I have a theory I'd like to put forth, which I'd like to call "The Theory of Primping." It holds that the amount of energy spent preparing for a date/night on the town/party is inversely proportional to the amount of fun that you will have on that date/during the night on the town/at the party. Since this theory is so true that it is actually taken for granted (though not ever actually taken into account when getting ready), I won't even attempt to prove it. Instead, I'd like to present to you now a couple of corollaries that accompany this theory.
The "The Better You Look, the Worse Your Blind Date Will" Corollary -- We're all intimately familiar with this one. Your friend wants to set you up with someone who is "great" (be very wary of this word: it is the new version of the word, "nice," as in, "Oh, she's really really nice."). Being that you envision this person to be so "great," you put a "great" deal of effort into looking?"great." (See how many different correlations this word can have? Scary.) You primp, you preen, you style your hair and swing it 'round like you're in a shampoo commercial (and I'm not talking "Head and Shoulders" here). You buy truckloads of new makeup (or whatever the equivalent would be for men) and a whole new outfit, all in anticipation of the "great" one. (An accompanying universal truth: It is never a good idea to purchase a new outfit to impress someone you have never met. It is almost synonymous with impending credit card debt.) The inevitable outcome: you look better than you have ever looked before. Damn it, you are H-O-T, hot. Then you open the door to find that your friend's use of the word "great" applied to stature, and not personality -- as in, the person is physically very tall (great) but altogether lacking in the standard faculties. If you had spent half as much time and energy on your appearance, chances are your date would have seemed "great," if only in comparison to you.
The "The Higher Your Heels, the Further You Will Walk" Corollary, with which I am intimately familiar -- Okay, guys, you may not be able to relate. (Imagine, instead, that you're wearing football cleats on really rocky, uphill terrain? That's the closest I can come to imagery here.) I recently bought a pair of shoes that fall into the "So-cute-they're-practically-illegal-who-cares-if-they're-four-inch-heels" category. I could not wait to inaugurate them. So much so that I decided to wear them on a "girls' night out," which I figured would involve minimal walking. Wrong, wrong, wrong. So wrong. I traipsed all over San Francisco's Mission District (one word: hills) looking like a cross between an ostrich and Fran Drescher having a seizure. The end result was that "girls' night out" involved a whole lot of aspirin and Dr. Scholl's products, and not nearly as much "looking cute" as had been expected.
So does this mean that the next time I'm getting ready to go out, I'll cut down on primping and preening in anticipation of a great night? What do you think?
(Next time, be prepared for two more oft-mentioned, never-fully-understood Corollaries: The "If I Look Like Crap, Then Everyone Will See Me", and the "Time Spent Picking the Outfit is Inverse to Its Appropriateness" Corollary.)
