Alter Ego

I had one too many Mango Tangos and the outdoor patio was beginning to look like a blur. And when life is a blur, I am an excellent dancer.

He came up to join me in a dance and I barely even noticed that he was a bit shorter than me.
"Hey. what's your name?" was his opener.

I laughed. The music was far too loud to tell him my real name without him having to resort to asking me, "How do you spell that?"

So I told him my alter ego's name. Oh yes, I have an alter ego and her name is Jess.

You see, when a gal has a unique name and when a boy approaches that gal with the intentions to hit on her, she can't possibly reveal her real name to him. No, no. That's just an invitation for further conversation, possibly involving that gal having to explain how she was born and grew up in a foreign country. Or simply how her parents wanted to be different and named their daughter after a city they had their first date in.

When I have no interest in a guy but do not want to appear rude, instead of telling him to piss off, I turn to my self-centered, femme fatale alter ego Jess. Jess's name is common and pretty and it does not instigate any farther follow up questions. Just the way I want to keep it.

My alter ego will laugh briskly at the guy she's not interested in, only giving him a few seconds to size him up and down. If she doesn't like what she sees, she will turn away, far too engrossed in a conversation or a dance with someone else.

Some of my friends will spend their time talking and nodding and smiling at a guy, just because he had the balls to come up to them and ask them how they are doing. Which, I admit, is an admirable and brave gesture. But trying to be polite at a bar might as well be an equivalent of slipping a guy your hotel room key. Politeness can be so often mistaken for interest, and honesty is often misinterpreted as rudeness.

My alter ego may never be polite but she is also never stuck dancing with 35-year olds smelling of whiskey and desperation.