“The Perfect Girl”

Part 1

I was lucky to know her.

I had been looking at all the pretty girls on the beach for days now and had been thinking about how all the girls were pretty when I was a boy, but then they got old fast and fat and saggy all in the wrong places but worst of all they got mean. Some of them were always mean, but most of them got mean as they got old. When I got into college all the mean, ugly girls and all the nice ugly girls who wouldn’t stay nice for much longer and all the pretty girls who wouldn’t stay pretty much longer got into the habit of talking about how men mistreated women. I didn’t know what they were talking about. Until then they were just the same as me. All our parents said I should treat girls better than I treated boys and they treated girls better than they treated me, but as far as the girls themselves, they never let any of that go to their heads so long as they were still girls. But something happened to them when they grew up and went to college. I suppose insecurity got to them, but they started talking as if they’d been mistreated all their lives when from what I could tell their lives had been too perfect. They had been spoiled rotten by their parents who said they were better and sweeter and they should be treated better and sweeter, but now they weren’t sweeter and they had never been better and they knew that. Most of them, I guess, thought they’d be better off believing that they’d been mistreated for centuries even though they weren’t even twenty years old yet and had never been mistreated. That’s why Mandy was so perfect. Not only was she beautiful, she was approachable. She approached me.

She wasn’t the sort of girl I could easily settle down with. In fact she already had a boyfriend. She made sure to mention that right away. But I don’t think she was playing the games with me girls sometimes do when they bring up their boyfriends–trying to see how I’ll react and if I’m man enough for them. I think she just wanted to be open with me.

Later I asked her what changed sweet, nice girls into hardened women. She was the wrong girl to ask, because she was still sweet to me. She said that most girls get uncomfortable having guys look at them and when they hear the words “object” and “objectify” they latch onto them to cope with their insecurities. The truth is, she said, we want you to adore us, especially our bodies, but most of us don’t grow into that idea until later after old age hardens us in all the wrong places.

I couldn’t help but try to flirt with her after that, so then she said, you’re not ready to hear any of this, and she asked me if I wanted to swim.

(To be continued)