Skanky
Needy
Cheater
Bossy
Easy
The last was a tremendous breakup scene, him trying desperately to extricate himself from a girl who wasn't who he thought he knew and her trying with equal desperation to make sure the whole world knew what she thought he was. Perhaps he had learned his lesson to never break up with anyone in the mall.
Laura was still there, waiting at the edges of his friend circle, neither so close as to become "sister" but not so far as to be "that chick." She had known him since the end of Cheater, two years before. She felt that now was his time to have a nice girl. It had to be her. So, when he pulled her aside that night, it was no surprise that her heart felt like birds were trying to hatch out her chest.
"Umm, Laura?"
She paused. She had to have the right response to be neither creepy and needy nor vacant and cold. She settled for an eyebrow twitch and hand shift. It would have to do. Ugh, nothing was right. She wasn't wearing the right shirt for this. This wasn't how she pictured this moment.
"Laura, I . . ."
This was it. This was the moment. He had to ask her now, right? They were perfect for each other. She was normal, he was . . . well, okay. With the exception of his horrible taste in women, he was normal. It was time for him to ask her and for them to live happily until whenever.
"I want to thank you for helping me through my last breakup," he said, too-fast and practically threw himself from the room.
She turned to the wall and threw it a grumpy frown.
"Bollocks."
Very well done, sir. I think you've captured the feeling in this quite well.
ReplyDeleteWell, I WOULD HOPE SO. I tried! Ever so hard! But I've never been a girl.
ReplyDeleteI don't think guys and girls are all that different, sometimes.
ReplyDeleteThe first line reminds me of Catholic confession.
I think this is perhaps too matter-of-fact for a girl. "She was normal, he was . . . well, okay" would probably be "She was . . . well, okay, and he was glorious" or some such nonsense.
But then, not all girls are like that. :-)
Que bueno.
I took that line with "okay" meaning "weird but okay because we're friend and it's cool" but maybe I was reading too much into it.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Robby, I'm glad you've never been a girl--but I've still gotta say that you did a good job of getting into one's head. Bravo.
Lol I can see that. I take it back. :-)
ReplyDeleteSometimes (more often than not) I think girls are harder to understand than boys.
ReplyDeleteGood books for getting into a (high school) girl's head: Treasure Map of Boys, Boyfriend List, and The Boy Book--all by E. Lockhart (my latest addition to my favorite authors list).
I'm sitting in a library. Are they short? I'll go find them.
ReplyDeleteQuite short. (Even though you've probably found them by now, so I don't know why I'm telling you. But I did just read Treasure Map of Boys and enjoyed it VERY much. She is very accurate when she describes feelings.)
ReplyDeleteGood.
ReplyDeleteI am reading treasure map. They didn't have boy book. So . . . consequently I don't have that.
Yay! You'll have to tell me what you think. (I think it'd be a great one to suggest/assign to a group of girls if I ever work in a public school. [Should I work in an Adventist school, I might suggest it, but in an underground, psst-I-have-a-book-for-you kind of way.]) The Boyfriend List is next on my list.
ReplyDeleteI assume, from the conspiratorial, self-referential way in which the author writes, that the books follow Ruby through high school chronologically?
ReplyDeleteYes, that is what happens in the series. Good luck with that. :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd, if you know any good boy books, please let me know.
ReplyDeleteHm.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with this is that guys write books about
war (red badge of courage and countless others)
mystery (sherlock holmes)
hunting/running (hunt for the red october/jason bourne [both have elements of hunting and running])
surviving (ender's game)
poverty (a book I read by James Baldwin that blew my mind)
being different (Black Like Me)
Even the young adult literature I have read deals only with those themes. It's like the conflict of man vs. woman is non-extant outside of women's literature. Weird, huh?
But if you want really good books for digging into the male psyche . . .
A really good book that kind of explains how dudes function in fraternities (which seems to be an element of relationship structure that escapes many women), read Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. If I remember correctly, there are large chunks dedicated to "How to Act if You are in the Army" which is basically a giant fraternity.
ReplyDeletePrivates are all equal.
You all work your butts of equally.
You will fight and die to defend the man next to you.
If the man next to you dies, you will fight and die to defend his dead body until someone takes it away to give it the respect it deserves.
It's pretty intense.
Where can I find "Starship Troopers"?
ReplyDeleteIf you want a book that talks about how guys deal with relationships, though, Ashlee, you might want to check out "Wild at Heart" by John Eldredge. I don't know how accurate it is, but my happily-married friend Ashley says it is.
I have a copy, but (angry at self) it's not at school.
ReplyDeleteHm. I might read that one too (Wild at Heart.) I don't read books about relationships, so I might as well start.
That one's one you might actually be able to stomach. Tell me how it goes. :-)
ReplyDeleteI FEEL LIKE A MAN
ReplyDeleteI WANT TO GO OUT INTO THE WOODS AND HUNT SOMETHING
Ugh. The horrors of the last few months (five? five months?) have made me feel less and less like a man, the longer this crap goes on. I don't want to be nice anymore. I don't want to respect her wishes anymore. I don't want to bend over backward to make her feel good anymore.
I want to take what I need. I want to tell someone how things will be. I want to be respected. Needed. Listened to. I want to feel okay and safe with being myself and the things I do and want and am. I want vindication. I want to rage at the winds and storm and draw strength from and give strength to a woman and face the world as a team.
I want these things. I want to be a Man. But I don't see any Women. All I see is men and women and none of them deserve the title they claim.
So I'll keep looking.