so, after much internal debate and, with the possible consequence of a suffocating dose of pity (ok, so pity may not be the word i’m looking for, but it’s the best i can do without a whole separate rant), i have decided to share the story behind my infamous nickname (thank you hal and leigh) and the reasons why i so despise it.

if you can believe it, i went to a formal dance in college.  i was in a tuxedo and everything.  amazingly, i looked pretty good.  my date to the shindig also looked good, if you can believe it.  the girl, my date was the younger sister of one of my frat brothers… (yeah, i don’t remember the details.  i think she was going school at ohio state in columbus and wanted to go to the dance.  i hadn’t planned on going, but somehow was talked into it.).  i don’t recall him have any issue with it.  in fact, if my memory serves me, we all went to dinner together before the gala.  (it was a great time, though there are aspects of that night that i will forever regret).  i don’t remember many of the details of the evening, other than i had a good time and, i think, my date developed a bit of a crush on me.  i could be wrong though.

at some point, either that night, or some time later, the girl decided that i reminded her of something from her childhood….  that’s right, you guessed it.  for reasons i will never fully understand, i reminded her of a carebare.  i guess it had something to do with the fact that i was kinda round and, apparently, cute.  i wasn’t fond of the simile then and i’m not fond of it now.  actually, i don’t think it turned into a nickname until a bit later, when my roommate, who thought it was so damn funny, that he coined the actual name: tenderheart.  that’s right, during the course of one night i had been reduced to a stuffed animal.  a cute, lovable, fucking cartoon character….  as friends will do, and fraternity brothers even more so, they began calling me that on a regular basis, simply because it pissed me off no end….

now, here’s the reason why i HATE that nickname so much….  i hate cute.  what i mean is, i hate the word.  i try to never use it and cringe when others use it around me.  what i hate even more is when people use the word to describe me, “oh, you’re so cute.”  carebears are cute and now i will forever associate the word cute with carebears.

sure cute has some beneficial uses.  puppies are cute.  babies are cute.  however, i have a hard time with a 20-something man being called cute.  cute is nice.  cute is friendly and cuddly.  cute is the friend that sits, quiet and concerned, while you bitch about the boyfriend who is did this or that to wrong you.  the cute 20-something is always the friend, never the boyfriend.  you can argue with me about this if you like, but i’ve have yet to see an example to refute this theory of mine.

women don’t want to date the cute 20-something.  women want to befriend the cute 20-something.  they want the shoulder of a cute 20-something to cry on….

say what you want.  call me bitter, or cynical, or narrow-minded, but while you might think the nickname is fitting (which it might be), now you know why the sound of it makes me want to put my fist through a wall.