Close Encounters from the Girl Kind

What are the five most awkward or nerve-wracking situations a girl can get herself into today? What are the things that make us lose sleep at night, or break into cold sweats at sweltering house parties? When are the times that you can actually see fear in our eyes like the look that a guy gets as he walks up the front steps of his date's house for the first time? (Always thought that was a hilarious and telling moment to watch.) Here are the top 5 situations that a group of women I polled at work agreed on as the things that we worry about the most, and the quick, sweet fixes for them. You're smart, you're pretty, now how about being a little less awkward?

Situation 1: Close Encounters of the Girl Kind

It's always awkward when you bump into a girl who used to see or sleep with the same guy that you're seeing. There's always that implicit understanding of who's doing what or who's done whom. I'm nervous and defensive by nature, but I learned quickly that being a bitch gets you nowhere-- it's always better to smile, say "hey," and ask them how they're doing. The thinking is that if you're nice, it's hard not to like you-- if something is still going on, they'll feel worse about it (believe me, I've been on both sides of this one), or if it's all over, it's always easier to concede defeat to someone you actually like. Make sure you always smile, wave, or say hi first. Ask them about something going on in their life. Be interested. Your confidence will shake anyone with lesser confidence off, and appears as if you're perfectly in control of the way things are, even if you're not. This can also be called "gesturing," "peacocking," or "being alpha bitch."

Situation 2: Hold The Phone

Even Ron Jeremy agrees that when someone he's with is texting constantly, it makes him, King Dong, worry about the presence of another dude. “If I see men’s cologne in a girl’s bathroom or if she is texting constantly, it’s a big turnoff." Same goes for women. Nothing makes me more morbidly curious than a cell phone vibrating on a nightstand at 2 AM. Maybe your dude friends are insomniacs too, but I doubt it. Maybe it's because I'm under the general persuasion that since bars close at 2, that's a late-night drunk booty call, because, let's face it, we've all been the one sending that text, but honestly, nothing makes me feel less likely to get in the mood than wondering what the fuck is going on and if someone else wants to be in my place on my side of the bed. So...if I can be cognizant enough to either tell the other men I'm talking to to stop texting me past midnight, or to turn my ringer and vibrate OFF, I really feel like for peace of mind and in an active effort to not kill the mood, it's not too much to ask that other people do it as well.

Situation 3: The Rag's a Drag

I think we can all generally agree that when you're turned on, you're turned on. For men, this isn't much of a problem. For women, Mother Nature has other plans for us a week out of every month. Some women don't mind having sex while they're menstruating, but for others, it's a definite "no." Unfortunately, biology fucked us ALL over, because when a woman is ovulating or during her week long of Bloody Sundays is when she's at her most attractive. Our faces get brighter and shiner. Our hips swivel more when we walk. We smell better and our hair is softer. And, to quote my drunk-ass self, we have "luscious tits." Understandably, men find us attractive. So, how do you turn away a dude who wants to be all up in your business when you're closed for business, without having to go into the gory details and make a pick-up a bad B-rated bloody slasher movie? Simple-- tell him that you'd love to, but you already have made other plans (for that night if it's not too late, like at 1 AM, or for the next morning, like a breakfast date), and then tell him you'd like to make a rain-check for another time. This implies that you're interested, yet not flaky, and are open to things happening...just at another point in time, like when Trojan has replaced Tampax as your best friend. Actually, in cases other than that time of the month, the sandwich of "I'd love to, but I already have plans for early tomorrow morning...can we make a rain-check?" is a winner. Memorize it. Practice it. Use it.

Situation 4: Don't Mention The War!

Speaking of sending 2 AM texts... So you sent a text you maybe shouldn't have. It was late; you were impaired; you were lonely; your vibrator had broken. You wake up the next morning after being either ignored or turned down flat, and you kinda want to kill yourself, or at least relinquish rights to your phone and your snatch. Rather than taking a vow of chastity, there's an easier and less sucky way to remedy things: Just don't call or text again for awhile. People forget things easily over time, and even if you were coming off as presumptuous or needy, NOT being in contact like it ain't no thang for awhile will rectify that view. Give it a week, live your life, do your own thing. Buy a new vibrator. Next time you see or talk to the text's recipient, act nonchalant, like it never happened and you, too, have experienced mild amnesia. Be like John Cleese in Fawlty Towers-- "Don't mention the war!"

Situation 5: Bringing Up Exey

Sometimes, you just can't help it. Sometimes, you talk about your ex. Sometimes, it comes up in conversation-- they ask for more information or about where it went wrong, or, like me, you get people confused and end up looking at your current S.O and saying, "Are you the one who slept with night lights, or are you the one who's afraid of roller coasters?" Yeah. It can get a little awkward. Possibly MOST potentially awkward, however, is the fact that the memorial tattoo I'm planning on getting shortly partially includes the last name of a guy I was romantically involved with for awhile, though first and foremost, we were close friends. Things like that, however, shouldn't be hard to explain. You should be able to say, "I loved him, and I lost him, and this is my way of honoring his memory." If someone doesn't get that, then they're a jackass. What can be harder, however, is when the person you're seeing asks you, "Was that the best sex of your life, or what?" When this happens to me, I'm honest. I keep very close tabs on what I consider the best sex I've ever had. I don't suggest this approach to everyone, however. What usually is better in this situation is a non-committal "mmmm" or an "of course!" if it really was the best sex you've ever had...with them. Sometimes, white lies are fine. Generally, people know the best sex of their life when they find it. Lying doesn't cover anything in that aspect.

XOXO

P.S-- For more advice for anything from what cute flats to wear at the office to how to be a better friend, visit Molly at smartprettyandawkward.com.

Exes Undercover

Seeing people you used to be with is always really awkward. Like Miranda once said on SATC, I'd love to be one of those very forgiving and karmically correct people who can be all "We were; you enriched me; thank you," but I'm much more along the lines of her "You were in me; now you're not; you need to not exist anymore."

It's a small town, and it's bound to happen. But when you do finally bump into them, it's not like you can prepare for that sort of thing, especially if you're still smarting. I mean, you can have a general idea of how you want it to go-- no crying, no screaming, no resorting to physical violence; act with class and good manners, be a bigger person. But as for the minutia...no one ever manages to plan for the sudden shortness of breath, the shaking, or the feeling that due to the fact you are suddenly more aware of your massive heartbeats than you've ever been before, you're just going to keel over right now, into your Creme Caramel JavaKula, while an old tranny sits across the cafe in direct line-of-sight from you, meaning that he/she will be the last thing you ever see, and your headstone's epitaph will read: "Died before her time for her choice in men; but she had a glorious vagina."

No one, no one, not even decedents of Hitler or whoever invented Spam, deserves to go out that way.

So you end up reverting to some pretty (and petty) asinine behavior. Yesterday, while perfectly happy minding my New Yorker and coffee in Borders, I had one of those moments in life where something makes you look up just as someone else looks away from you. We both knew the other was there. And we both knew the other knew. But, instead of even looking up and waving through the window, I feigned massive ignorance and totally avoided doing anything altogether. It may have been a shitty move, and I realize this puts me back in the socially inept category of a 5 year old, but at the moment, I have no (civil) words, and my momma always told me if I don't have anything nice to say...

"At least," Alli pointed out, "you didn't pick up your magazine and block him with it as he walked out." Which I guess is true. It could have been worse.

But I'm glad to see I'm not alone in this. Later last night, while I was at Vermont Pub and Brewery, watching the Sox game and having dinner and a pint with Alli, she nudged me, and sotto-voice, said, "Look." I looked away from the screen, and immediately saw a wall of newspaper where the 20-something woman seated in front of us previously had been. Momentarily confused, I looked at Alli, wondering what about us the woman found so particularly offensive, then wondered if she was talking about us for some reason behind her improv screen, and then, as I was craning my head around, spotted exactly what made her go all Agent Undercover-- the waiter who was standing behind us. Despite her barricade, the waiter spotted her a few minutes later and went over, interrupting her and her new date, and through her forced, nervous, slightly-too-loud laughter and the "catch-up" chat, confirmed our suspicions. In an instant, empathetic moment, I got it. None of us-- none of us-- really know how to deal with this moment. This woman may have used the shielding technique that I maturely chose not to use in favor of the very classy "ostrich ignorance" maneuver (sarcasm is extremely heavy in that sentence, if you're not great on picking up on it), but from Burlington to Timbuktu, all of us are just freaking out alongside each other, and no one's mastered the art of acting gracefully under fire yet.

That's the problem with dating-- carnage.

So, I guess I'm sorry. Next time, I will actually acknowledge you and ask you how you are. But, if for some reason, I panic and you're met with a wall of newspaper or book cover instead, just know-- it's not just me.

XOXO

Eat It.

There's this love/hate relationship I have. It deals mainly with me, and someone I see every time I sit down at a restaurant table or get out of the shower. It's with my body.

For the first time in over 5 months, today, I spotted my long-dormant abs. I have a body build that was best suited for when my Austrian-Hungarian ancestors toiled in fields all day and popped out kids left, right, and center, probably in those same fields without missing a step. With my manual labor years behind me, my aversion to pregnancy and desire to adopt, I'm pretty much stuck with incredibly dense bone structure, a perfect 36-27-36 hourglass shape, and a build that could be described as "as solid as a brick shithouse." As it has been.

The primary problem is this: I. Love. Food. Wait, let me expand on this: (WARNING: Food porn ahead. NSFHunger.)

I love cooking, I love eating, and I love drinking.

None of this is conducive with maintaining a weight or shape other than "round." My legs are the only thing that I know will always be there in some sort of cab-stopping appeal, because I won the genetic jackpot on that one, and I have what is now the equivalent of a lifetime of horseback riding under my breeches. And so, reluctantly, I'm a little bit of what is usually dismissively called a "gym rat." I'm dedicated to 4 or 5 days a week of some sort of cardio and weight exercise. Being a "path of least resistance" person when it comes to working out, I chose the things that I can pretty much do in about 6-by-6 feet of room, preferably, standing still. (I told you, I'm lazy.) There's lots of side-bends to work my abs (which do not want to exist in the first place), lots of oblique twists (easy as turning your upper body while focusing on isolating muscles), and lots of weight training. I can punctuate homework or commercial breaks with 50-100 lunges a night, or I can sweat off over 100 calories dancing from sheer happiness and because I just flat-out love to dance. I like it when working out does not take time or much action, which is pretty counter-intuitive to the whole concept, but hey-- it's been working for me.

In part, it works because of the other things that I do. I ride, not nearly as much as I used to, but it's still a full-body workout. I took up running because...well, I don't know. I used to be one of the fastest sprinters in elementary school, but then puberty happened, and I remember looking at a girl on the cross country team during Women's Ensemble choral practice in high school and saying, "Do I LOOK like I enjoy running? The only times I run are when someone is chasing me, or I am chasing someone." And then I went and became a runner in college. Not a runner of any great shakes-- as a genetic sprinter (mom and dad were both track kids in their high school days, and then dad liked it so much he went into the Marines to prove he was one of the best damn runners Camp Lejeune saw during the 'Nam years), I top out around a mile and a half and pretty much decide right there is where I'll lay down and die. Admittedly, smoking does not help this. Smoking other things did for awhile, as I was asthmatic as a child but fixed it by building up some greeeeat lung capacity in my late teens. Now, after four months of eating whatever I wanted and getting my only excercise in walking Florence's cobblestone streets in heels and the periodic odd hike around Italy and raising my smoking to a national past-time level, running seems like it will pretty much be the end of me. At the moment, I am one gigantic pulled, strained, sore, slowly re-building muscle. However, also being a masochist, there's something that appeals to me in a very dark and disturbing place in waking up to go kick myself in the ass.

And when I am not stuffing my face decadently and holding up both middle fingers to calorie-counting, I eat damn well. By that, I mean I eat SMART. I take a long, hard look at what I'm eating regularly, and I think about the nutritional and health values in them, or lack thereof. I've never had to detox or diet in my life, but I'm not above cribbing some ideas or eating tips from them.

It's only going to work for you if you find foods you're excited to eat. Look for foods or diet strategies that seem good and feasible to you, personally. I don't care what your friend is doing-- one of mine has calorie amounts memorized, but I could care less as long as I don't have to be rolled out of a restaurant and picked up by a fork-lift. I started eating Greek yogurt with honey after I saw an extremely appealing ad for it in Cosmopolitan, and it wasn't until about a year later that I found out that it has 4 times the protein in it for the same amount of fat that regular yogurt does. (Also, it brings me right back to a specific time in history-- 8 AM Technical Writing classes Tuesdays and Fridays Fall semester of '09, in sweatpants, unwashed, and considering using the keyboard in front of me as a pillow. I ate a lot of Greek yogurt and honey in that class.) A healthy alternative to tuna salad of tuna mixed with hummus just tasted better to me, and cut out some mayo that I don't really need in my life. I could eat salmon and avocados every day for the rest of my life, and both happen to be high in Omega-3 fatty acids, which are one of the best things you can ingest, and something that my body responds incredibly well to. A recent British study found that after eating salmon, skin across subject's faces and stomachs seemed tighter and more toned within 30 minutes. Now, that's my kind of exercise.

Substitution is key. If you're trying to cut something out of your diet, you better have a good alternative to it, or you, my friend, are just going to backslide right into a truckload of Ben & Jerry's. Instead of chips, I started eating Pirate's Booty. Then, I moved from Pirate's Booty to a handful of cashews, or small bags of popcorn with Parmesan cheese sprinkled lightly over the top. And speaking of ice cream, banana slices, powdered with cinnamon, cocoa, or cinnamon sugar and sprinkles and frozen in the freezer for about 2 hours, have the same consistency and flavor as ice cream, with nearly none of the calories, and is also 1 of your daily fruit servings.

I try not to eat much processed foods. This does not mean I won't stop in the drive-by of McDonalds-- oh, no. A McNugget Happy Meal to go, please, and I can also order it in Italian if you want. But 4 nuggets is not 6 or 10 nuggets, and is just enough to satisfy a craving. Last summer, while I was so poor processed and therefore, expensive, foods were out of my budget, I cooked and ate more fresh, local, and inexpensive foods. By the time that I had a disposable income again and was grocery shopping, the shit that goes in to microwave pizzas and flavored chips made me literally sick to my stomach. Cutting the SHIT out of your fridge and freezer is one way to get healthier, STAT. And remember-- if you don't buy it, it's not there.

NEVER, EVER deny yourself something you really crave. (This applies to nearly all things in life, except for when it applies to cheating.) If you don't eat it, you're just going to obsess about it and be unhappy, and what's the point in looking good if you're not happy and a bitch to everyone? Just limit yourself. If you want chocolate, have a square, not the whole bar. (Unless you're PMSing, and in which case, rock on with your bad and bloated self. Worry about that shit later.)

Keep track of what you eat, and you'll be amazed how much you're putting in to your body. I keep a food log periodically if I feel like I'm really getting off-track in my eating, just to see where during the day I'm caving in and snacking, and where I'm really losing it. It also helps to have a visual reminder that you just ate 2 hours ago, so if you are feeling "hungry" again (read: "bored"), you can see that you, in fact, are probably really not. ASK YOURSELF-- "Do I really need this?"

I know that short of a stretching rack and bone shaving, I am never going to be a size 2, or a real size 4 for that matter. I am a size 6. Haven't always been, but probably will now always be. I will never be a Victoria Secret's model, no matter how much of their underwear I buy, or how good my catwalk walk is. (And believe me-- it's good. Miss Jay of ANTM would be proud.) But I know what my body can do-- it can sprint a half-mile, ride a three-day event, gracefully absorb a semester of devil-may-care eating, and keep a man enthralled for a few hours or a night or few. That's the biggest lesson that you have to learn about making nice with your body: it is never going to look just like someone else's, because it's yours. It's pointless to hunger (literally) over a size 4 if where you are healthy and naturally balanced is a size 8. I have friends 5 inches taller with bird bones who weigh 12 pounds less then me, and they're the ones jealous of my body. Body perception is skewed. It just is. I am my body's harshest critic, just as I have a feeling the skin in the buff that you see in the mirror is very different from how anyone else who has the pleasure of seeing it views it. (In fact, I have it on good authority that as long as you're naked, most men are really, really pleased with your bod.) So, as long as it's healthy and does what you need it to do, be happy with your body. That's centuries of family history in there, and only the way you treat yourself is going to change anything. Exercise, smart eating, and a few minor changes in your daily routine, and you'll quickly come to terms with the body you're bringing to the beach this summer.

And a note to the men: Just as women have an obsession with being thin, you seem to have a desire to NOT be thin. I have dated it all-- beer kegs of the undrinkable kind; taut soccer bods; tall and slender men; and ripped jocks. You may call them "chicken legs" or "getaway sticks," but women are surprisingly lenient when it comes to men's bodies. Let me tell you why: because we KNOW you're not the last guy we dated. I went from over 200 pounds of bicep this, six-pack that, lats and quads and glutes, oh my! to a body nearly half the width and on whom that sort of tone-age would be impossible, and do you know what I was thinking? "Hair. Manly body hair. Where have you been; I've missed you so! Thank you, Jesus, thank you!" What we liked in one man is sure not to be what attracts us to another. So, stop hiding under the covers like a woman, or bolting for the bathroom in the middle of the night while you think we're asleep. Because we're awake, and as you slide out of bed and creep out of the room, we've got one eye peeked open and are thinking, "God, I love that ass."

XOXO