Goofy is the New Sexy
I’ve got no mojo. None. Nada. Zip. While some women seem to effortlessly ooze sensuality, I’ve always oozed something entirely different. Something more akin to raw panic. I’m not saying men frighten me, it’s just that their motives often seem elusive and therefore suspect. It took my husband three years to talk me into marriage, his stalwart hell-bent persistence is still a thing of mystery to me.
Before my husband rescued me from singledom, I was a painful dater. I seem to lack the flirting gene and I’m far too forthright to express any sort of guile. To complicate matters my body completely betrays me at the first hint of attention from the opposite sex. I’ve been known to drool, giggle like a hyena or spontaneously bark like a seal, my body locked in spasm, twitching and jerking. When you look like the demon-possessed it tends to put a damper on your sex life.
Now in my middle years I’d hoped to have outgrown these bizarre tendencies, but that hope was crushed during a recent visit to my gym. I’d been hunched over a treadmill, sweating to the oldies, when a man on the machine next to mine leaned over and said “good morning”. I immediately panicked. Was he talking to me? What should I say? I stared back at him, mouth gaping like a carp.
Words…what are those?
Clearly the man was alarmed, his pupils widening as his eyes locked with mine. I wasn’t even sure he’d said “good morning” due to the high-decibel 80’s rock blasting through my earphones. I pointed to my ears indicating I couldn’t hear and then yanked the earbuds so forcefully from my head that they ricocheted off the treadmill and back into my face. I swatted at them blindly, flailing my arms as if staving off a swarm of killer bees.
“Are you talking to me?” I gasped, having finally wrestled the earbuds into submission. He nodded, his effort-hair bouncing as his eyes scanned the exits.
Okay. So we’d established that I was indeed the intended recipient of his greeting, but my mind couldn’t quite wrap itself around the meaning of his words.
Was his “good morning” a general statement?
Was it a comment on the weather?
Was it an inquiry?
Was it a harmless salutation or was it a bold flirtation?
Should I flash my wedding ring to ward him off?
And why in God’s name hadn’t I taken my meds that morning?
My panic was beginning to ooze and I was pretty sure he could sense it. Get a freaking grip I told myself. Smile at the poor bastard for heaven’s sake!
Sadly even my attempt to smile ended in complete failure. I tossed my head jauntily, intending to flash him a friendly smile, but my body had other plans. My neck chose that exact moment to spasm causing my head to jerk sideways while my upper lip caught on my dental work and stuck. So instead of flashing him a friendly smile, I looked like a sneering, psychotic hunchback.
Perhaps all the poor man had intended was a simple greeting, never imagining it would spark a middle-aged woman’s meltdown. But there I was neck locked, sweating, sneering and batting at imaginary bees. I was a hot mess from hell. Wisely Mr. Muscles pivoted to chat up the hot blond on his left and I hung my head in shame. If I fell apart at “good morning” I shuddered to think of my reaction to “your place or mine?”
Thank God I no longer have to play the dating game and have married a man who thinks goofy is sexy and whose motives I never need question. As for sex appeal, if I ever possessed any it was beaten out of me by 27 months of pregnancy, 30 hours of labor and subsequent years dressed in spandex and baby vomit. Seriously, just try bringing sexy back with peanut butter and Goldfish crackers stuck in your hair. It ain’t happening, folks. The night I dug a Skittle out of my cleavage and ate it in front of my husband was the night the train to sexy town stopped pulling into the station.
I’ll happily leave the flirtation game to those more capable and far less spastic. My new plan at the gym is to keep the earbuds jammed in my head, avoid eye contact and above all else keep the crazy safely in my head where it belongs.
