I'd see him.

I just hope
he
knows that.

You didn't fire me, I quit.

The other night, I had a dream where I saw him at a party. He was in a full-body cast, complete with a halo brace, and he was deeply apologetic that he hadn't been in touch:

“I would've called, if it weren't for the accident…”

I'm glad to know that my subconscious has such great self-esteem.

Although also in my dream, I rebuffed him when he asked me out.

Yes, dream-me broke up with a man after an accident that put him in a body cast.

Less glad to know that my subconscious is a heartless bitch.

But I guess that proves it, I really don't want to see him again. And apparently he doesn't want to see me either. And nobody got hurt. The technicality of who dumped who doesn't matter in the slightest.

Who cares?

Not me.

Moving on.

(Are you buying any of that?)

Ugh. See? This is why I don't do the fade-out.

 

The Good Wife or the Dumb Wife?

By Lisa

Things just got real for the Real Housewives.

As you may have heard, Joe Giudice and his wife, Teresa, who is one of the
Real Housewives of New Jersey
on Bravo TV, are going to jail for bankruptcy fraud.

I'm going to miss Teresa, whose lack of anger management was a thing of beauty. She famously turned over a table in anger, and I don't know a single woman in the world who hasn't dreamed of doing that, or at least being the kind of woman who would do that, on impulse.

By the way, when she flipped the table, she yelled “prostitution whore,” which is a great thing to yell at any time.

Try it and see.

At home.

Not in the library.

Everybody made fun of Teresa because it wasn't the most literate phrase, but to be fair, English isn't her first language, and in any event, you need to have fun in life. So when you're about to turn over a table in a blind rage, feel free to scream whatever noun combination you can come up with.

For example, flip a table and yell “bankruptcy fraud.”

It's fun.

I also think Teresa and Joe deserve to go to jail for Perpetuating Italian-American Stereotypes. I'm proud of my Italian-American heritage, which is as plain as the nose on my face.

Mother Mary always liked to say that we got more oxygen than anybody else in the room.

She's always with me in spirit, especially when I breathe in.

Anyway, I hate it when an Italian-American does something bad, whether it's a crime like bankruptcy fraud or a simple error in judgment, like not marrying me.

I'm talking to you, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, and Bradley Cooper, whose mother is Italian-American.

For us, that counts.

In fact, if you like Italian food, you're Italian to us.

We're liberal in our interpretation.

We take all comers.

Especially Bradley Cooper.

Also we need new team members.

To replace the ones who go to jail.

Just kidding.

Anyway, I cringed when I saw that Joe Giudice had committed tax fraud, because it was a trend that Al Capone started, and people are going to get the idea that Italian-Americans don't pay their taxes, which will mean that they think I don't pay my taxes, and I will never get the credit I deserve for paying every last penny and then some.

I pay my taxes, people.

Finally, I admit, I feel bad for the true victims of the Giudices, their four young daughters. It's never a good thing when mom is going to jail for over a year and dad for about four years. The court staggered their sentences, so that Teresa can go to jail after Christmas, and then her husband will serve his time after she returns.

You might think the timing is a sweet deal, granted because of their TV fame, and you might be right.

So Bravo!

I watched Teresa being interviewed on TV last night with her husband, Joe, and her defense was that she signed whatever he put in front of her without reading it first.

Was she The Good Wife?

Or The Dumb Wife?

As a result, she's no longer a Housewife.

To be honest, she is not the first woman who has made that mistake.

I've even done it, and I'm a lawyer.

So ladies, have we learned our lesson?

I have.

We don't want to be seen as Only The Wife anymore, and we can't have it both ways.

We can live blissfully, just not blissfully ignorant.

 

Troublemaker

By Lisa

Well, that settles it.

I'm not moving to China.

You probably read last week about Guo Yushan, a Chinese man who was arrested there, for breaking the country's law against “picking quarrels and provoking troubles.”

Yikes.

Somebody needs to stop sweating the small stuff.

Lighten up, China.

I can't imagine making a law against picking quarrels and provoking troubles. I don't think life is worth living if you can't pick a quarrel or provoke troubles, from time to time.

In fact, I was raised to pick quarrels and provoke troubles.

Mother Mary specialized in picking quarrels and provoking troubles.

I remember the time I ordered her a crossword puzzle jar from the
New York Times,
but it never got delivered to her. She raised holy hell with the
New York Times
itself.

The Gray Lady was no match for my gray lady.

I wouldn't want to live in a country in which nobody picks quarrels or provokes troubles.

First, there would be no lawyers.

Okay, maybe that's a bad argument.

Please don't think I'm making fun of the Chinese situation, because I'm just trying to find the humor in it, which is exactly what Mr. Guo did himself, before he was arrested. He predicted his own arrest because, two years ago, he had helped his friend, a blind legal activist, escape to the United States with his family.

So Mr. Guo knew he'd get in trouble for making trouble.

Because, under Chinese law, that's the same thing as helping your friend.

Who just happens to be blind.

I'm pretty sure the Chinese government must have a heart, but I'm not sure exactly where.

I'm guessing they kick puppies in their spare time.

Seeing Eye puppies.

But to be fair to China, the world abounds with people who wish you would just Sit Down and Shut Up, and some of those people make their way to the top of companies.

Like Microsoft.

I'm referring to Mr. Satya Nadella, who recently advised female employees in the tech industry not to ask for raises. He said, “It's not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. It's good karma. It will come back.”

In other words, ladies, don't pick quarrels.

Don't make trouble.

Sit down and shut up, and the system will reward you.

Is there any woman in the world who believes this is a good way to operate, in any area of her life, on any planet in this or any other galaxy?