My Brief Stint as a Poser

I like to think that I'm a relatively genuine person. I guess when you constantly hear from your teachers and family to “be yourself,” it sort of sinks in. I had never been in a position that I had to lie or pretend – until about a year ago.

The way it goes is simple: Girl wants to impress her crush. Girl pretends to be someone she's not. Boy finds out. It's the same every time, but for some reason, I never learned from all the clichéd “Full House” episodes where Stephanie or DJ change to impress the guy they like, then get a lecture about being themselves from Danny or Jesse.

I had met this guy who was new at school, and if I said he was physically attractive, I'd be lying (see, at least I'm being honest about that). But he was funny and kind, and there was something magnetic about him.

I'm a girly-girl – shopping, nails, pink, Britney Spears, and so on. And this guy – I'll call him Zeke – wasn't into the whole girly-girl thing. I overheard him talking about it with his pal in science class. He wanted to date someone who wasn't fake, someone who could be herself and who had good taste in music. Now, I knew from his Facebook page and various other stalking antics that he was a huge fan of Nirvana. I knew nothing about said band but figured they sounded nice. Nirvana was the name of a pastry shop I frequented, and I like pastries, so I figured I'd give them a try. If Zeke liked Nirvana, they were obviously the bomb. (Yes, at the time, I said things like “the bomb.”)

So I went home and looked up Nirvana. I found their music to be depressing, anxiety-producing, loud, confusing, and angry. I respect all of those Nirvana fans out there, but I just couldn't listen to it. Grunge? More like garbage.

But Zeke liked them, and I liked Zeke. So for the next couple of weeks I became Nirvana's number-one fan, listening to all their music, studying their lyrics, and reading magazine interviews. I knew that I would have to come up with a clever way to impress Zeke with my newfound knowledge of a band I couldn't stand. (At this point, he hadn't even talked to me other than a few words – something like “You just cut the frog's leg. We were aiming for the heart.” – when we were lab partners.) So it's not like I could have turned to him one day and said, “You like Nirvana? Me too!” Of course not. That would have been too simple.

I knew that Nirvana's lead singer, Kurt Cobain, had died on April 5, 1994. April 5th was conveniently around the corner, so on that day, at the beginning of science class, I interrupted my teacher as he was giving lab instructions.

“Mr. Mulligan?” I said, raising my hand. “I think we should have a moment of silence. On this day 14 years ago, Kurt Cobain lost his life.”

My teacher stared at me in confusion for a few moments while a few kids laughed. “I think not” was his answer. I put my hand down and felt like a total dork.

After class, though, Zeke stopped me in the halls and said, “I thought that was really cool, what you did back there … you know, honoring Kurt Cobain. I'm a huge Nirvana fan.”

At this point, classical music was playing in the background while our eyes turned into little cartoon hearts and there were flowers and tweeting birds everywhere. He fell for it! My plan was working! We were going to fall in love, get married, and have three kids. Maybe we'd even name one of them Kurt.

We agreed to meet at the pastry shop called Nirvana (my idea, clever, huh?) after school. This was it. Screw “Full House” and being yourself. I was going out for pastries with Zeke, and that was all that mattered.

Halfway into our miserable pastry date, I realized that this was just not going to work out. All Zeke wanted to talk about was Nirvana. He must have been under the impression that I actually liked the band. Hmm. I wonder what gave him that idea.

I realized that no matter how much I claimed I was a Kurt Cobain fan or that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was my favorite song, I didn't believe it myself, and I'd rather go home to my pink girliness and formulated pop songs. Zeke wasn't that interesting.

I hated to admit it, but maybe the clichéd crap about being yourself wasn't so clichéd after all. Now, I just needed to find a guy who was into Ke$ha and Lady Gaga, and I'd be good to go.