Pants.

All right I give. I have been a member of this blog basically since it first began, months ago, and while I think I have commented very occasionally, I have not yet tossed my hat in the ring with a real honest-to-goodness post. Here goes.

I go to Messiah College, but I am familiar with the ways of Grove City, as my brother (and his wife, mind you) went there, and my cousins go there and my best friend Rachel goes there. I don’t know what the Grove is like in regard to this, but it is a commonly agreed upon fact that here at MC, boys are wusses. They don’t ask girls out. I am sure that they fear girls’ expectations and that they fear the DTR and don’t expect to propose, so they don’t ask girls out. But this is faulty logic. Because not every girl wants to get married after one date. In fact, most of us don’t want that at all. I have already had a very complicated and difficult and long relationship that left me with a very broken heart, and I thought (once upon a time) that he was the one. And now I’ve had to give him up entirely, for the sake of my own sanity. So right now, I don’t want to be proposed to. I just want some guy who I like to take me to a movie.

You would think that on a campus of 2800 people – 60% of us girls – there would be a number of guys to pique my interest. And you would think that I would pique, well, someone’s interest. I mean, come on! I’m fun, I’m funny, I’m smart, I’m talented, I’m ridiculously loyal, etc etc etc. Oh yes, and they tell me I’m striking and beautiful (some days I even believe them). So why have I not been asked out on a single date since I got here in August of 2003? Now, I will admit that there are two guys on this campus who would ask me out if I would let them, but honestly, one of them is more feminine than I am and that’s a huge problem, as you might suppose, and the other one simply isn’t right. He isn’t the kind of man I would want to marry and I don’t think we’re compatible at all – yes, that’s thinking ahead, but I have to, because if I didn’t think ahead, I would just say yes and be totally selfish about it - have fun with him because I can - and we’d both end up hurt in the end. So that’s no good, either.

In the meantime, there is a guy – one lone, single guy – who I really like. I’ve actually had a bit of crush on him since last year, but then I was abroad last semester and really hadn’t even thought about him, and now I have a class with him again. Now, this guy and I were flirting pretty crazily the first 2 weeks of the semester. But it occurred to me, after putting out some very small feelers to see how he’d respond and getting nothing in return, that I had no real reason to think that he liked me as anything more than a fun classmate – which is what I am to most people – and that’s okay, but I’m trying not to flirt as much. Because I can’t afford to get my own hopes up. The thing is, I don’t think my future husband is on this campus, and that’s scary for me, because as an actress, I have no life outside the theatre- and that’s going to be even more drastically true when I’m out of college – so when will I ever have time for a relationship?

I know, I know, trust in God’s timing. The reasons I started writing this post are the following:

-My mother recently asked me on the phone if I’d been asked out on any dates lately, like it was the most natural thing in the world. I said, “Mom, I haven’t been asked out since high school.” And sadly realized that I wasn’t even exaggerating.

-A friend heard that story and said, “Really? I don’t understand that at all.” implying that of COURSE I should get asked out all the time. But I don’t.

-When I was lamenting my situation – never being asked out, only liking one or two guys on the whole campus – to my roommate, she said, “Well, maybe if you weren’t married to the theatre department-“, and I said “Don’t blame ME!!!” and after discussing it further, we agreed that even if I wasn’t married to my major, I probably still wouldn’t get asked out, because she is a very similar person to myself in a lot of ways and she doesn’t get asked out either, despite being ridiculously amazing. And she even HAS a social life.

-When I started discussing this with two friends, one of whom is a guy who I’ve known since the first week of my freshman year (tho he is now gay, which he supposedly wasn’t then), said, “Maybe if you wore the pants a little less. I mean, you are who you are and that’s great and you’re very….. (he said something like forceful, but I don’t remember what word he used)... and that’s why we love you, so don’t change that, just maybe… a little less.” And then we had a very jokey conversation about how I should send this guy I liked a pair of pants (or a pic of a pair of pants) with a note attached that said, “If we were in a relationship, I’d totally let you wear these.” Har, har. The thing is, as much as I’m taking this friend’s advice with a grain of salt, I think maybe he’s right? I began to wonder how intimidating I actually am, and I suddenly felt like Tracy from The Philadelphia Story, like a bronze statue that people admire but that no one can passionately love because no one can get past the ideal of the statue. (Where IS Cary Grant when you need him? Or even Jimmy Stewart. I'd be okay with Jimmy Stewart, too...)

This post is sounding very egocentric, isn’t it? It is not meant to in any way, but ask Marianne, I do have a pretty… “big” personality, and while I am not as loud or crazy as some people – and while I am certainly not an aggressive/competitive type – and while I am about the least abrasive actor you’ll meet – I imagine I’m still pretty intimidating.

My only comfort at the moment is that I am truly trying not to wear the pants as far as boys are concerned and I’m not pursuing any guys right now, even as friends, because it’s gotten me in trouble in the past, and because if they want me, they’ll have to come and get me, and any man worth my time is going to love me for my… “initiative”. Yes, that’s right, for my pants, which I will gladly hand over to the right man at the right time. … Pun intended.

So, folks, is the “I think I intimidate people” excuse a valid one? Or am I delusional? Does “pants-wearing” send guys running scared? Or do I just need to get off this silly Christian campus into a world of more possibilities?

Remember, I’m not asking for a ring. I’m asking for a nice guy to take me to the movies sometime.



*NOTE: In England, the term "pants" means underwear in one context and "sucky" in another. For example, when my friend Alex wanted to say something was totally sucky, she'd say, "It was absolutely pants, because-" I find this funny, because wearing the pants is turning out to be, well, pants. Comments on this and all the rest of the above more than welcome.