He's got an honest face and a fresh outlook, but Vince Guerierri is still sick of girls using him as a friend. He explains why he just can't take it anymore
By Vince Guerrieri
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I was at work one day, trying to keep my head low and escape while it was still happy hour when a co-worker came up to me.
She told me that one of her mother’s friends told her she didn’t have an ass. “Is that true,” she asked. I’m assuming that she had an ass for all biological purposes, but she was asking me if she, as that philospher/poet Sir Mix-a-Lot put it, was packin’ back.
Now honestly, how the hell can I answer a question like that? As a journalist, I’m committed to telling the truth, and I did just that.
“I’m afraid so,” I said, tactfully leaving out the fact that when it comes to junk in the trunk, she’s got the back end of an ’82 Cadillac Seville.
She didn’t believe me until I took her out into the parking lot as the sun shone and made her turn sideways so she could see the shadow her lack of booty didn’t cast.
I try to lead a right life, and I don’t mind a reasonable amount of trouble. But for some reason, women come up to me and tell me things, or ask me things for which there is no right answer, and I’m not quite sure why. The only things I can come up with are that I must have an honest face, or I did something bad in a past life.
I carried the torch for a girl in high school like, well, a lovesick 15-year-old. She was a goddess. I was a nerd. I found myself at a party my sophomore year, and she danced down the steps and sat down on my lap. She was a little inebriated, and leaned in close. The guy sitting next to me on the couch started elbowing me in the ribs. “Vince is gonna get laid,” he said.
“You’re a nice guy,” she said, which I learned is girlspeak for “I don’t ever want to see you naked.” “Make sure I don’t do anything stupid.” And I did to the best of my ability.
At least three girls in high school told me that if they weren’t going to the Prom with their boyfriends, they’d go with me.
Thanks for nothing.
During my first semester in college, I was in a chemistry lab of about 30 people, a good two-thirds of which were women (it was the intro chemistry class for nursing students). The lab was 9:30 on Monday, at which point my main concern was not setting my eyebrows on fire.
But one day, the girl next to me looked up from her Bunsen burner and said, “You’re a guy, maybe you can answer a question for me.” Looking back, that should have set off warning bells for me. But hindsight is 20/20, and what did I know at 18?
“Why do guys say that they need more space when what they really want to do is date other women?”
At that point in my life, I had been in one relationship, which ended when she got back together with her ex and just quit calling me and returning my calls. But because I was a guy, she thought I would have some knowledge for the situation at hand.
My sophomore year, a girl came into my dorm room, reeking of Marlboros and beer, and sat in my lap. She said, “I don’t know why, but when I get drunk, I get really horny,” and decided to tell me that she wanted the guy down the hall from me. She took off a couple minutes later, leaving me whimpering. I guess those who fail the lesson of history are doomed to repeat it.
My junior year, a girl down the hall from me asked me for change to do the laundry. I gave her four quarters, and she thanked me profusely. She told me she needed to do a load of whites because she was out of clean underwear, and casually dropped the fact that she wasn’t wearing any underwear at that point. I kept opening and closing my mouth, but no sound came out.
That same year, another girl told me she was going out with some of her girlfriends. “I hope I find a man,” she said. “I have one, but I’m only keeping him around for one reason.” I received a lot of advice when I recounted that tale. They said I should’ve said something to the effect of, “I can help you with that reason!”
But I learned the hard way that it’s probably better to keep quiet. The correct response to “Do these jeans make me look fat?” is not “No, your ass makes you look fat.” When a girl remarks that she’s been gaining weight, the best thing to say probably isn’t “If it’s any consolation, I still wanna see you naked.” One of my friends told me that probably was the right thing to say, just the wrong woman. I’ll try that again if the situation arises, and we’ll see if he was right.
Once in a while, someone asks why I never entered the priesthood. My flip answer is that I like dirty jokes and neckties too much (which, as it turns out, is the wrong answer to give a priest, particularly during confession), but in reality, I wouldn’t want to have to deal with situations like that every day, to be in a position where I’m forced to give good advice. I don’t do well when the situation presents itself.
But I’ve learned from my mistakes. So the next time a woman comes up to me and tells me that she’s in the mood for love but not from me, or that I’m a nice guy and won’t let her do anything stupid, or asks anything about her appearance, I know exactly what to do.
Run screaming from the room.