The Girl You are about to Meet

The girl you are about to meet has a name that sounds like something men used to pray to.  She is waiting for you outside.  It is cold and the wind has teeth tonight, but she'll brave it all, waiting for you with two tickets in her pocket, smiling politely and shaking her head 'no' at all the people who pass by.  She'll say 'No, I'm waiting for someone' to the men who ask after her safety and comfort, even the ones who smile handsomely.  She'll brave all that too.  All of it, just for the sake of waiting.  After all, she's waiting for you.

When you get there she'll look relieved.  You might recognize this look.  It can either confuse your or embolden you.  She will be taller than you expected.  In her boots and winter clothes she will be taller than you.  You might think this means she is too tall for you, too large, too square shouldered.  She will stop you at the box office and present you with the tickets she bought, refusing to let you pay her back thinking its polite, or perhaps thinking this will make you less likely to be worried about money in the relationship.  This will cause you to worry about how much more money she must make than you and whether you are man enough to seize control of this relationship.  This will also lead you to think that she is too tall for you.  Too big for you.  Too much for you.  You will not think that she is a girl.  Just a girl.  A girl who waited outside for you, enduring the rapier wind and ravishingly warm looks from handsome strangers.  A girl who waited outside in the cold...for you.

You will notice her smile once you're inside.  She has a cute smile.  It shines with a sort of modesty; humility brought on by her uncanny ears.  She will catch you looking at her smile and thus prompt you to look at her eyes.  She's pretty.  Far too pretty for you.  She is perfect.  If things go well you will wake up in her apartment surrounded by her clutter.  You will see her childish, un-sexy underwear.  You will see the dark splotches on her skin; on her back and on her thighs, and the ever-present fuzz of hair covering places on her body which your mind and issues of Playboy tell you hair should not grow on a woman.  If things go really well you will discover hair too bold to grow in peach fuzz.  You will encounter her most intimate of briers.  You will find she is a terrible cook or that she puts ketchup on her eggs.  All of your favorites will be absent from her movie collection.  If things go really well, you will become privy to her every imperfection; not in one night, but certainly over time.  And you may just come to love her for it.  But tonight, things will not go that well.  Not as long as you are intimidated by her.  Not as long as you fail to reward her graciousness with your graciousness.  And certainly not if you keep a girl like that waiting.

The girl you are about to meet is actually your enemy.  There is only one copy of that special edition book signed by the author left on the shelf and both your hands will fall upon it at the very same time.  She will pretend to be modest and shy.  Will apologize, because she is a girl and, unlike you, is cautious about unsolicited touch.  She will tell you, 'that's fine.' and 'You can have it.'  You will not consider the questionable judgement involved in starting a relationship based on a lie.  If you really look you'll notice the way her eyes never leave the book; and how want and disappointment never leaves her eyes.  You, however, will be concentrating on how cute her glasses look.  You will offer her the book, thinking nothing of her eager and unhesitating acceptance; in the hope that you will be able to parlay it into a date.  You can, but you will have to be a lot smoother than you actually are.  You will in fact, have to take on a completely different persona to pull this off.  See previous caveat re: starting off relationships based on lies.

You will think yourselves compatible.  You will have all the same interests and you will both think "Hm.  Perhaps this is the one."  And because you are both contemplating this, and because you are both becoming tired of meeting new people you will both be on your best behavior, and will therefore continue to lie to one another about things which should not or would not normally matter.  At the end of all this she will call you a red meat eating, uncultured, whole milk drinking douche bag, and you will call her a clove smoking, non-dick-sucking, two faced, hipster poseur bitch, and you'll both part ways searching for the girl and boy you respectively met before one another.

The girl you are about to meet has eyes like you've never seen before.  She is tired of hearing about them.  She will stare at you after you say it to her, lock you with those unprecedented cliches, challenge you to say something to her, something new, something--anything more.  You will understand thins inherently, feel the hollow Christmas ornament nature of your polished tin complement and search yourself for something with a little more...moreness to it.  By the time you think you have it, the bus has stopped, the doors have opened, and she's already left.  You will never see this girl again.  You will always, always want her.

The girl you are about to meet has been told she has too much meat on her bones.  The moles on her face mark strange shapes between her mismatched ear, her prominent nose, and the excess cheek that hides her eyes when she smiles.  And yet, she is beautiful.  She wears clothes that do not flatter her but at least they drape in patterns that disguise her paunch.  She is too much of herself.  She has grown to dislike the taste.  And so, you must taste her.  You must kiss her so deeply that she discovers brand new flavors in herself.  You must do this so often that the hands which come up to brace herself against the assault of your pressed bodies become quaint tourist attractions.  A place for you to visit and imagine a time when such a great nation needed protection from invaders. The girl you are about to meet will some day open her borders to you, tax free.  Her hips are beach towels.  At the sunset of your lives you will find they have spread and you will both still enjoy the warm comfort of them long after your children have played in the surf, built their castles, wrapped themselves in their own beach towels, and put all the toys away.