Unwifeable(46)

More caipirinhas are consumed. Everything blurs out after a while, but there is a lot of laughter. I don’t even make any scenes. I do say at one point, “Yo quiero comer penis,” but nothing too insane.

See, I can definitely drink. I just need to be more aware.



* * *




WHEN WE GET back from Brazil, one of the first problems I encounter comes in the form of the dating column itself.

When you write about your life, a big challenge is coming up with material. A lot of times the best stuff—the real stuff—is off-limits. I can’t write about what it feels like to have Blaine edit my columns before I turn them in so that I can try to keep the relationship intact. I can’t write about how I’m steadily racking up massive amounts of debt in an effort to appear to be a certain type of higher-society girl than I am. I can’t write about how humiliating it feels when Blaine doesn’t want to be linked to me on Facebook. I mean, I could. But I’m far gone at this point. I am in this, and it’s fun to pretend to be someone else. It’s fun to be the kind of girl who would date Blaine.

So, in attempting to write less about Blaine, I try to work the angles to write around him. I quote a psychiatrist at length as he “counsels” me, suggesting that I should not bring up my anxieties and insecurities but rather work against these baser instincts. It is basically the opposite of the radical honesty that provided me so much relief.

I tell the shrink about the sadness I felt in Brazil and the aftershocks that ensued—physical and mental—and he says, “Say you’re on a vacation in Brazil and nothing has happened. Then do yourself a favor. Act against your feelings.”

In my column, I write the lazy joke that, following this doctor’s advice, if I were a cocktail it would be called “Faking It on the Beach.” Because I’m pretending to be all chill even when I’m stressed. Other than that, the column is pretty tame.

But when the piece comes out in the paper and Blaine returns from the corner store with a newspaper and coffees, he looks pissed and embarrassed.

“That’s quite a headline for today’s column,” he says.

I have no idea what it is, so I look down and see what he sees: “Fakin’ It for Super Preppy on Doc’s Orders.”

“Oh, wow, huh . . .” I react, although, to be honest, I am a little less shocked than he is.

By now, I have a very jaded familiarity with the fact that the writer has no idea, no control, no ownership over what happens once she turns in her final copy.

“I mean, the story itself is just about pretending to be relaxed and easygoing even when you’re freaking out inside,” I say, freaking out inside.

“You know what it implies,” he says, disgusted.

Of course I do.

I grew wise to this headline-switcheroo trick over time and even developed a warning speech for more sensitive souls wading into the murky thirty-six-point-screaming-font waters of tabloid journalism. For new writers, before they submitted pieces or agreed to be written about, I would tell little illustrative parables.

“It’s like,” I would try to explain, “let’s say you turn in a thoughtful piece about not being sure if you want kids and how you’re happy just being single. You have to be fully prepared, because the next day, the headline on the front page of your article might very well read, ‘I’m a Dried-Up Spinster Who Will Die Alone . . . and I’m Lovin’ It!’ But if you’re okay with all possibilities of what might happen when you relinquish your words, then proceed. Because the exposure will be great.”

Most people proceed. Others back away slowly.

As for Blaine, he never wanted to be written about in the first place.

I start staying late at the paper on Friday nights to make sure I see the final pages that include the headline so no more embarrassment occurs.

But I should have listened to the speech I gave so many others.

Because while another column that I write initially bears a headline like “The Illusion of the Perfect Relationship” or something, that all goes out the window after I sign off. In the piece, I quote a man who confesses to being a serial monogamist who talks candidly about what happens when he notices a woman starts trying to act like a wife—doing all the dishes, making the bed with the TV remote perfectly lined up, extra dusting no one asked you to do. This serial monogamist tells me, “That’s when we know we have you.”

He says it happens in a flash, which he calls “going from being totally chill to being totally psycho in a split second.”

It’s a throwaway line, but a good quote, so I leave it in.

On Sunday, when I open the paper to read the piece, there it is.

The new headline screams: “How I Went from Chill To Psycho.”

Great. This should go over well.



* * *




WHEN I’M NOT writing the column, I’m reporting feature stories on illustrious subjects on which I am an expert.

Like an article about the dangers of “emailing while intoxicated” and a guide on how not to be what a Bachelor alum calls “that girl”—you know, the one who’s drunk, weeping over past relationships, showing her panty line, all while skimming Modern Bride on the first date.

Of course, in so many ways, I am that girl. But why start being honest now?