Guess that movie reference!*

I realize that’s a bold statement, but it’s true so stay with me.

This past Saturday, somewhere between 2PM and 2AM I put together all the pieces of my former flirting self’s life and determined exactly what that idiot was doing so wrong. Here’s how.

Over Labor Day Weekend, R and I took a trip to San Francisco to see Northwestern (his college football team) play Berkeley (another college’s football team). We joined three of R’s closest college friends on this mini break – all of whom are males. To be specific, there were other people in attendance of the female variety, but the majority of my social time was spent among these fine gentlemen. I feel I should point out that none of them were gay because A. it’s relevant to the story and B. it’s rare that I’m in a group of men that isn’t at least 50% gay.

Now, I am perfectly comfortable spending hours if not days on end as the only chick at a sausage fest (slant pun intended). I can hang with the guys. I can joke with the guys. I can look very convincingly like I am following most sports conversations. Moreover, I am adaptable to a variety of activities, am not faking when I order a bourbon, and will eat two hot dogs for dinner (fine, one was a chicken apple sausage but if it’s from Top Dog, it counts).

I really like to be “one of the guys.” I take pride in participating as an “equal” and not “the one girl we’re hanging out with today.” My goal has always been to make guys feel like there’s no difference between us – I can do anything you can do, and act super cool doing it.

Which is exactly what was wrong with my former flirting game.

See, all weekend long I treated these guys just like I used to treat all guys, including ones I was interested in dating. To be clear, I did not spend my weekend flirting with these guys. The point is that my former flirting was designed to make it seem like I wasn’t flirting at all! I wasn’t “one of those girls” I was “just like you guys, especially you hot one!”

It wasn’t until this weekend – in the presence of the man who finally saw through all my crap and brought out my buried sweet and girly side (note: girly is measured by mentality, not number of shoes owned…) – that I watched myself play “guys’ girl” and then felt myself be, “guy’s girl” (that’s a really brilliant line, you just have to read it four or five times).

With R I’m goofier. I don’t pretend to be confident all the time. I can be quiet when the moment calls for quiet. I’m not always trying to keep up. It’s not as blatant as I’m explaining it to be. I don’t go from SNL character to real, human woman. But there’s a difference, and I really felt it this weekend. 

Now hold on because this is NOT some kind of “act like a lady to win a man” lesson.

When I brought this whole issue up to R he said, “yeah, I saw that happening, but I don’t remember you being like that in the beginning. You were always different with me.”

By different I think he meant “yourself.”

If I had really, truly been a “guys girl” – whatever that means – I might have ended up with a guy who’s looking for that kind of girl. But I was faking it, ish. Let’s say I was 25% faking it, for the sake of my past self’s pride. Something about R must have snapped that 25% faker out of me – or maybe something about me made him ignore the slightly-off elements. Either way, it worked out leading me to this past weekend’s fairly mortifying realization.

I like to think some of this wisdom has to do with recently turning 30, but I think it probably has more to do with being in that lightly drunk, football tailgating haze where you can almost watch yourself acting as it’s happening live.

I’ll be doing more of that in two weeks when BC (my college football team) plays USC (Matt Leinart’s college football team). Maybe I’ll finally figure out why it took me eight years to figure out when I want to do with my life during that tailgate. Stay-tuned. 

*SHE’S THE MAN!