Guy Secret #1

OK ladeez, I know how you all depend on me for the real dirt, the harsh truth, the real McCoy, etc etc. So, don’t tell your boyfriends, but I’m going to reveal a little known guy-fact to you:

We play the Mrs. X game too.

“The wha?” you ask. You know, where you put your name next to that cute guy’s from Social Studies to see if he’s marriage material? You would look at him dreamily and think “Mrs. Mary Stevens…hmmm…Mrs. Mary Johnson” etc. Well, sad but true, guys used to do that, too; and, like you, probably still absently do so out of habit, though it doesn’t carry the same amount of weight that it used to.

I had a problem, though: My last name never went with anything, no matter how hard I tried to make it.

My main crush at the time was Kate Bartells. She was beautiful and smart, being both a cheerleader and in all the nerd classes (where I would sit next to her with my sweet glasses and braces). We were close friends, which as you know, is the kiss of death for anything more than that…not that that dissuaded me from trying. After a while, though, I was crushed to realize that we would never make it, for one simple reason: Mrs. Kate Kleeman.

yuck

“Well,” I thought, “maybe there’s some derivation that would sound cool.” Kathryn Kleeman? Kat Kleeman? Katie Kleeman? Kathryn Elizabeth Bartells-Kleeman? no. no. NO. NO! Each one always reminded me of something heinous like the KKK, or of choking on a chicken bone while trying to get out all those “K” sounds. It wasn’t pretty.

The same basic format continued for anyone else I happened to fall madly in love with, sit next to, see walking by, or *gasp* actually go out with. In fact, the only name that ever seemed to go with Kleeman, was my mom’s, and that’s just wrong.

So, here I am in present day with the same problem. Luckily, I’m a liberal young man, and now don’t see the importance of the wife or sigoth even considering taking my name. Besides, if I’m still solo at age 30, I plan to change David Kleeman to Dirk Steele anyway…and you know that guy get’s the ladeez.