Clearly, I Didn't Think This Through : The Story of One Tall Girl's Impulsive, Ill-conceived, and Borderline Irresponsible Life Decisions (9781101612255) Read online

  After a quick cup of coffee, I gathered my things and left. The brisk winter morning air felt like it was punching my wine hangover in the face. I squinted in the sunshine. My armpits stank and there was dog drool still in my hair. And I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to be invited to any more game nights at Alvin’s place. Between his bike getting to first base with me, his dogs getting to second, and him rounding third, I figured it was time for me just to go home. All I wanted was to take a nice, long shower, then crawl into bed.

  When I got home, I saw that my mom was on the phone. She looked at me and said, “It’s okay, Officer. She’s here. In fact, she just walked through the door.” I guess you know the rest.

  CHAPTER 3

  Short Guys Rule

  Hello! Is this thing on?” [taps microphone] “Can you guys hear me in the back? You can? Okay, cool. My name is Anna and I am addicted to short guys. It’s something I struggle with on a daily basis. I’ve tried to overcome it; I’ve tried to get into guys with longer inseams. But short guys just feel so good, you know? To hug them, to kiss them, to feel them against me. I love their little hands and their little feet. Oh God. I feel a relapse coming on. Let’s wrap this up. There are doughnuts and coffee by the door. Thanks for coming.”

  Well, it turns out that there isn’t a recovery group for people who prefer men under 5′8″. I’m in a true minority, like Inuits or full-time mimes. I have never met another woman who has told me that she prefers shorter men. Usually, women are resigned to it: “Eh, Lewis is a great guy. I just wish he were a little bit taller.” I have never said that.

  As soon as I walk into a room, I scan the joint for the shortest guy to hit on. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who knows just how radical they are. Maybe loving short guys is a cult phenomenon, like attending midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show or caring about the plot of Donnie Darko. Maybe it takes a special kind of woman to prefer their shorter limbs, if not downright demand them. I am that special woman.

  How much do I love them? Well, let’s put it like this: When people asked me what I wanted for my birthday last year, I told them that I wanted a harem of eight guys under 5′8″: one for each day of the week and an alternate in case one of them got sick. My friends chuckled uncomfortably because they knew that a harem of short guys would be my ultimate birthday present, but it would probably involve a Craigslist post to get the ball rolling, and no one wants to sort through the e-mails to organize that.

  When I tell people that yes, I’m a 6′1″ woman who would rather date a short dude, they look at me like I’m clinically insane. They have no idea why I’d rather snack on a fun-sized Snickers bar when there are king-sized Snickers bars out there. Because a fun-sized Snickers feels better in my boobs! Wait, that didn’t come out right.

  I have never been attracted to a guy taller than me. I have never Googled a man over 6′1″ to find out more information about him. I have never daydreamed about being somewhere tropical with a guy over 6′1″. Honestly, they don’t even register on my radar. They’re background noise, cluttering up my view, getting in the way. They’re redwoods when I’d just prefer a nice shrub.

  You might wonder what it is about a shorter man that is so appealing. Well, I love how they have to stand on a curb to kiss me good night. I love how they have to strain their neck to meet my lips. I love how their little hands feel on my long legs. I love it all.

  It was a shock when I found out that not everyone feels the same way I do about dating a shorter man. It was a fairly recent discovery. As I started to hook up with more guys in Philly, my friends noticed a pattern emerging. When we’d walk into a party and whisper about the hot guys who turned our heads, I’d consistently swoon over the littlest dudes. We started calling short guys “Anna-boys.”

  “Oh, that guy is totally an Anna-boy.”

  “Where?” I looked over at the short guy in a hoodie pulling on a beer in the corner.

  “Oh, yeah,” I agreed, nodding. “That’s a total Anna-boy.”

  My mother hoped that my attraction to short guys would be a phase that I’d outgrow, like dyeing my hair black or buying clothes at thrift stores. I did outgrow those other things, but as I got older, I liked my men staying the same height, which was approximately as high as my chest.

  I feel like the Ghost of Christmas Past here, but let’s take a peek at me when I was younger. There I am in second grade at Hebrew School, taller than everyone else at my class, staring at the shortest boy, named Lev. He looked like Fievel in An American Tail, all ears and floppy shirts. He was the first boy to give me butterflies in my stomach and the shortest one in my grade. There I am drawing our initials with a plus sign between them, corralled within a heart drawn in red crayon, while he’s knocking around with toy trucks on a patch of carpet. He doesn’t even notice that I’m transfixed by him.

  Those with a heart condition might want to sit down before they read the rest of this sentence, but Lev did not return my affections. I don’t even think he ever bothered to learn my name. I guess I wasn’t a hot second grader? Maybe my turquoise culottes didn’t do it for him? Who knows? But it wouldn’t be the last time a short guy had no freakin’ clue how to handle my attraction to him.

  My next crush ruined me for life: I was in third grade and his name was Michael J. Fox. I was obsessed with Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties. I was a tall, awkward nine-year-old and he was a short, jittery Republican who constantly ran his hands through his feathered hair; clearly we were a match made in heaven. I’d kiss the television when he’d be onscreen, wiping away the dust on my lips with the back of my hand.

  My sister Sarah would recoil every time I did it, but I didn’t think it was gross. He was my man. Of course we’d kiss! Unfortunately, it didn’t feel like kissing him even though our lips were so close. As my hand smeared with soot reminded me, I was kissing dusty glass, not his perfect lips.

  For my birthday that year, my mother took me and my sisters to see Back to the Future at the movie theater. Marty McFly was the hottest guy I’d ever seen in my life up to that point. Those tight jeans! Those suspenders! Those purple Calvin Kleins! I didn’t even know guys’ underwear came in purple; talk about a game changer. I wondered what his neck smelled like and what it’d feel like to squeeze his thigh the way Lorraine did under her parents’ dining-room table. I wanted him to gaze at me the way he gazed at a 4×4 truck at the end of the film. I wanted to know. I needed to know.

  After I saw the movie, I plastered my walls with Michael J. Fox posters that I’d eagerly tear out of Teen Beat magazines. I had him “in stereo,” smiling at me from all sides of my bedroom. Dozens of Michaels, all hovering over me like an attentive, friendly boyfriend. I knew he was out of reach, like all teen heartthrobs. He lived in Hollywood; I lived in a shitty small town outside Albany, New York. And, given our drastic age differences, I’d say our romance was a long shot.

  My family moved to the North Shore of Chicago the summer before eighth grade and that’s when I started to dig my heels into the music scene. I’d read Spin, Alternative Press, and Rolling Stone from cover to cover. By junior year of high school, I was heading downtown to catch local punk bands playing at the Fireside Bowl every weekend. And that’s when I spotted Charlie leaning against a wall. He was 5′6″ and something about him reminded me of Michael J. Fox. Maybe it was the way his hair flopped by his ears. Maybe it was the way he jammed his hands in his front pockets the way Marty McFly did. I’m not sure, but I was hooked. I gave him my phone number and instructed him to call it. The first time we talked on the phone, we gabbed for hours. We were inseparable after that.

  On our first date, I asked if he cared that I was so much taller than him. He shrugged and said that he thought it was cool. It wasn’t like he enjoyed my height; he just seemed not to mind it. That was progress, I guess.

  The only time our height difference was ever an issue was when we went to senior prom and he didn’t want to slow dance with me because he said that we’d lo
ok ridiculous. I nagged him about it until he relented. I have to admit, we probably did look ridiculous with his hands lightly resting on my hips and my arms on his shoulders like a trapezoid in formal attire. But it was freakin’ prom! We paid, like, a hundred dollars to go. I had shaved my legs. We were going to dance, goddammit! Well, I got my wish and it was easily the most awkward twelve measures of “End of the Road” by Boyz II Men I’ve ever danced to.

  He looked like he was in physical pain swaying around the dance floor with me for that one minute. He hated it. I watched him hate it and it made me feel bad. So when he asked if I’d had enough before the first chorus even kicked in, I said sure. We went back to our table and joined the rest of our friends. That was the first time that a short guy seemed to love me in private but seemed uncomfortable with the arrangement in public. We held hands under the table for a few minutes and left shortly thereafter.

  Most people don’t understand the attraction I have to short men. I’ve had people berate me, suggest psychological counseling, you name it, all because I like shorter dudes. On a certain level, I understand the outrage. You never see taller girls with short guys in the movies unless it’s an ugly homeless man who suddenly wins the lottery and decides to surround himself with buxom Amazon women. Usually a shorter man dating a taller woman is a punch line.

  But nothing depresses me more than seeing a short guy with a shorter girl. It stings, like he personally rejected me. I imagine him with a huge checklist of qualities that his dream girl would have and he took out a gigantic marker and crossed off “being tall” with gusto.

  Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve even cried about being dumped for a shorter girl. The first time it happened was in college after Jason, a 5′5″ cutie, ended it with me and picked a girl who was about 5’ even. I sobbed into my pillow because I was convinced that no short guy would ever love me. I was a victim of his insecurity, rejected because of my height even though I loved him because of his. I stopped crying after a while, but I felt bad for weeks.

  What a cruel fate! Did my mom piss off a wicked witch when I was born? I was like Sleeping Beauty, except instead of her curse of falling asleep at sixteen if a prince didn’t kiss her, I’d have to endure watching guys I loved choose other, shorter women. My curse was decidedly worse.

  Maybe you’re wondering how shorter guys feel about me liking them so much. Confusion, intimidation, bewilderment: All of those words come to mind. Some take offense, arguing with me that they’re not short. This one guy, Ted, who I went out with twice four years ago, snapped at me that his height was “average.” Sorry, Ted, but being 5′8″ is considered short when I’m 6′1″.

  And I didn’t realize that the word short was so charged. It really seemed to bother him like I’d said he was husky or illiterate. Sheesh. But I like short guys, I protested! I’d jump up and down about it on Oprah’s couch like Tom Cruise if I could.

  I think these guys aren’t used to being desired. They aren’t prepared for it, frankly. This has happened a million times: I’ll see a cute guy at the bar. We’ll make eye contact. Then, I’ll do that thing where I beckon him with my “come hither” finger. His eyebrows nearly fly off his head as he points to his chest. “Me?”

  “Yes, you!” I’ll confirm with a smile. It’s around then that the sweat beads materialize on his forehead. I swear that I can hear him gulp from across the crowded bar. “Yes, short dude in the cool sneakers and V-neck sweater, I want to talk to you.”

  He seems terrified, like I’m about to yell, “Psych!” if he takes the bait. He looks around the room like he’s being punked. Like Ashton Kutcher’s going to jump out of a closet and tell him to look in the monitor and wave because, yeah, no tall girl would ever consciously want to date him.

  Some short guys love the attention I lavish on them. However, I’ve come to realize that they don’t love the attention that they get from everyone else when we go out together. Everyone stares, evaluating the match. Guys are generally insecure anyway, but add an American Idol–esque judging experience every time we enter a restaurant and it’s enough to make him pick a shorter, less attention-grabbing companion for the next weekend.

  Believe me, I’ve tried to date taller guys. I dated a guy last year named Jack who was 6′4″. I’m going to be honest: I can kind of see the appeal of a higher gent. There was less awkwardness. It was nice to lift my head up to kiss him. It was nice to curl up in the crook of his armpit as we watched movies on his couch. And it was nice how his arms wound around my waist when we’d hug. We fit perfectly in a way.

  But when it came time to getting it on, it wasn’t on. He had such long limbs. And big feet. It was like scaling Mount Rushmore just trying to hook up. He seemed so far away, even when we were close. Honestly, it made me wish he were just shorter. Then he’d be right there, closer to kiss, totally wrapped up in my arms. It’d be way hotter.

  I’ve finally accepted this preference of mine. I’ll probably always get weird looks when I walk with a short guy on my arm, but I don’t care. I’ll be too preoccupied thinking about getting him to stand on a curb for my good-night kiss.

  CHAPTER 4

  Never Trust a Jazz Hound

  Moving to New York City to attend Barnard College in the summer of 1996 was a dream come true. It was my first choice of schools and I was elated when I got in. In my mind, New York was the place to be; it was where things happened, the center of the world. All the best bands played there, all the best food was there, it was in the middle of everything, and I felt like it was where I needed to be. It never occurred to me to live anywhere else. I was as wide-eyed as ever rolling into Morningside Heights on a balmy August day with all of my possessions stashed in a ratty suitcase I’d received as a bat mitzvah present from a distant relative.

  However, one thing I hadn’t planned on was the fact that living in New York made me more uptight than ever. From the beginning, Barnard did a great job of freaking us out about the “dangers” of living in the city. They stuffed our orientation folders full of pamphlets that warned us about pretty much everything we could encounter. As a result, I was terrified of contracting an STD, walking by myself at night, having someone slip something in my drink, and getting mugged, possibly all at the same time. Stomping around Chicago in high school made me cocky because it was my home turf. But living in Manhattan seemed like the real deal, and I was too freaked out to let my guard down. I took everything very seriously. You kind of have to when you’re stepping over homeless junkies to walk into your dorm room.

  So I didn’t drink at all in college. It didn’t appeal to me. I was too nervous about “losing control” and “not being aware of my surroundings.” Thanks a lot, after-school specials and scary pamphlets! I didn’t drink or do drugs in high school and it didn’t appeal to me. Plus, being broke, I didn’t want to spend the sparse money I did have on alcohol. I didn’t see the value in it. To me, it felt like buying cocktails was essentially flushing my money down the toilet.

  And, for living in one of the biggest cities on the planet, I surprisingly didn’t have a lot of chances to hook up. I didn’t hit it off with any guys at school. I was an awkward, music-obsessed nerd with no idea of how to do casual hookups. I was basically a Jewish nun.

  Part of the problem was that none of the guys I met at school turned my head. I was starting to think that something was wrong with me. Sure, you don’t meet a ton of guys when you attend a women’s college, but the guys milling around at Columbia University across the street weren’t attractive to me at all. They wore pleated khakis and bragged about where they “summered.”

  The only guy I liked during college was this 5′5″ cutie named Davy Baxter but I was unable to capture his attention. I’d try to strike up a conversation with him, and he’d tune me out. I’d lean over to let him look down my shirt, and he’d look away, totally uninterested. I’d strip naked and hump his acoustic guitar, and he’d just shrug. (Okay, maybe I didn’t do that. But if I had, I don’t think it would’ve made a di
fference.) I finally gave up after a while because my buddy Oliver broke the news to me that he had an Asian fetish and that it was never going to happen between us. I was crushed.

  There are several things in life that I know I will never be able to compete with: professional poker players, Michael Phelps in the four-hundred-meter breaststroke, and Asian girls to a guy with an Asian fetish. He wants Lucy Liu and I’m more like Lucy Lawless. It’s not going to happen! So I gave up on ol’ Davy Baxter. Deprogramming him from his Asian fetish sounded like too much work for me anyway.

  To be fair, I probably wasn’t a prize back then, either. I went through a phase where I wore camouflage cargo pants all the time. I wore sensible footwear. I didn’t own one dress. Now that I think about it, I probably could’ve used an intervention for that. Where were my loved ones then to tell me about proper eyebrow grooming and the fact that the only girls wearing sneakers who get hit on are girls in cute gym clothes, not hard-core punk band T-shirts? I hadn’t figured out how to dress like the kind of woman who was interested in hooking up, so that could’ve been a factor here.

  The universe took pity on me and finally presented me with a make-out opportunity my sophomore year of college. I owe it all to my friend Ricky. We met because in the first semester of my freshman year, I had a radio show at Barnard. Ricky also had a show and we were scheduled during the same time slot but on alternate weeks, so we had to coordinate our schedules together over the phone. What started as a logistical need to talk quickly grew into a chatty friendship. We’d spend hours talking about our favorite indie bands. When we decided to meet in person, he showed up at my dorm looking like Woody from Toy Story, if Woody had listened to Pavement and traded in his embroidered cowboy vest for a rust-colored blazer with brown elbow patches on the sleeves. I knew right away that we’d be good friends.