Good, But Also Terrible

In a recent post I discussed feeling validated when I read a nonfiction book where a woman described her difficulty with guys who don't have it together, and don't even try to make her feel like she is valued. I've also had these experiences where the guy is clearly struggling to do the most basic tasks in life and it's insulting to me that he doesn't have any courtesy for me.

There's the added element for me that the author of that book didn't generally have. I am set up on almost all of my dates. Therefore, when I go out, there is usually someone who has spoken to both of us and decided that we could be a match. Therefore, when the guy is lackluster at best I wonder what signals I may have given to the matchmaker that made her think I am lackluster as well.

So, I tell people I need someone who will treat me well. Someone connected to his essence, someone kind, someone with opinions.

And then I get goody two shoes.

You may have met some goody two shoes. You may be a goody two shoes. Goody two shoes are those people who have somehow managed to get through their entire lives without developing a personality other than their endless ability to be good.

These are the people who love themselves, who have functional relationships with everyone in their family and who never ever question if G-D exists. Like even when they stub their toes they continue believing that there is a G-D.

They've never had a weird phase where they only watched gothic horror movies with ballet in them. They don't cheer every time a blood bag explodes in a Tarantino movie. They like the things they like an appropriate amount and the things they like are all innocuous like instruments or nature.

Their search history is full of phrases like "best mother's day gifts" and "best way to get home safely" and "benefits of sleeping well for 14 hours a night." I have many great lines to make about my search history but they're all so disgusting I got nervous about posting them on the internet.

Scrolling through posts on The Archer. A great way to hide your search history from yourself. Posts for while you poop.

These are the people who react perfectly when a family member dies and shed the appropriate number of tears. The last time I was told a relative of mine died my follow up question was "but I can still get my license right?" If you haven't realized yet, everything that happens in this entire world is about me.

I knew from a very young age that I wasn't a goody two shoes. In my Kindergarten Chanukah play I was selected to be Antiochus because "I have so much energy" according to my teacher. I've spent an inordinate amount of time staying late after class or davening to have the teacher give me a speech about how they know I didn't mean to say something hurtful (spoiler alert: I wish I said something more hurtful) or that one day I would truly know the consequences of my behavior or that they know I have more potential (spoiler alert: I don't.) I used to get personalized speeches before field trips because no one, including me, ever knew how I would behave in public.

I've written enough apology notes that I created a template on my computer for when I was told I needed to apologize to that girl, teacher, entire class, entire school, entire state. I wrote the regretful sentiments and filled in the terrible thing that I did.

So no, I've never been a goody two shoes. And I don't put on a goody two shoe mask either. To meet me is to know a lot of me fairly quickly. This is because I've never been able to keep my own secrets and I love to share my darkest moments with whoever happens to be there at the time.

I tell matchmakers that I love movies and TV and books and I always always manage to say something weird even when I am trying my hardest not to because that's me.

And then I get these guys who are so so nice they may as well be bunny rabbits.

A lot of them found their way to Orthodox Judaism on their own which means not only do they believe in G-D constantly but they believe in Him so much that they just like, noticed him on their own.

I missed the lesson we had in school about believing in G-D because I used to save my loose teeth for long speeches and then pull them out so that I would get excused to get an ice pack. That's right-I literally saved a private and painful task to use it to get out of school.

I think this can best be summed up by a conversation I recently had on a date.

Boy: I heard you love reading, what do you like to read?

Me: Oh everything. There's this one book I adore that has two parts the first part is from the husband's point of view and the second part is from the wife's and it deconstructs their marriage and it's absolutely fascinating.

Boy: What do you mean it deconstructs their marriage?

Me: Well, the guy thinks he knows everything obviously and we also see from his childhood sexual experiences how he developed into the person he became and why he needed to see his wife a certain way and meanwhile he's completely wrong about her and we see she has an entire secret life and he's just too self centered to know but her secret life is what allows him to be the way he is and...it's just so well charactered.

Boy:...............That sounds horrible. Why would anyone want to read something like that?

That analysis isn't because he'd rather be reading James Patterson either. It's because he's so well adjusted that he can't imagine being fascinated by disfunction.

Also a trait of goody two shoes? They hate sports. They take a rational view of sports which is that sports are dangerous, and an insane amount of money is invested in something that isn't real.

As someone who is having intense sexual relationships with not one but three major league pitchers (none of them know, don't worry. And only one of them is married.) I know that sports is life. Ball is life. It doesn't need to be rational, it just is. You either get it or you don't and if you don't, you may be a goody two shoes or a woman. I haven't figured out the exact parallel for women but it's somewhere in fashion/attention/drama.

I want to be treated well and like I am worth being loved. I also want someone who has complicated relationships, someone who gets what it means to hate yourself a bit (or completely.) I want someone with a guilty pleasure, someone who tells work he's sick so he can go to the beach or to a game or just sleep in sometimes. I want someone with many regrettable childhood incidents and who struggles with the big questions and the small. I want mistakes and weird hobbies and insubordination.

I know I am all of my weird, but I also treat others with respect and put effort into my dates. I have lots of friends and none of them are goody two shoes-but they are all good people. We may not struggle with the same things but we all struggle.

It feels like a betrayal when I am set up with a goody two shoes. It feels like a denial of everything that makes me, me and a reflection of the girl all those who gave me speeches throughout the years want me to become.

I'm not that girl.

But I am a girl and therefore somewhere out there there's supposed to be a boy for me. He won't be perfect and I'll be so glad he isn't. Then, we'll have kids and our genes will mix together to make monsters and I'll have to go to their schools to hear about what nonsense they did and discuss an action plan.

I may secretly be proud of my kid's ingenuity. I may even tell him/her to leave her baby teeth in for boring speeches.