by Mindy Kaling
I was outraged. A hundred dollars? To clean up after a party I hadn’t even gone to? In my mind, when the good kid and bad kid have to clean up together, it was for camaraderie building. They don’t do it because they’re going to get invoiced if they didn’t. I wrote to Jeanette and Risa immediately and told them that Sigma Delt was not for me.
“What??? NOOOOOOOOOO!!! BOOOOOO,” wrote Risa. If Jeanette was hurt, she hid it in a very formal tone. “Well, something this serious should not be done over email. You owe it to the sisterhood to meet in person for coffee to discuss this.”
You know how girls are always saying that guys broke up with them and it wasn’t the breakup itself, it was the way they did it that was so uncool? It was around the holidays. It was the week of her mother’s birthday. It was on the phone. And you are listening, thinking, So, the only decent way for him to have broken up with you is to not break up with you and stay with you forever?
That is what Sigma Delt was doing to me. I finally understood how guys felt.
So I met Jeanette and Risa at the Dirt Cowboy to break up the right way. Before I could say anything, Jeanette coldly asked if I was an only child. I said no. “I’m very surprised,” she said. As an education major, she said I displayed qualities that an only child would have. Risa was less angry, and was just sad. “It’s just … you’re so funny. The impressions. The song parodies. Who will make us come our pants?”
There was a long silence during which I suspect I was expected to cry. I couldn’t muster up tears, but I did do some low moaning, like this decision was causing me physical pain. “Ohhhh, this sucks,” I moaned. “It’s so unfair!” I said, as though the choice to leave was somehow being forced upon me, a trick boys would later employ on me to extricate themselves from dating me. Karma, I guess. Finally, though, I couldn’t beat around the bush anymore, and guiltily asked: “Can I please sign the paper to deactivate?” I signed it, they left, I finished my hot chocolate, and I never set foot in Sigma Delt again.
I thought I would like an environment of all women, where I was deemed the “funny one.” But it took me twelve weeks to realize that I don’t really like organizations where people are “deemed” things. I should mention that I did learn a few undeniably useful things at my sorority, like: a) the trick to getting any guy to fall in love with you is to laugh at everything he says and touch your mouth a lot, and b) in a pinch, you can wash your bras in a salad spinner. The problem with joining a sorority was that I was a person who wanted to make friends based on common interests. And our common interests had to be more than simply wanting to make friends. As someone who enjoys secrets, exclusivity, and elitism (I basically live to one day meet someone who owns an American Express Black Card), I was surprised and sad when I realized I was never meant to be Greek.
Ultimately, I got out of the Greek system unscathed. Later I would read accounts of pledging at Dartmouth where it seemed like everyone was given alcohol poisoning and then ordered to set fire to the music library in the nude or something. I did not have that experience, and I know many friends who loved their sororities. I wasn’t traumatized. I was just bored.
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1 This has never before been said in the history of humanity.
2 This sentence has also never before been said in the history of humanity.
(MINOR) FAME HAS CHANGED ME
WHEN I WAS on The Office, I was the perfect kind of famous: a little bit famous. Double-take-at-the-airport famous. Occasionally someone would come up to me and excitedly say, “That’s what she said!” and I would smile knowingly and respond, “Steve’s great, isn’t he?” implying that Steve Carell and I are very close friends who vacation together.
Now things are a little different. To clarify: I’m by no means famous-famous, like Rihanna or a Kardashian or Nicki Minaj’s butt. Those are people who have to wear makeup when they exercise, which is a whole other tier of fame.
Being known is really fun, extremely strange, and not very important. This is what it’s like.
THESE ARE THE THINGS I CAN NO LONGER DO NOW THAT I’M FAMOUS
Bargain for Stuff
Like every normal person, when I go to a flea market, I don’t want to be the chump who pays the asking price for anything. But recently, my friend B. J. Novak pointed out that loudly bargaining in public is unbecoming for actresses with their own TV shows. His theory is that people think I’m filthy rich and no one wants to see that either a) I’m not rich, and how alarming is that, because what kind of drug problem could I have where I frittered away all my TV-show money and now have to bargain at the flea market?! or b) I’m rich and cheap, which is universally regarded as the worst thing you can be.
Say Offensive Things
Look, would I love to be able to freely spout the gently racist/sexist stuff that sometimes crosses my mind when I’m the worst version of myself? Sure! That’s part of my candid, first-generation-immigrant charm! One Saturday afternoon several summers ago, I went to visit my friend Brenda in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Provincetown has a large gay population, and during the summer there are even more gay tourists. Brenda and I were trying to walk down their main street, and we were slowed down by throngs of gay tourists walking very slowly, taking in the sights and sounds. Frustrated, I wanted to say, Man, this place is gay as hell! but I didn’t. I didn’t want people to go home and tell their friends that that girl from The Mindy Project found something “too gay.” I would never want a homophobic reputation, for many reasons, the most important being that I am aspiring to be a tragic gay cult icon. Also, it is wrong. So I just let out a frustrated sound and said, “Crowds!” I actually think this new self-awareness has made me a better person.
Online Dating
Sadly, I believe the legitimization of online dating coincided with my becoming a little bit famous. Even in the mid-2000s, my friends online dated but acknowledged that they felt like slightly desperate creeps doing it. Now even my coolest friends are online dating. But not me. I live in fear of my public profile being published online for everyone to see. Especially since I am such a liar. On a dating profile page, I would pretend to be a completely different person. You would see me loving live music and hiking. You basically leave the date thinking I’m an outdoorsy Stevie Nicks.
Frown
About a year ago, I had lunch with Reese Witherspoon in Brentwood1 to discuss a project we were thinking of working on, and when we walked out to our cars, a couple of photographers were waiting to take her photo. She whispered to me, “Smile.” “Why?” I asked. “We’re just walking to our cars.” Reese responded “No one who sees a photograph of us wants to see that we are anything other than totally happy all the time.” At first I thought that couldn’t possibly be true, but then, on the drive home, I realized how correct Reese was. When I see a photo in US Weekly of Angelina Jolie-Pitt walking back to her car from the pharmacy, I feel a little irrationally miffed if she’s not smiling. She has a great life and, like, twenty gorgeous kids! Why are you not smiling, Angelina Jolie-Pitt?! If you’re not grinning ear-to-ear when you’re sleeping with Brad Pitt every night, then how shitty is my life?
So now I get it, and I have tried to train my face to be a smile in repose instead of the low-level grimace I’ve worn my whole life. Also, I comb my bangs over my acne and wear aviator sunglasses like Tom Cruise so people will really be psyched when they see an impromptu paparazzi photo of me. Stars are just like us (but they are super happy and grateful every moment, even when they are picking up UTI medicine)!
Complain
This is related to frowning. Nobody wants to hear that any aspect of my awesome life is bad. I get that.
But there are days, maybe two or three times a year, when I get completely overwhelmed by my job and go to my office, lie on the floor, and cry for ten minutes. Then I think: Mindy, you have literally the best life in the world besides that hot lawyer who married George Clooney. This is what you dreamed about when you were a weird, determined little ten-year-old. There a
re more than a thousand people in one square mile of this studio who would kill to have this job. Get your ass up off the floor and go back into that writers’ room, you weakling. Then I get up, pour myself a generous glass of whiskey and club soda, think about the sustained grit of my parents, and go back to work.
I know that made me sound like a tortured alcoholic, like Don Draper, but I swear I’m not.
OK, I’m done complaining, because of course there’s lots of cool stuff I get to do now that I’m famous.
THINGS I CAN DO NOW THAT I’M A LITTLE BIT FAMOUS
Contact Jai Courtney If I Need To
Listen, it’s not like I have handsome Australian action star Jai Courtney’s phone number on speed dial or anything, but if there was a life-or-death emergency, or, more reasonably, if I was dying and my dying wish was to have “Make-a-Wish”–style sex with Jai Courtney, I bet I could swing that. My friend Ike knows him.
People Sometimes Send Me Stuff
For my birthday last year, McDonald’s sent me a sweet stack of $10 gift cards. If you follow me on any kind of social media you will see that I’m constantly eating McDonald’s, and not in a campy, skinny-actress way where I go when I’m on my period and “being bad!” I go regularly enough that the woman at the Crescent Heights & Sunset McDonald’s gives me ranch and buffalo sauce packets for my McNuggets without me having to ask. I think McDonald’s was hoping I would share my gift cards with my cast and writers, but I don’t.
Guys in Prison Email Me
Ever heard of Corrlinks.com? No? Neither had I! Probably because Corrlinks is the official email system used by the federal penitentiary system. It’s for inmates who want to communicate with the outside world. About two years ago, a month after The Mindy Project premiered, my inbox was flooded with emails from this mysterious site called “Corrlinks,” requesting that I accept their invitations for communication. At first my mind went to “cuff links” and I thought it was some fashion-related website. Nope.
I guess The Mindy Project was popular in certain federal prisons and because of that, coupled with the fact that my email address was incredibly easy to guess (I have since changed it!), I was getting a lot of requests. At first I was kind of flattered and amused; I liked thinking of all the guys in the prison rec room quieting down when the show came on. “Shut up, you guys!” one inmate would menacingly shout to another one, who is playing Ping-Pong. “I hope Mindy manages to find a good balance between work and dating!” “Danny is soulful and closed off, just like my cellmate!” “Where’s the old doctor?” “Why do they keep changing the cast?” “The warden isn’t looking, let’s riot!”
But then, just as I was beginning to enjoy it, it became a little scary. I would return from set and there would be more and more emails requesting to initiate contact with me. Guys with names like “Robert Lee” and “Rufus.” I imagine the flipside of an unrequited prison crush is prison rage. I also don’t live in any kind of gated community, and my house is very easy to break into. I’ve broken into it twice when I couldn’t find my keys, and I’m not even a hardened criminal (yet)! So, with a heavy heart, I went through the process of blocking requests from Corrlinks.
I do like the distinction that these were federal prisoners trying to contact me, not state prisoners. Federal prisons are way more fancy, so, in my mind, these were fairly classy guys. Large-scale drug traffickers and Wolf of Wall Street–type guys rather than stab-and-grabbers. I mean, no offense to stab-and-grabbers, especially hot ones.
Be Compared to Other Famous Women
One rite of passage I experienced is that I am now known enough to be featured on a magazine’s “Who Wore It Best?” page. “Who Wore It Best?” is incredibly popular because we, as consumers, are not completely satisfied with our scrutiny of women’s appearances in TV and film. We also find it enjoyable to pit women against each other in fashion Hunger Games.
To determine who wore it best, a group of strangers is polled on the street on their way to lunch somewhere in midtown Manhattan (if I have learned anything from watching TV, it’s that stopping people on a busy Manhattan street is the fairest and most democratic way to get the true answer to something).
“Who wore this Stella McCartney dress better?” a tired magazine intern asks, presenting two photos of actresses wearing the same dress and secretly wondering if taking a semester off from college to work at this publication was the best use of her time. “Was it comedy TV actor Mindy Kaling? Or was it internationally famous supermodel Gisele Bündchen?”
After hours of asking people this question, the results are in! Ninety-nine percent think Gisele wore it better. One percent say Mindy wore it better, and that was a blind woman who was looking for a bathroom.
I can actually save the magazine editors behind “Who Wore It Best?” some time. Here’s the answer 100 percent of the time: it’s always the more famous or classically beautiful woman!
I laugh thinking about if they ever tried to do “Who Wore It Best?” for men’s magazines. They wouldn’t, because no one would care. Men don’t care which men looked better in the same clothes because it’s so obviously a huge waste of time. It’s also why they don’t have astrology sections in men’s magazines.
Cool Women Want to Be My Best Friend
One very gratifying compliment I sometimes hear is that women want to be my best friend. This endlessly amuses my actual best friend, Jocelyn, because in her estimation I’m “a good friend, but not that great.” Here are the pros of being best friends with me: I am one of the best people you could take to your ex-boyfriend’s birthday party that you were dreading going to. I am always up for dessert. I am always up for skinny-dipping. If you want to talk to any hot guy at any party, I will so be that girl who gets drunk and introduces us, then inches away so you can roll your eyes about me and sell me out so you can bond with him. I will dance almost anywhere with anyone. I have one of the sickest closets of clothes, and I will let you borrow anything and spend hours doing fashion shows in my bedroom with you. There are no cons.
Change People’s Lives
The single best outcome of my (minor) fame is that women—usually young women who feel marginalized for some reason—come up to me, or write to me, to tell me I make them feel more “normal.” That is profoundly moving to me. I’m not saying I’m some kind of pioneer here, like, Indian Dorothy Dandridge or whoever, but I love that. I’m a role model now. It makes all the stuff I can’t do anymore completely worth it. It’s actually the way that my (minor) fame has changed me the most. I want to be a better person because I don’t want to disappoint those girls. I stop and think about my actions more. I tip great, I try not to swear too much, and I remember to thank people and be grateful. And all that stuff I do to “appear” better has actually made me a better person. I wish I had always acted like I was a little bit famous.
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1 Jealous, haters?
THINGS TO BRING TO MY DINNER PARTY
IF I HOST a dinner party at my house that you are invited to, then first of all: congratulations! You are living in a thrilling science-fiction world where robots probably walk among humans as equals, and also, I know how to cook.
I spent a great deal of my youth fantasizing about entertaining. In my early twenties I would spend hours poring over cookbooks at the Seventh Avenue Barnes & Noble in Park Slope, planning elaborate parties that I would throw when I was older and had money. Now I am older and have money, but I almost never entertain. I have yet to throw my Great Gatsby–themed Super Bowl viewing party, but when I do, it will be a big hit, as will be my Daisy Buchanan slow-cooker chicken enchiladas.
It is more than ten years later and, in some ways, I am the person I hoped I’d turn out to be when I was twenty-three. I mean, I hoped I would be married to a Laker and have an Oscar and an ass that doesn’t quit, but I’m doing pretty well. I do not, however, throw nearly enough dinner parties. But if I ever do, you will never be asked to bring anything. I believe the potluck tradition of entertaini
ng is the equivalent of a teenage boy wanting to have sex with his girlfriend but who is too scared to go to CVS to buy condoms. If you can’t handle providing all the courses for your dinner party, you can’t handle the hosting duties of a dinner party.
However, if you feel like bringing the following non-food items, boy, will you be my favorite guest. Here’s what I suggest you bring:
A great story about a near-death experience. Did you ever get mugged at gunpoint on the subway late at night? Did you ever almost fall over the ledge of the Grand Canyon Skywalk? Did you ever have dinner at a restaurant the same night a serial murderer also ate there? Are you a ghost? Tell that story, please!
A great story about a scandalous celebrity experience. Did you ever hook up with Jimmy Fallon before he was famous? And was he into something in bed that would surprise and titillate us? Oh my! Please go on!
My mail from my mailbox. Thanks, bud. Just leave it on the counter. You’re a good friend.
An old picture of us you found.
We looked like that in college? Ahhh, we were so weird!
An old picture of Colin Firth you found.
Oh là là. No need for dessert, am I right? (Don’t worry, there’s obviously also dessert.)
A new kind of hot sauce you want to introduce me to. I eat hot sauce on approximately 70 percent of my meals. Learning about new hot sauces is the least expensive way to improve my quality of life. Remember when I tried Sambal Oelek and I wouldn’t shut up about it? This is a very thoughtful gift that shows a deep understanding of your hostess.
Your ukulele to play a song after dinner. Classic tunes only, like “Over the Rainbow,” or songs that would sound funny on the uke, like Sam Smith’s “Stay with Me.” No original music allowed! You know I can’t stand original music! Please stick to the hits. This is a celebratory event, not an open mike night at the Campus Events Hall.