Reason #19: Fact or Fashion?

Why I am a Misogynist, Reason #19: Fact or Fasion? (Or Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Misogyny) A few weeks ago a school of graduate studies decided to organize an interdepartmental mixer. Normally, I never attend these parties. They are usually held in some cheesy bar that serves really bad and overpriced drinks. True, all drinks in NYC are overpriced, but some bars still manage to serve a decent cocktail. No one at these things ever "mix." We all stay within our departmental cliques. And who can blame us? The music is usually so loud that any attempt to mingle would just be an embarrassing series of "What?" "I didn't catch that?" "You study philosophy?" "No? endocrinology?" "Oh! Topology?" "No? Okay, never mind. I can't hear you." Suffice to say these mixers are usually quite lame. But this time around I got dragged into going by my friend M. If you will recall M. also dragged me to a party a few months ago to serve as moral support for an encounter with her new boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. M. is still dating this guy but things are currently a little rocky between them. She wanted to go to this party, in part, to scope out potential new mates. So here I am, not particularly drunk and not particularly enjoying myself (I suspect the former would have helped the latter.) and eventually I have to go to bathroom. I'm sitting in the stall, because, unlike someone, I don't feel the need to hover over the toilet set and drizzle piss everywhere like a flowering can. I can hear two women talking as they wash their hands and fix their hair. Then, the door bursts open and in stumbles a third girl. She is so drunk that I can actually hear her stumbling. The ensuing conversation went like this: Drunk Girl (DG): Are you guys undergraduates? Girl 1 (G1): Uh, no. Why? DG: Because, like, no one hear knows anything about fashion. Girl 2 (G2): Well, what do you mean by that? DG: Well, like, no one seems to get any references to live MTV or Vogue or anything. G1: So you mean that no one understand your references to pop culture? DG: Yah! Or like to even cosmetics or anything! It's like I'm the only girl hear. G2: Umm, we're girls. DG: Well, yeah, but I feel like I'm the only girl-girl you, know. Like in my department. I feel like the only real girl. G2: What department are you in? DG: [unintelligible slurring of words] G1: What? DG: [unintelligible slurring of words] G1: Sorry, still didn't get that DG: Near…EASTERN…studies G2: oh. As much I wanted to hear more, I also was dying to know what DG looked like. So I finished my business and stepped outside to wash my hands. And there she was in all of her radiant, fashionable, cosmetic-wearing glory. She stood at a mere 5'1", trim but not thin. Her hair black hair was pulled back in a loose and frizzy ponytail. As far as I could tell she was only wearing some mascara and lipstick. She had on tennis shoes and jeans that were far too long for her short stature. On her top she wore a lose black, long sleeved cotton shirt and a one of those colorful fuzzy knitted scarves that are all the rage these days. There was nothing particularly offensive about her appearance, but for a girl who just when on a tirade about her classmates' ignorance of fashion one would think that she herself would at least be fashionable. The other funny thing is that she was talking to two women who obviously had less interest in fashion that DG. DG was either so drunk or such a bitch that she did not know or did not care that her comments might be insulting to the women she addressed. In a way, I almost felt sorry for DG. I saw her later that night falling over some guy. He seemed more exasperated with than interested in DG. I suspect that she went to a smaller undergrad institution where she was used to guys thinking that she was both attractive and smart. And as a grad student in New York she's having difficulty adjusting to her realization that she is not as smart as she though. Thus she is trying to overcompensate with her looks. I have a little sympathy for her because coming to New York made me realize that I will never be a Hot or even a not-so-hot. But like I said, I only had a little sympathy, which was not enough to prevent me from bursting into laughter when DG fell on the dance floor as she was showing off her hot dances moves to the oh-so-trendy-and-hip song, It's Getting' Hot In Here.