The Girlfriend Curse

by Valerie Frankel

  On the fourth day, I revealed the truth about my marital status. He wrote, “Your husband! What a low-down dirty rotten deal with the cancer. That must have been an unspeakably ghastly experience. But we need not get into that here. My hat is off to you, raising two kids on your own.” It was the perfect thing to write: sympathetic and unafraid. I began to believe he could mean something to me.

  The day before the kids and I left for the summer, he sent an email with his phone number and his last name, asking me to call that night. Now armed with information, I googled him. Turned out, the fellow I’d been volleying emails with was a professional French horn player and a Gilbert and Sullivan patter baritone specialist. He’d performed in operas all over America, and been reviewed favorably in the New York Times and the Washignton Post. I read the notices online. I saw his bio and photos of him as the Major General and Ko-Ko at his opera company’s website. Knowing nothing about Gilbert and Sullivan, with a few hours yet before I was to call him, I ran out to Blockbuster and rented Topsy Turvy.

  Turned out, Steve googled me, too. He went out and bought a couple of my books, read some articles I wrote online. And he still wanted to talk to me.

  We didn’t come face-to-face for another six weeks. We kept up the emails and phone calls all summer long, me in Vermont, him in New York and Maine. Those emails powered me through the weeks in the country with the kids, giving me something to look forward to, an eagerness to return to the city.

  Steve and I had our first date in mid-August 2001 (just weeks before 9/11, but that’s another story). I was a frantic mess while dressing. We’d been corresponding for nearly two months. I’d been living for those emails, letting myself fantacize that he was all I wanted him to be, and vice versa. In mere hours, should there be zero chemistry, the fantasy would end.

  We met at a seedy bar in Tribeca (on a block that, a month later, was deep in the red zone, but again, that’s another story). He described watching me walk into the bar as “a completely satisfying experience.” Not because I am a ravishing beauty. I felt the same way upon laying eyes on him, not because he is a ravishing beauty (although he is adorable). He looked completely and satisfyingly like I’d imagined. Within five minutes, it was obvious our chemistry went beyond words. The relief was palpable. We washed it down with several Scotches, and then made out in the backseat of my car for three hours in a pouring summer rainstorm that cleared the street of people and gave us all the privacy we needed.

  It was the best first date I’d ever had. The second date, at his apartment, included just as much Scotch, but fewer clothes.

  Steve and I hardly ever exchange long, flirty letters anymore, of course. But writing was the foundation of our relationship, and I continue to carry the torch. I’ve written reams about him, including essays in O magazine, the New York Times and Glamour, among other publications. His influence on me is all over The Accidental Virgin, and he was the main inspiration for The Not-So-Perfect Man. I can’t credit Steve with inspiring The Girlfriend Curse (although the Square Peg concept was his). Other people and events set the creative wheels in motion for this book. Which brings me to…

  The Girlfriend Curse Q & A With the Author

  Q: Who and what inspired the story?

  A: I started thinking about TGC in the summer of 2003. The politically minded may remember that summer as the height of Howard Dean mania. He was on fire in July, the front-runner for the upcoming Democratic primary. The eyes of the country were on its sixth-smallest state. And I was there, in Vermont, for vacation. I convinced editor Danielle Mattoon at the New York Times “Style” section to let me write an article about Vermont style, the conceit being that if Dean should go all the way, how will we, as a nation, be expected to dress? We now know the outcome of Dean’s campaign, but back then, he was the hottest story of the summer. And I was on it, like fluff.

  For the NYT piece, I interviewed dozens of prominent Vermonters, including politicians, authors, artists, designers, farmers. I interviewed John O’Brien, a sheep farmer/filmmaker, and we got to be friends. His three movies about the state—Vermont Is For Lovers, Man With a Plan and Nosey Parker—were a tremendous resource and inspiration for TGC.

  The stuff about the Big Five Personality Test came from another journalism assignment. Also that summer, I was asked by Chandra Czape, formerly of Ladies’ Home Journal, to do a piece on a new study from Berkeley that said personality can change after thirty. That research led me to the OCEAN model of personality assessment. Incidentally, you can take a version of the big Five Personality Test online at www.outofservice.com/bigfive/. My scores are: openness, 53rd percentile; conscientiousness, 64th percentile; extraversion, 70th percentile; agreeableness, 14th percentile (yikes); neuroticism, 18th percentile. The article I wrote never saw the light of day in LHJ. Chandra’s boss killed it (magazine speak for deemed unacceptable for publication). I was disappointed, but what can you do? I didn’t take it personally (see revelation number three on turning forty, above). And I got to use the research in the book, so it worked out all right in the end.

  As far as the concept of the Ultimate Girlfriend, a woman whose exes go on to marry right after her, I don’t have personal experience with that. I do know someone whose ex married within months of their breakup. I picked seven exes for Peg because it seemed like a lucky number.

  Also, I want to give credit where it’s due to Jack Honor, the contractor who was renovating my kitchen while I wrote the final chapters of TGC. Jack supplied the last line of the book.

  Q: Is Inward Bound a real retreat?

  A: Definitely not. And I’m afraid of what the Outward Bound people will think of the name. I hope they’d have a sense of humor about it, and that they won’t sue me.

  Q: Is Manshire a real town?

  A: No. It’s based on Norwich, an Upper Valley town on the border of New Hampshire.

  Q: What makes you an expert on Vermont?

  A: I am not an expert, nor do I claim to be. I only know one part of the state well—the Upper Valley—having spent a great deal of time there. I went to Dartmouth College for my BA, and lived in Hanover, New Hampshire, for four years. My parents have a farmhouse in Thetford, Vermont, the next town over from Norwich. I spend about two months of the year there. My mom, whose extraversion percentile is off the charts, has introduced me to tons of natives in the Upper Valley. She and my dad have taken me and the kids to sugar shacks, country fairs, draft-horse competitions, cornhusking bees, dairy farms. Their across-the-street neighbors raise chickens and sheep. My daughters go to camp on Lake Fairlee. Researching the NYT article on Vermont style also gave me a deeper understanding of the Green Mountain way. But I still feel like an alien when I walk in the general store in Norwich with my little outfits, waxed eyebrows and pedicure. I’ve lived in Brooklyn for eighteen years, grew up in Short Hills, New Jersey. I am, and will always be, a flatlander.

  Q: Are you like Peg Silver?

  A: Somewhat. My ex-boyfriends never dallied about dumping me. They were quick about it. And most of them were so horrible that they never married anyone, ever. To my knowledge anyway. Like Peg, I don’t keep in touch with them. Peg and I have other similarities, too. We both have a filthy mind. I have a history of sex on the second date (see above, about Steve). We share low scores in agreeableness and neuroticism. I am also a runner, a slow one. We’re both Jewish. Have brown hair. And we both love Chuck Palahniuk novels.

  Q: You gave Stacy Temple from The Accidental Virgin a cameo part in TGC. Why?

  A: I thought that Stacy and Peg would be friends if they ever met. Since they lived so close to each other in Soho, I realized it was entirely possible that they would bump into each other. In an earlier draft, they met by happenstance on West Broadway and I wrote a rambling, talky scene for them that was eventually cut completely. I later figured out a way to give Stacy a concrete purpose for being in TGC, and to offer a bit of epilogue on her love and work lives, both of which were question marks at the end of The Accidental Virgin.


  Q: Are you going to write a screenplay?

  A: I pose this question because so many people have asked me about that. I have tried, once, to collaborate with my friend Rebecca Johnson, a contributing editor at Vogue, on a futuristic thriller. She wanted to turn it into a Shakespearean tragedy. I kept pushing for a screwball comedy. Didn’t fly. We laughed until we cried coming up with inane plot twists, but the screenplay went nowhere. Screenwriting seems to be dependent on too many outside forces. Novels, on the other hand, are labors of solitude. Despite my high score in extroversion, I prefer to work alone (I have that in common with Peg Silver, too). Also, I don’t have a mind for visual presentation. As Carrie Feron, my excellent editor at Avon, can attest, I struggle with show-don’t-tell. Movies are show. I tend to tell.

  Q: What next?

  A: I’m plotting a new novel, and I have a few magazine assignments to occupy the next month or two. The Accidental Virgin movie is in the works, but I have nothing to do with it (although the producers are kind enough to keep me in the loop). Beyond that, I haven’t a clue. Like I said, I don’t plan. I’ll wait and see what the wind blows my way. Ideally, the wind will be warm. Even tropical.

  DOs and DON’Ts Online Ad Posting Primer

  I interviewed Steve for this part, to get the male perspective.

  DO

  Include a good photo. Says Steve, “There is no excuse for not posting a photograph. If you don’t know someone who has a digital camera, maybe you should be looking for friends instead of a boyfriend. Men won’t look at ads without pictures.” About the photo itself, Steve says, “A posed portrait, full makeup, etc., doesn’t tell you a thing about the woman’s personality, except that she might be vain and conceited, or deathly afraid of what she looks like without makeup. A snapshot is best. But don’t hold a teddy bear in it. I liked photos of women with smiles and bright eyes. No one has bright eyes when they’re striking a pose.” Steve says you don’t need to show your body. “A clear picture of the face,” he says, “is enough.”

  Write an unusual subject line. “Nothing turns a man’s stomach more than subject lines like ‘Princess Seeks Prince,’ or ‘Beautiful But Lonely,’ ” he says. “What this really means is, ‘Sissy Seeks Wuss.’ For the sissies and wusses of the world, you’re doing fine, keep up the good work and stay away from me. The rest of you, and I know who you are, need to demonstrate that you’ve got meat on your personalities, that your emotional level is beyond teenage. It still makes me laugh, thinking about lines like those above. What man would be attracted to a woman who describes herself as a ‘princess’ or ‘lonely’? The ideal subject line would be ‘Fun-Loving, Beer-Drinking Sexy Stooges Fan Seeks Same.’ Even if it’s not true, your profile will get read.”

  Craft a funny essay. “Too many profiles are bland and generic. Everyone loves to laugh, and walk on the beach, and enjoys restaurant meals. Also, they read like high school essays that cover where you’ve been and what you do. Men want to see signs of life, character, wit. The good men anyway. Besides general tone (not sounding depressing, pathetic, desperate or dull), the three elements that must be represented in the profile are: (1) A description of your body or how you’re built. Val described herself to me in her first email, ‘In the hourglass that is my figure, most of the sand is on top,’ painting a picture and demonstrating a sense of humor in one sentence. This is good. (2) An adjective that implies that you have a sex drive. Feisty, frisky, lusty. Even used ironically, these words work. Someone who writes, ‘I’ll try just about anything once’—which implies things about your character, not only your libido—will win approval. But don’t be too explicit about sex. That’s gross; something a man would do. (3) Write more than ten words, but less than 500. Most of you may not realize this, but a lot of the women who post are actually Russian bride hopefuls, and/or prostitutes. I got a response from one who said, ‘Our perfect day would be a walk in the park, I’ll cook dinner at your house, and then we’ll cuddle in bed, where I can show you my liberal attitudes about sex.’ Men are suspicious about ads with sexy pictures and no profiles. These women don’t want love. They want your credit card number. Prove you’re not a Russian hussy or hooker by taking the time to write a few paragraphs about yourself. On the other hand, men are as averse to a woman who writes too much as they are to women who talk too much. Get in, say you’re a sexy beer-loving Stooges fan, and get out,” he says.

  DON’T

  Misspell. “There is no excuse for this,” he says. “Misspelling is laziness. Sloppiness. Not attractive traits in a woman. It takes no time at all to spell check. Demonstrate that you have a beyond-third-grade reading level, or you’ll attract a toothless hillbilly who signs his name with an ‘X.’ ”

  Talk too specifically about what you want in a man. “Lists of requirements, as in, ‘I want a man who makes this much money, is this tall, lives in this zip code, has blue eyes, likes dogs, likes the mountains, etc., reads like a shopping list,” he says. “Men aren’t canned goods. Also, a man who might fit the description save one thing—he has brown eyes, for example—will still think he’ll be blackballed. To get better responses, be general and expansive about what you can tolerate.”

  Be afraid of sending emails, and responding eagerly. Men will not be turned off by you making the first move, that is, if you prove you genuinely liked his ad. When Val replied to mine—where I wrote I didn’t want a career-or religion-obsessed woman—she wrote, ‘I try to work as little as possible, and my religiousness is limited to exclaiming Jesus f**ing Christ several times a day.’ I knew she read what I’d written, and was mirroring the tone of it, too. I got several form letters from women that could have been sent to hundreds of men, for all I know (one wrote, ‘Read your ad. You seem great! Let’s talk.’ Let’s not.). Even online, you want to foster the notion that you are responding to each other just like you would if you met in the real world, and that there is a chance of making a bona fide connection. Otherwise, you might as well be searching for a Russian groom.

  Acknowledgments

  A few shout-outs, in deserved boldface. First, to Nancy Yost, who has represented me for seven human years (in agent years, that’s fifty-six). Despite this, she is still cheerful, sweet and funny…. To Carrie Feron, who has toiled over four of my books to date. And, unlike some editors in book publishing (or so I hear), she actually edits, making suggestions that always turn into improvements, for which I am eternally grateful…. To Selina McLemore, who is patience and sunshine on the phone whenever I call, and that is rare indeed in New York, and much appreciated by everyone she talks to, I’m sure…. To Pamela Spengler-Jaffee and Heather Gould, who squeeze blood from stones daily. And they’ve got the buff forearms to prove it….Also to Michael Morrison, the man who says, “Yes.” Cokie Roberts thanked him in her acknowledgments, and she’s a woman we can all take example from. So, thanks for everything, Michael!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  VALERIE FRANKEL lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Thetford, Vermont. A contributor to many national magazines, including O, Redbook, Allure, Self, Glamour, Parenting, and the New York Times Style section, Valerie is the author of seven previous novels, including The Not-So-Perfect Man, The Accidental Virgin, and Smart Vs. Pretty. She’s got two daughters, two cats, two gerbils and one brand-new husband. For more info, go to valeriefrankel.com.

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  By Valerie Frankel

  THE GIRLFRIEND CURSE

  THE NOT-SO-PERFECT MAN

  THE ACCIDENTAL VIRGIN

  SMART VS. PRETTY

  Credits

  Cover design by Nadine Badalaty

  Cover illustration by Stephanie Power

  Copyright

  THE GIRLFRIEND CURSE. COPYRIGHT © 2005 BY VALERIE FRANKEL. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and
read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © JANUARY 2005 ISBN: 9780061843440

  Frankel, Valerie.

  The girlfriend curse / by Valerie Frankel.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

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