And I used to be a nice person.
A few weeks ago, that’s what I told Phil several times: “I used to be a nice person.” Phil tried to tell me that I’ve always been nice to him, but I stand by what I said. I’m not as nice as I used to be, not since my divorce and getting stabbed in the back by both my ex-husband and a girl that I thought was my best friend. And I always blamed the fact that I was nice for that situation. In many ways, I brought it upon myself. There were things I figured out and noticed but was too nice to say.
Things have changed. My theories have changed. Being nice is usually just not saying stuff you’re thinking. Now, if I’m good friends with someone, they’re getting what I think. And it’s not always nice. But, still, the people I choose to say stuff around are people I know who won’t go repeating it.
I may not be as nice as I used to be, but I still don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Which brings me to last night. If you told me five years ago, this would be the scene in my living room, this would be my reaction, I would have been surprised at my future self.
Here’s what happened: Jim and I went on a drive, which means he started talking about gaming, which means we always start talking about relationships with gamers, and, of course, the stereotype that most gamers hook up with other gamers because nobody outside of the gaming community would ever date them.
No, it’s not true in all cases. But it does have truth in others.
Anyway, Jim talked about one such girl where the stereotype did hold true. He couldn’t figure out why anyone would date her, as she was neither attractive nor nice. Apparently, she must have been really unattractive because Jim suddenly really wanted me to see a picture of her, just to show me what he had meant.
We broke out Google. Didn’t help much, as Jim couldn’t remember the girl’s real name, so he tried searching for her character’s name. Unfortunately, she doesn’t appear to be playing that character anymore, so we just kept pulling up pictures of some female wrestler instead.
One thing led to another. And, because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings–this blog is public, and you never know who is going to stumble upon it–I’ll leave out names and try to be kinda vague. But what Googling that one girl did was lead us into trying to Google for pictures of Jim’s old gaming group, just because he wanted me to see pictures of some of his old friends–and even enemies, in some cases.
In the end, we ended up at the Flickr page of one of the girls of his old group, a girl Jim thought might have had pictures of the old gaming crew, who, incidentally, is a girl that Jim used to like when he was younger. “I thought she was so hot,” he had told me before. It sounded like he had it pretty bad for her–for a short time, at least.
We pulled up her Flickr page, looking to see if she had old gaming pictures, but I caught sight of more recent pictures. “Wait. Is that the girl?”
Jim glanced at the profile picture, which appeared to be an older picture. I couldn’t really tell much from that picture because it was so small. “That’s her, up there,” he said. Then he glanced down at the more recent picture I had found. He stared. “Oh, my gooood…Oh my god. Yeah. That’s her.”
And then my reaction, the one that would have surprised the old me, the reaction that isn’t nice, but it is honest:
I pointed at the laptop.
I started laughing.
I started laughing so hard that I almost cried.
Jim just stared at the screen. “Wow. She’s gained weight. She is not aging well.”
“She looks like a sausage stuffed in a doily!” I gasped. “That’s the girl you thought was so hot?” To be fair, while Jim seemed to think she had gotten chubby, I didn’t think she was particularly overweight. She just didn’t look like she had a shape, and she was wearing this clingy dress that wasn’t flattering. Could just be the dress, though.
Also, if I wore that dress, I would look like a sausage in a doily too. The difference is that I know better than to wear a dress like that.
Then I started feeling bad about my reaction. I didn’t mean to have that reaction, though. It’s just you expect someone to look one way and when they look the complete opposite…Well, it just came out. And poor Jim was still staring at the computer, looking almost scared–which just made the whole scene funnier to me. “She aged horribly,” he kept saying. “Oh, my god. It’s like she gained a bunch of weight just under her CHIN. She looks BAD.”
And then I started howling with laughter. “You wanted to hit that!”
Jim, of course, got defensive, claiming she didn’t always look like that. We did find older pictures from when he knew her, where she looked less frightening, but still–she was never what anyone would call pretty. Jim looked kind of embarrassed when he realized that she was never exactly what he remembered her to be. “In my defense, I was, like, 18. I would have made a go at a table leg, if I thought I had a chance.”
It just goes to show that both love and lust are blind.
Afterward, I felt a little bad about it. At first, I thought it was because because the girl could be nice, for all I know, and she could be someone that I might have liked. (Then I remembered stories Jim told about her. Nevermind. She certainly didn’t sound nice. At all.) I think I feel more bad about the look of horror on Jim’s face when he saw the pictures. I didn’t mean to embarrass him. But let’s be honest–not nice, mind you, but honest: Don’t most of us look at people we’ve been with or liked in the past and cringe? Don’t most of us look back and say to ourselves What the hell was I thinking?
I’ve offered to show Jim some of the guys I’ve been with before him. One of them is downright ugly. Unlike Jim, though, I never deluded myself into thinking he was good-looking. But the dark can make anyone look better, right? And I had a thought:
Somewhere out there, someone has probably thought the same thing about me.
And you know what? I’m okay with that. As long as I don’t have to hear about it, I hope they’re having a good laugh! Life’s too damn short to be nice all the time.
