But You Don't Know the Real Me.....

Zibi paid me a great compliment a weekend ago. We were drinking scotch at my apartment with Len and Marla and Zibi was reminding me once again how he tried to discourage me from getting married. Zibi is Polish, as was my wife.

"David, I never liked her to begin with. She had her nose in the air all the time, she was just too good for everyone and I couldn't stand her."

An interesting thing about my wife----my female American friends liked her, my male Polish friends did not and I think everyone else fell somewhere in between.

"Well, Zibi," I replied, "I'm not gonna trash her. She had her faults and I had mine but it really takes two people to fuck up a marriage and that was true in our case."

"No, Dave, you're the coolest person I know....."

Marla chimed in, "You are cool, David."

Len didn't say anything because he knows I'm not.

Athletic skill? Not me. I was skinny and awkward and uncoordinated as a kid and if I wasn't the last person chosen for teams I was usually in the bottom five. I've gotten better at hiding my lack-of-coordination---it usually only manifests itself in, say, an inability to handle a wallet, movie tickets and house keys at the same time.

Sartorial splendor? Ha. My mom worked at JC Penney and used to buy me the most heinous clothes imaginable. I don't think I owned a pair of jeans until I was 11 or 12 and then they were the kind of ridiculous bargain-bin rejects with zippers in the back and after three washings they shrank so much that my nickname for a time was "flood". Also, I had an elastic strap to keep my glasses in place....

Looks? Uh-uh. Puberty left me with pimples all over my face. Add braces and the afore-mentioned glasses and awkwardness and you've got the kind of seventh grader who will be picked on by the eighth and ninth graders. Len has known me my whole life and this is the DLS he remembers when he looks at me.

I got my first kiss at 15 because a friend of mine took pity on my chickless existence and told his sometime girlfriend to make out with me. We both made out with her for awhile, until my dad came downstairs and drove her home. After that confidence boost, high school got a little better and I started going on dates. I also got contact lenses and started buying my own clothes, with help from my cooler friends. I also sported a ridiculous Eurofag hairstyle that makes me wince when I look at prom pictures but it was the 80s---you were supposed to wear your hair like that.

However, I still feel like a fraud much of the time. I remind myself to sit up straight and to smile and make eye contact. I post rock climbing pictures on my Myspace profile. I buy clothes at Urban Outfitters and Express. And I work out nearly every day. And yet I never escape the haunting fear that I'm about to be found out.....