One of the things that I really try to pride myself on is
being a classy lady above all things.
I mean, I won’t sit here and pretend like I’m some kind of futuristic version
of Audrey Hepburn or that I’ve never acted a little erratically. I can’t lie
for the sake of my reputation and lead you guys on because dishonesty isn’t my
forte. There’s times when I’ve cussed at people in traffic (with the windows
closed because I don’t have a death wish), when I’ve belched in public after
drinking something carbonated, or when I’ve cussed in front of people I
probably shouldn’t have (like one time, in front of my best friend’s nephews at
her wedding…). There have been times when I’ve had a little too much champagne
and have stumbled my way out of the restaurant. (There have been more of those
times than I would care to admit to my soon-to-be daughter, if I’m honest…)
There have been times when I’ve gotten unseasonably angry about something and
been in a really bad mood because I can’t seem to control myself, times when I’ve
dropped the whole positivity thing because after a certain point, I’m sick of
trying to make the day a positive one.
I mean, let’s be real: we’ve all been there, right?
Sometimes it’s so much easier to just behave like a hood rat than to remember
what we’re trying to exude to the outside world. Sometimes when people are outwardly
annoying, it’s really hard not to roll your eyes (that are perfectly winged
with eyeliner and contoured with the latest Urban Decay Naked Eye palette). Sometimes
when people are rude to you, it’s really hard not to be snarky back because
honestly, they probably deserve it. Sometimes when people try to run a stop
sign and hit your car because they apparently don’t have any understanding of
how street signs work, it’s really hard not to give them a manicured finger and
tell them to promptly screw off. And sometimes, when they hand you the wrong
drink at Starbucks, it’s hard not to have a pregnant meltdown because you asked
for goddamn decaf!
Sometimes it can be really hard to remember that cussing,
acting like a raging lunatic, and having normal bodily functions isn’t the
classiest thing on earth. Sometimes it can be difficult to remember, in times
of struggle (especially when it’s at its realest), that having a first class
hissy fit isn’t something that Elizabeth Taylor would do. Getting completely
inebriated and throwing a few punches because someone appreciated how handsome
your husband is probably isn’t what Kerry Washington would do. (Oh my gosh, do
you just not worship her? Lawd.) Getting all caught up in various drama at work
and acting like a total bitch to everyone probably isn’t something that
Julianna Margulies would do. (She would probably send them a fruit basket
because she is famously pleasant and easy to work with.)
But the reality is that the people that we really want to be
like are those elegant, demure, refined and well-dressed women. Those
aforementioned women who look like Jennifer Aniston and carry themselves like a
queen. Those aforementioned ever classy ladies of the world who do a lot of
really awesome things but above all of those really great things, they keep
their shit together at all times. Or like my dear, sweet girlfriend once said,
they “keep their lady points together”.
Something that I always try to do is keep a positive
attitude, to portray myself like a debutante instead of a rough neck woman who
spent the majority of her adolescent life in one of the lesser counties in
southern Florida. I always want to be the bigger person, the one who can be
counted on to take the high road in a really annoying situation, and the type of
woman who is classy and put together, not frazzled and starting drama because
she had a few too many whiskeys. I want to be the Betty Draper of women,
drinking martinis and refusing to smudge her lipstick; not the Courtney Love of
women, pounding shots and waking up with mascara all over my face. This type of
lifestyle, this need to be irrevocably classy, goes far beyond maintaining your
character in a club. (Obviously, because I don’t really go to those…)
There’s money, and
then there’s class. The two are often separated. –Kate Jacobs, The Friday Night Knitting Club
One of my dearest friends used to be really involved with
this family that parented three relatively advanced polo players. She was like
a member of their family and because of this, she spent days at a time at their
house. Because she was a female and the three polo brothers were obviously men,
they had this sweet, platonic relationship where she was just an ancillary part
of their family. She would go to all the matches, hang out with them while they
practiced, and drink with them when they wanted to celebrate a win. She was a
tom boy and fit right in with the crowd. There was nothing ever romantic
between any of them but it wasn’t like she was a superficial part of their entourage.
She was their friend, their pseudo-sister, and someone who would politely check
them if they were out of line.
Well after some time, when the “boys”, as she called them,
began to mature a bit and realize that they could get some easy ladies simply by
showing up to their polo matches, the home environment started to change.
Suddenly there were masses of gold digging women showing up at the farm the men
lived at with their parents. My friend started to notice that there were random
women showing up to breakfast in the morning, looking disheveled and half
made-up in their night before clothes. When there would be bonfires after the
matches to celebrate, these women would suddenly start showing up looking like
expensive escorts trying to close a deal with an old, rich Ukrainian mobster. When there would be family get-togethers (that obviously included my friend as
an extension to their family) or polo matches, suddenly there were random
bimbos showing up, getting sloshed and engaging in tom foolery because they
couldn’t figure out how to act like humans in public.
There was one time in particular where my friend, who is
primarily a lover, not a fighter, had to get a little aggressive in order to
protect herself. I guess there was this one particular woman who frequented all
the polo circles to bag herself a rich gentleman. She already had a child by
another polo player and if I remember correctly, she didn’t totally have
custody of said child. (And not to sound judgmental, but speaking as an
employee of child safety, maybe that was because she was more concerned with gallivanting
around various polo events in order to find herself an affluent baby daddy for
her next child.) Her favorite pastimes included dressing like a hooker for pay
and getting drunk enough to flirt with rich men she probably wasn’t attracted
to.
Well one day, during one of the bonfire nights, the alcohol
was flowing and said gold digger got a little inebriated. Apparently she
noticed that my friend was a little bit on the thin side and decided to comment
on it, siting drunkenly that she looked like a “walking eating disorder”. (And
just to clarify, my friend is about 5’6”, a bit on the thinner side because
she’s a healthy individual, and half Cuban. She also used to model for a living
before she had her child. So yes, she maintained a healthy, enviable physique
because it was basically in her job description.)
My friend got a little irritated and apparently this crazy
fight broke out. I remember my friend telling me that she was really angry
about all of it: the snotty remark from someone who had barely known her five
minutes, the fight that ensued shortly after because drunk people act stupid,
and the fact that this woman was apparently so insecure that she viewed my
friend as a threat to her future livelihood. She kept telling me that this
woman was such garbage that she couldn’t believe the boys had been tricked into
befriending her. (She had been apparently attacking any other female friend
within the vicinity because she so very obviously felt like they were
competition.) She kept saying to me in the email about this whole charade,
“Some people just can’t get their lady points together!”
And listen, to be real with you, I’ve been there. I’ve been
places and around individuals who kind of make me second guess myself. I don’t
have tons of self-esteem to begin with so sometimes when I get around women
that are just stunning, I get a little insecure. But instead of getting drunk
and picking fights with people I don’t know, I usually try to make friends with
them. Especially if they’re sassy, because I want to be the type of girl that
isn’t so easily influenced. And while I’m probably totally inwardly insecure
and texting my best friend about all the ways this dumpster woman made me feel
lesser about myself, I kill her with kindness.
Because there’s nothing more threatening than a beautiful
woman who’s friendly. There’s nothing
more attractive than a woman who is incessantly unbothered.
Books require titles;
reading them doesn’t. –Alan Moore, Lost
Girls
I feel like a lot of times, this inability to keep one’s
“lady points together” can really affect people when they’re dealing with their
exes. Personally, I was always one of those, “Head up, pretend you can’t see
them,” kind of people whenever I would spot my ex-boyfriends. But that’s
primarily because the majority of them are on the irrational side. I remember
there have been times when I’ve been on the flip side of that, when I’ve been
the new girlfriend of the proverbial ex. And in those times, I feel like most
girls just don’t know how to handle themselves. I mean, I’ve been out on dates
with people who have been separated from their ex for a really long time and
it’s like I’m some sort of homewrecker for sitting with their ex-boyfriend at
Chili’s.
But I guess that’s what social media was invented for right?
To talk a bunch of inaccurate nonsense about the people you used to date? Or in
some cases, maybe to do that in an attempt to get their attention? Because
although you don’t necessarily want them anymore, you don’t want anyone else to
have them either.
But the part I don’t get is why people, women specifically,
would rather risk their image than just play it cool. I feel like women get so
frazzled when it comes to ex-boyfriends and instead of just wishing them well
and being thankful that they’re rid of their sorry rear end, they would rather
start a fight with their new girlfriend. It doesn’t really make much sense to
me, to be honest.
I dealt with it a lot in my younger years because I had sort
of allegedly “stolen” this guy away from one of my girlfriends. (They hadn’t
been together for a really long time but she still felt like I convinced her to
dump him and then stole him right out from under her. Like a year later.) And
honestly, we were young and we’re totally friends now but she used to egg me on
constantly. I remember at one point,
I was working at Barnie’s Coffee and she showed up there with her friends. I
remember she fingered the little plastic menu that was on the counter and asked
me, “What’s good here?” I tried to nonchalantly say that everything was, as I
shrugged my shoulders and shifted uncomfortably in my hideous uniform. (I was
borderline anorexic back then and I looked really
good but you couldn’t tell any of that by the boys Oxford I was forced to
wear to work.) I remember then she said to me, “Well, I don’t even like coffee,
so…”
Although I didn’t say anything because I was super insecure,
especially when it came to her, I thought to myself, “Then what the fuck are
you doing here?” But let’s be real: I knew why she was there. The same reason
that I paid her a couple of visits in her workplace to give her a taste of her
own medicine. Childish AF.
One of the things I have learned over the years is that no
one can ever fault you for being too classy. No one ever complained about
having a rational ex-girlfriend who allowed a semi-friendly acquaintanceship
after things ended. No one ever ran around their workplace complaining that
their allegedly crazy ex-girlfriend was too nice or polite the last time they
bumped into them. I feel like these sweet little courtesies are things that are
oftentimes taken for granted. Being a class act is a really good thing, friends. It’s what you should want to be.
You know, one of my Facebook friends (she’s actually my high
school best friend’s younger sister) posted a picture of her daughters at their
Father/Daughter dance. The girls were all dressed up and looking beautiful and
behind them stood their stepfather (my friend’s husband) and their biological
dad. Everybody was smiling, no one wanted to murder each other, and there
weren’t any snarky little remarks via social media. I stared at that picture a
little longer than what was probably normal and then I read through the
comments. Then I said, out loud to myself, “What a functional, loving,
supportive group of gentlemen.”
And you know, I don’t really know these people. I know them through Facebook and I remember
certain things about each of them from when we were kids. But from what I could
tell, they got their shit together, even if it was for only one night, and they
did the right thing for their kids. And that’s what I call a class act.
I couldn’t really imagine many of my exes behaving in that
kind of fashion. Someone would be fighting or cussing or just generally acting
disgruntled. But maybe that’s because the majority of my ex-boyfriends are
still pretty enormous man children. (Probably not really following the practice
what I preach mantra in that last statement but I’m not about to sugarcoat
things for the sake of their reputations. It’s all about progress, friends. I’m
working on it.)
Moral of the Crazy: One
of the things that I think escapes people most often is the ability to maintain
their class during an argument. I have to be real with you when I say that I
have never been one of those people. I might take playful jabs here and there,
I might make sarcastic little comments because I’m full of cute, little one
liners but I’m not one of those people that throws the grenade over something
little. I had an ex-boyfriend that used to pull out things from all over the
place every time he got mad at me (which was like, a daily occurrence). For
example, if we were having a fight about an outfit I was wearing, he would say
something to the effect of, “Why don’t you go back to your ex-boyfriend? He
likes those shitty clothes.” Or maybe something like, “What do you know about
anything? You work at a daycare with a bunch of scumbags.” We could be arguing
about what to have for dinner and he would pull out my dad’s alleged criminal
record.
He was incessantly going for the jugular and I never
understood it. And while it would be really easy for me to just comment on
things like his penis size, the way he licked his fingers when he ate chicken
wings, or the fact that he always said “Valen-times” when he really meant
“Valentine’s”, I never did that because I never really felt like it was fair.
After all, we weren’t arguing about the fact that he couldn’t seem to annunciate
things correctly. We weren’t talking about that fact that he was a behemoth and
somehow seemed to lack in the sexual organ department; we were arguing because
I had probably made eye contact with the waiter or had forgotten to call him
when I was on my way home from an errand. Why would I pull out that nonsense
when that wasn’t even on the table for discussion…? (And I’ll refer to my
former statement: EPIC MAN CHILD.)
But I see it all the time, especially in places like social
media and the political forum. Instead of really addressing the issue at hand
and maintaining one’s class during an argument, some individuals tend to pull
insults out of nowhere. Someone could be assessing where a politician gets his
funding and instead of asking the right questions, they’re going to be like,
“Remember that time in 1976 when you didn’t tip that waiter at Mack’s Golden Pheasant?”
And it isn’t like it’s just some people. I see it everywhere.
(One time a girl even said to me in regards to my ex-boyfriend cheating on
me, “Once a cheater always a cheater; look at your dad.”) And honestly, I just
don’t understand how it can be so easy for people to hurl all these insults
simply because they’re angry. And not just insults, but insults that quite
frankly, have nothing to do with anything. I think it’s partly that we live in
a time where our lives are so out there for the world to see. If you want to
dig up some real dirt on someone it’s incredibly easy. You could type their
name into Google or public records and see what kind of criminal record or
hideous mugshot they’ve got, you could type their name into Facebook and, even
if they’re private, see their tagged photos from a drunken night out with their
friends, you could even hop on Instagram and find friends of friends who all
used the same hashtags and find proof of that one time they got a little crazy
at a Super Bowl party.
The other thing I find with social media is that it’s so
easy to be tough behind a computer. One of the love/hate relationships I have
with growing up in a time like ours is that I feel like a lot of us (myself
included) lack the ability to genuinely communicate. It can be so easy, and
even normal, to just criticize a person to death from the safety of your home
or your office. It’s become second nature to just bully people with the
safeness of internet waves between you. I mean, what’s going to happen? Are
they going to crawl through their computer or iPhone and beat me up? Please,
it’s 2017! I could probably track their phone before they even got close to me!
The other thing that I think women sometimes forget about
maintaining their class is that it’s really the only way to catch a man. At
least a man worth keeping. One of the things I think is so hysterical about
women like the “Cash me ousside” chick is that they must genuinely believe it’s
attractive to act the way they do. I mean, sure, she’s gone viral but that’s
only because she’s so ridiculous. You can’t tell me that anyone who watches
those videos and parody videos over and over again finds any sort of charm in
the way she behaves.
The bottom line is that acting like a raging lunatic isn’t
cute. Of course, staying classy is all about staying true to yourself and being
a good person for yourself. But no
man is going to think a little hood rat is cute; especially when she’s picking
fights with everyone on the Dr. Phil show. I mean, why do you think rappers are
always writing songs about baby mama drama? Because that shit isn’t cute. That’s
why Eminem left Kim.
Get your lady points together!
Like I said, I don’t claim to know everything about
everything. I’m not one of those people who is going to sit here and pretend
like I’m the classiest person on the face of the planet because I’m not. I have
my moments. I have moments where I can’t get through a sentence without saying
the fuck word. I have times where I’m really
frustrated and gossip about people I care about because they’ve pissed me off.
I go through days where I just want to wear pajamas and listen to gangster rap
because it seems a lot easier than acting like an adult and cleaning my house.
But I try really hard to keep those things in check.
I try not to be a hurtful person just because someone made
me angry. I try not to speak like I just walked out of the dirty south gangster
clubhouse sipping a forty. I try not to use the word “fuck” too many times in a
sentence when I could easily better express myself, especially since I’m a
really avid reader with a really high graduating GPA. I try not to get bent out
of shape, jealous, or out of control because I see my ex-boyfriend coasting
through Walmart and instantly relive every shitty memory we ever shared.
Because I want to be a good person. Because I want to be a
lady. Because I want to be someone that people look at and say, “Wow, she’s a
classy individual.” I don’t want them to say things like, “Wow, what a hood
rat,” or “Hey Kate, your ghetto is showing”. Maybe it’s like, after about 21
and a half, you learn that things like that aren’t really compliments to your
character…
It’s something I’ve always really thought about but something
I’ve considered even closely with my pending motherhood. One of the most
important things about being a parent is modeling appropriate behavior and
while everyone sees things differently and has various opinions on what’s
“appropriate and what isn’t”, some things are just sort of common knowledge. I
don’t want my daughter to see me acting like a drunken mess. I don’t want my
daughter to see me ranting, raving and cussing about how someone really pissed
me off. I don’t want my daughter to hear me talking like I just walked off the
set of a G Unit video.
She deserves a clean slate and a chance to observe all the
good qualities her mom has to offer.
It’s just that, and not to sound cliché, but in a world full
of basic bitches, wouldn’t you rather be someone phenomenal? In a world full
Kardashians, wouldn’t you rather be a Princess Diana…?
The more you know
about yourself, the less judgmental you become. –Aniekee Tochukwu Ezekiel
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