That’s basically a nice way of saying, superficial qualities for which I am judging the shit out of you. If you’re one of those people that’s riding your high horse down a sandy beach all slow motion like “oh, I don’t judge anyone, I am too busy writing a series of haikus about inner beauty” - I hope a large wave crushes you (but not your horse, I always hate it when the horses die in movies).  

I will never, ever, ask a guy “What is the first thing you noticed about me?” Mostly because I know the answer will either be my ass, or something like “You were crying alone in the corner because you thought the last season of Dawson’s Creek sucked … and your friends left you.” 

If you pass the following tests, I will have a crush on you. If you do not pass, I will still plan our life together. Three kids. Apartment like Meg Ryan’s in “You’ve Got Mail”. A wiener dog named T.J. after my favorite animated protagonist from One Saturday Morning’s Recess. 

1. Your cell phone background
2. Your choice in footwear
3. What is on your wrist
4. Your top 25 most played on iTunes
5. Do you remember my name

1. Acceptable cell phone background= favorite athletic team logo, your dog, the background the phone came with because you don’t know how to change it. Unacceptable= your family, any pet other than a dog, a girl. I do not want my dirty drunk text popping up on your phone over your mother’s face. I refuse to date (and by date I mean hook-up) with anyone who has a reptile (and don’t say you have one in your pants). Boyfriends of the world, never make your girlfriend your background because the second you change it, she will find out, you will get in a fight, she will change her relationship status to “it’s complicated” and you will apologize first.

2. Footwear selection. All white sneakers, no. Anything that exposes your hobbit toes, no. The male version of Sketchers Shape-Ups, no. If you butcher an acceptable form of footwear like Nike dunks or boat shoes with mid-calf black socks, no. Man Uggs, you’re dead to me.

3. Wrist jewelry. One of those bracelets that help with your balance, no and you’re a dumbass. A friendship bracelet, you whipped boyfriend you- I am surprised your electric collar didn’t go off when you left your girlfriends house. A Livestrong bracelet, only acceptable if you are not wearing cargo shorts. A watch, sexy. Unless it’s velcro or rhinestoned. 

4. The following restrictions on iTunes Top 25: Taylor Swift listed more than twice, no. Ke$ha more than once, no. Any Nickelback, no. Mulan’s I’ll Make a Man Out of You? I am already naked.

5. Call me dude, girl, babe, baby, buddy or any bizarre combination of that list. Dead to me. 
 

For my number.

Honestly, I give out my number more often than you hear groups of underage sorority girls scream “SHHHOTS” at the bar. If you listen closely over the sounds of pastel pants dry humping painted on skinny jeans, “SHHOTS” (pause) “WHOOOO” is a bar staple more common than that mid-life crisis man in button down shirts you always see carrying around a pitcher of beer. WHICH I AM NOT MAKING UP, he is real and he is everywhere you don’t want to be. 

But like I was saying, I give out my number a lot- and now it’s all over the interweb because of my Walk of Shame Shuttle flyers. By “give out my number a lot” I mean I have this really bad passive aggressive drunk habit of being like, “so are you going to ask for my number or not?” I wish I was kidding on that one because I am actually wincing at the thought. Then they are like “oh yeah, right sorry” *gets out iphone* and in my head I am doing the facepalm that Homer Simpson does, but I’ve never seen. Are you squirming as much at reading that as I am at writing it? Needless to say I do not expect to hear from that group I more or less sexually harass. My favorite is when they stand there and call me so I have their number too / a few like to say “let’s see if you gave me the right number”. At this point I have forgotten said male’s name and enter his first name as his most obvious physical trait, and last name as the bar I met him at. 

Guys also always ask for my last name. I thought girls were the ones that did the Facebook creeping? Or is it so you know who to make the full restraining order out against? So then I am sitting there glaring at my phone for a text message that says “hey nice meeting you last night” / “who is this??” AND a friend request. Neither of which come and for some reason when I search “fangteeth ricks” no one comes up. My personal favorite is the one that texts me Tuesday night, and only Tuesday night, as if I turn back into a pumpkin at midnight / every other day of the week- which you think would be preferred over crazy drunk girl. 

But even more puzzling than the ones who never call me, but keep my name in their phone so their friends can be like woah brah you have so many numbers, are the ones that will text you everyday for a week then disappear. This has never happened to me so I don’t have much to say about it, I just hear this kind of thing can happen. Not the disappearing part- the texting for consecutive days part.

I guess it’s a simple case of “he’s just not that into you,” that is easily complicated by gal pals saying things like “he’s intimidated by your independence and men don’t like powerful women,” getting your hopes up in a hopeless place. Not to be confused with finding Dove in a soapless place. So I am gonna call bullshit on him ever calling- he was hammered, you were hammered and chances are you’re the only one who thought there was a spark, he just thought he could walk you to a taxi eight hours later, or if you’re lucky a Walk of Shame Shuttle. 

I am always picking my roommates (well just one, I made it plural so she won’t feel singled out) from their men’s houses in the wee hours of the morning. My mom told me I need to get another job if I want to continue to go out five times a week, but I am a Michigan student- why apply for someone else’s job when I can make up my own?

Call or text me anytime after 6 AM (for those that like to sneak out) and I will pick you up anywhere in AA, assuming you know where you are. Starting at $3 for the first trial week starting 1/23. 

Why stride of pride when you can get a ride! Okay, still working on the tagline for this one.

Girls have three jobs when it comes to the opposite sex: being crazy, the “I am slowly reaching for my wallet but you better pay” for thisdate drink, and being clingy. Guys have one, to contradict themselves in literally everything they say. But there is nothing worse than a little Freaky Friday role reversal. 

Now I am just writing this to kill time before my family goes to bed and I can pour myself a glass of white wine and play Just Dance 3 for Wii until I burn off the Thin Mint girl scout cookies I found in the back of the freezer / a couple of gal pals are experiencing the not-as-rare-as-you-think clingy hook up male type.

Do you know a guy like this? Theres a mutual attraction, you hang out a couple times, start texting while the sun is still out, you drunkenly sleepover one night and the next morning after he drives you home you get a “we need to talk” text. Aka he thinks you want to date, be exclusive, hop on the fast track for Facebook official. NEWSFLASH COLLEGE MEN, most girls don’t want to be exclusive and chances are she’s texting a couple of guys at once. Key word there being TEXTING not fucking, so calm down. When she starts acting “coupley” that usually just means she’s comfortable being sober around you and doesn’t need to chug her roomate’s Sminoff Ice before she comes over. 

Guys pull this whole “I am not looking for a relationship, but I have fun hanging out with you” card. So girls take this card, let go of the dream Friday night photobooth photoshoot with you, and continue to accept free diet cokes and whatever / boner back massages on the dance floor. That works out fine for a month or so, a semester if you are lucky.

Sooner or later one of you is going to find out the other hooked up with someone. The girl response is ask all her friends if she’s cuter than the other chick, get really drunk, lose some shit, and continue to hook up with you. She will ignore her friends calling you (the dude) “such an asshole” who is “using you” because after all, you were friends first, she knows you. She will put up with you because, well, someone is better than no one and there are only so many nights you can order chinese and watch The Notebook by yourself.

The guy response is to flip a shit. Chances are he will call the girl a whore / ask her to get tested / refer to her going out clothes as a “costume”. Maybe he will even tell his mom everything you have said to him. He will text some non-specific insults like, I thought I knew you / you’re not the girl I thought you were / I was beginning to change my mind about relationships / I can’t believe I trusted you.  Because if you’re upset, if his knocks at your self-esteem worked, then you won’t go out and guys don’t like competition.

Remember what he fails to. He was the one that didn’t want a relationship, he is the one that ended things before you even thought about it (okay that’s a lie, because I have planned my life with literally every man over the age of eighteen I pass on the street). I don’t think guys understand that “we’re note exclusive” means girls can “see” multiple guys.

If you’re not together, he has no right to flip a shit. But it’s a two way street; girls, you can’t flip a shit either- guys that don’t want relationships don’t change their minds, so stop asking him to come over and watch a movie before you get too attached. 

The only upside to this drama is your girlfriends will feel bad for you and buy you Red Bull Vodkas, and defending yourself against the novel length texts from him tends to kill one’s appetite. What I really want to know is where were those grammatically correct messages two months ago when I was just getting “k” ?

I haven’t angry ginger blogged in awhile, since my parents (hey mom) and men of relationshits past (though you will never admit it, will you?) have started to read this blog “not all the time…I haven’t in awhile actually”. Okay, yeah right. So I was like, yeah- let’s go ahead and bring back the sass. I doth dub 2012 the year of me disregarding men and acquiring currency. 

A particular sentiment has been weighing heavily on me for quite some time now, and I am not talking about all the post break weight I have gained that has decided to move in around my hips. I am really hoping I am not the only one who thinks this, because then I am just a horrible friend. But I have a hard time believing the following phrases when courting a gentleman heads south: 

• It’s his loss.
• I’ve always thought he was an asshole.
• You can do so much better than him.
• You’re too good for him.
• He will never do better than you.
• He didn’t deserve a great girl like you.

So then here is what I think, um hello, why didn’t you tell me this in the first place. Oh, you did and I just ignored you because I was too busy planning an ultimately disappointing life on Pintrest because my future will never measure up to my boards? Sounds about right. Us women are a delusional species we are. 

Chances are though, his friends are telling him exactly the same thing, or more likely minor variations of the following, depending on their emotional depth and maturity level:

• She was a bitch.
• You ex is crazy… lets blackout.
• Want to try and get our friend’s younger sister’s friends to ask us to prom?
• She wasn’t right for you.
• She was too controlling. 
• Now you can be fun again.

In both scenarios each side of the failed (duh) duo are hearing the same things. But they both can’t be right, can they? Can both sides actually do better? Is he really an asshole and is she really a crazy bitch? Then maybe they belong together.

Makes that feel like a total waste of time. I have never thought anyone I have had real, sober, feelings for to be an asshole. Except for one… you know who you are. So when my friends tell me such things, it makes my heart cramp up like I tried to run home after eating an entire Taco Bell 12 taco box. And if I was so great, why does every relationship end like a scene from Final Destination? If I thought you were great, how could I possibly do better? But heres the thing, we do (usually) do better. Except for those few in between when we decide that this time “best way to get over someone is to get under someone else” will work, which it never does.

Sometimes I think I rather here supportive things like “better luck next time” or “one man down closer to finding the right one” maybe even an overly cheesy “you can’t hurry love”. But then I think about it and it’s like, who the fuck wants to hear that? We much rather blame it on the person, insisting we are right, they are wrong- classic battle of the sexes. To which I say, “hey besties, you’re right. He was a dick. Let’s blackout.”

Deep down I know though, you see the signs after, then it all makes sense. Neither of you were wrong, things just don’t always work. We can’t all be compatible with each other, if we were, the planet would be a giant (and literal) clusterfuck. And who wins with that? Only the companies selling STD meds, thats who.

The only kinds of games I like to play in a relationship are the board game variety, Scrabble and Risk (the game of global domination) to be specific. I mean, I didn’t earn the nickname “Kelly the Conqueror” for nothing. It is both the worst, and best advice, when a male friend tells a female friend to play hard to get. After all, people want people who are wanted by other people (did you follow that?). I learned that from a workshop on interviews / resume BSing in the real world. You can use it to your advantage for one employer, by saying another company wants you- thus making former employer offer you a job faster. Just make sure actual other company exists. While I am sure this works well IRL (in real life, duh) I can’t imagine it turning out too hot with a man, or as I learned from watching “Say Yes to the Dress” last night, when bargaining with one’s dress consultant- I mean, what was Erin’s mom thinking? 

But why should I play hard to get when I am actually incredibly easy (to get, not like, sexually or anything)?

The whole rule of “don’t contact (insert name here) and he / she will call or text you within 7 days.” First off, am I the only one who reads that and hears “7 days” in my head like that pale chick from The Ring? Not to be confused with this pale chick.  Second off, technology makes 21st century dating impossible. Impossible by its countless ability for possibilities. Drew Berrymore said it best, “I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies.” Yes Drew, it is exhausting. But is it worth it? 

Really makes you think. Then I realize oh wait, thinking is the problem in the first place. Time for that noon glass of wine. Don’t judge me- Cosmo says a glass of wine a day can prevent (insert trendy disease to overcome here). Because yes, we are all gluten intolerant. If you actually are, I love that gluten free pizza crust. Had it on accident once at a buffet because I don’t read food labels. Blue cheese dressing and ranch look way too similar.

The Holiday season is marked by onset of the “I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed” turned “get me the hell back to campus” mentality, also known as Thanksgiving break. 

Thanksgiving Eve, better known as the biggest bar night in the history of the world United States. It is tradition in some households for teenagers of legal drinking age / in possession of legit fake IDs, to open a single present Thanksgiving Eve- something like pleather leggings or a faux fur vest. Then the young adults gather around their mother, chances are their father is off shaking his head over a tumbler of whiskey wondering where he went wrong, as she does a traditional reading from College Humor or shares the definitions to five random Urban Dictionary terms. Then with a kiss on the forehead and $20 dollars for a cab so the kids don’t wake up their parents when they stumble in at dawn, they are out for the night.

So maybe I got Thanksgiving Eve mixed up with Christmas Eve, but both are a sort of tradition. The only difference is Christmas Eve continues to be awesome and the other just sucks. Real world bars are not the scenes of 27 Dresses or even How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. They more closely resemble any alley in any episode of Law & Order: SVU. They don’t have bowls of booze with plastic animals you can take pictures with and the men look like the rejects of Millionaire Matchmaker. You know the spikey hair, missing the memo that grown men are not supposed to wear anything with rhinestones, and that sunglasses are unnecessary when it’s dark outside- variety.

On a similar note, my friends and I felt rather attractive. We were wearing flattering clothes our size, only had our ears pierced and were sporting our own eyebrows. Apparently half the bar populace missed the memo about showering. A memo I usually ignore, but felt necessary for the general well being and health of my bar hopping community. 

A good half of my high school / the high schools of my area were in attendance as well. Funny how it’s never the girls and guys you want to run into. The best part about this subject was waking up to a couple unexpected texts, a nice break from the “Happy Thanksgiving” mass texts, from girls asking me to write about running into men of the past at the bar. I would post her exact text, but I think she’d flip / it’s more like a novel. So we will leave it at that. 

It was a learning experience and one I have no desire to relive any time soon. The best part about my break? Turns out one of the bars my gaggle of Elementary School friends and I almost went to is owned by a girl from my graduating high school class. Yes, OWNED. She is making money off the one place I seem to lose all of mine. After McDonald’s that is. I need to learn how to say no. No to McDonald’s. So she’s 21 and owns a bar, I’m 21 and hate my major / can’t find flight attendant jobs. 

I’d say life’s not fair, but I got 4th out of 34 in laser tag this afternoon, so I’m feeling pretty optimistic about my future. 

Freshman Year

• You go home for your High School’s homecoming and take pictures with your friends who don’t actually want you there because you’re wearing sweatpants / in college. You secretly hate all of them for getting new shoes and dresses and this is why you join a sorority. For the dances.
• You only eat meals if you have someone to eat them with. You rather eat Easy Mac on the cold tile floor of your dorm than be that one person that takes up an entire table to herself that no one sits by. 
• At your first “pajama party” themed mixed you wear actual pajamas. You are both amazed and disgusted by the girls in tissue paper and floss, like the first time you saw your best friend grind in High School. 
• Leaving lecture to go to the bathroom without raising your hand is a huge thrill.
• You go to frat parties with every girl, and guy, on your floor. Or, if you’re like me, you don’t know anyone on your floor but still go out in a group of fifteen girls.
•  You all wear flats, and your lanyards.

Sophomore Year

• Instead of having your ass grabbed all night at frat parties by seniors who should be at the bar, you sit in someones room and take shots until you’re drunk enough to have the balls to try and get into a bar with and ID that looks nothing like you.
• You exchange your practical backpack for a Longchamp, Vineyard Vines or Vera Bradley bag. You think your shoulder is permanently dented from carrying around all the coursepacks you don’t read, but it matches your ugg boots and leggings.
• You complain about living in a dorm still.
• You complain about living in your sorority house.
• You complain about your co-op / off campus apartment / everything. 
• You get over your fear of going to the campus gyms alone to do your thirty minute elliptical routine.
• You make fun of the freshman walking around in packs wearing their varsity jackets waiting for the bus. You’re lazy and have a car on campus now. You secretly miss the vomit comet, but not enough to tell anyone. 
• You ask your friends in the dorms to steal bagels, fruit, and water bottles of milk for you. This is what being in college is all about. You forget you have chocolate chip cookies in napkins in your backpack, and let the food go bad.

Junior Year

• It feels like all of your friends are Seniors, the rest are able to find IDs that look like them. But you’re a ginger with brown eyes, better luck next year.
• You spend your first summer living away from home and fall madly in love with day drinking.
• You think being a grown up means coming home from work at five, eating a lean cuisine, and having a beer.
• You are finally over your high school boyfriend and realize there are thousands of guys on campus. Hook up with five of them and realize college can feel as small as high school. 
• Care about “your school.” Feel possessive over your porch, your classes, your professors. Care enough to do the minimum amount of homework possible to pass. 
• Don’t worry about your future because you are young, some days you feel cute, and you can do anything. 

Senior Year

• Realize you hate your major, want nothing to do with it in the future, but do nothing about it.
• Either enjoy getting really drunk with your family, or shot gun beers by yourself in the backyard because you’re not sure if you can drink in front of them. 
• Skip anything that isn’t mandatory. 
• Go out during the week. When your parents question your drinking tell them you’re practicing for happy hour after work. 
• Count down the days until you graduate and can move out of this stupid state. Wish you could take all your friends with you. 
• Get sentimental at random times- eating McDonald’s while listening to Christmas music, pulling Red Bull all nighters in library that involve little to no studying, the traffic on your way home from your work/study job. 
• Apply for real person jobs and be jealous of your friends with real majors who get sent around the United States for interviews. 
• Feel out of place at frat parties and at bars on campus. Go to bars off campus and feel cute, wish you were at a frat party. Wish you had money. 
• Start calling home “your parents’ house.”
• Stop getting mad at your friends for sleeping with their ex’s or wearing your top without asking. If that’s what makes them happy, then good for them. Do your own thing. Be happy. 
• Freak out when your friends start getting engaged and feel really old. Realize that could be you in the next ten years, but probably won’t be. You still have the mentality of your fourteen-year-old self, just with a bigger vocabulary. 

Apparently aspartame is my generation’s version of finding out smoking can lead to lung cancer, and ultimately death.

But what doesn’t cause cancer these days? If a guy puts his laptop on his actual lap he can mess up his junk, I know it’s warm but still… isn’t going two hands deep in your own sweatpants enough? I could go my entire life never drinking Diet Coke and then get hit by a car all like, damn if only I were trendy and drank diet coke with a straw and lied to myself enough to believe it tasted better than the real stuff. Something about those new Gestalt cans just speaks to my soul. Further proof that art school ruins everything, I can’t just enjoy a nice can of pop because it’s going to give me a brain tumor, now I have to go and apprecaite them damn typographic selections. On that note, it really pisses me off the weight change of the letters in the “zero” of coke zero.

One day I will indeed give up Diet Coke- the day “stevia in the raw” is included in the mix; or the day I trap a man in a relationshit and allow my figure to do what it will, sans thirty minute elliptical sessions where I just bbm my friends about how much I hate the gym and my Britney Spears Pandora station. I seriously doubt that anything with zero calories is good for us, but we need something to justify our college binge drinking. It’s okay, because I chased with Diet Coke. I have been told that Diet Coke will actually slow down your metabolism, so that defeats that purpose. Although it does taste better than Pepsi, it’s still the pop world’s Bud Light Lime- kinda tastes like piss water, but it’s so cute and I can drink an entire case!

Whenever someone tells me I will get a brain tumor from drinking so much Diet Coke, I promptly remind them that chanes are my liver will fail well before my brain is in the clutches of aspertame’s grasp.

I leave you with this, keep on keepin on the Diet Coke escalator because the world is ending in 2012 anyway and it’s not as if the gates of heaven will have a Diet Coke drinkers and regular Coke drinkers line anyway. As if anyone who reads this blog is going to heaven…