Usually around the third date we ask our guy about what activities he participated in during his adolescence. If he admits to playing in his middle school band, then we can deduce a lot of information based on which instrument he chose.As a former clarinet player, I can say with some authority that all the hot guys in band played drums, saxophone, guitar and trombone. The middle tier were the string section, trumpet players, tuba players, french horners, and the other clarinet players. At the very bottom of the band totem pole were the boy flute players. If a guy admits that he used to play the flute, well, let's just say that it would've been better if he admitted that he attended clown college.
Well, my guy admitted to playing the flute. My face couldn't hide my disappointment. I immediately thought of us as an eighth grade couple; him carting around his little purse-like black flute case and me dying my hair black, devouring issues of Spin magazine on my beanbag chair, and flipping an L7 cassette in my boombox. I hate us as an eighth grade couple. It never would've worked!
Now, every time we kiss, I think about his pre-pubescent pinky stiff in the air, dexterously maneuvering over the airholes as he huffed away on his warm-up scales. Consequently, I will never be able to take him seriously. After we break up, when I get upset that he has a new girlfriend, I'll just remind myself of his flutist ways and cackle. Could he have picked a less masculine instrument? Maybe a triangle, but that is more jokey. At least it's not a piccolo, or God forbid, a harp.
He will be known in my circle as "the Flutist." We will whisper it through the caverns of KFN: "Yo, I saw the Flutist at the Barbary last night. He was looking banged up." We'll scrawl it on the bathroom wall of the P.O.P.E. "Beware the Flutist! He's a dick." He will never live this label down, even if he wins the Nobel Peace Prize. I don't care that he has advanced college degrees, cool sneakers, a rad cat, and an appreciation for aged whiskeys, he will always be the awkward middle school flute player to me.
16 comments:
Nice to see trombone players finally getting the respect they so truly deserve.
I dated a trombonist! He was very skilled.
I wonder what guys have to think about what instruments we played?
For the record my high school didn't have a marching band but I went through 9th grade garage bands like they were going extinct.
bitchy and judgemental? oh, come on. that's what we come here for. don't, like, edit yourself... or something.
anyway, I played guitar in jazz band until I got tired of the teacher giving me crap that we weren't a rock band. why the hell were we playing Wipeout, then?
also, double reed woodwind players are by far the worst. oboe players? really...
Oboe players are not worse than male flutists. FACT!
I didn't play an instrument in high school... hopefully that's not a dealbreaker. I'd play whatever you want me to play Anna.
@Sprizouse You just made me blush.
c'monnnnnn
www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7oZXt_71CE
If a guy serenaded me with a harp unironically, I'd have to start a whole new blog called Idontwantyourharp.com where I would just post how many times I'd get douche chills reliving the memory of the incident.
ok, no, you wouldn't have dated the guy in 8th grade (neither would i) - but you're still going to hold it against him? is he ashamed of it? because if he's not, then fine, hold it against him, but if he is leave the poor guy alone! you don't have anything you're embarassed about from that age?
ps i love bitchy and judgemental, but i'm just saying!
It's not that I'm holding it against him, I'm just saying that it's altered my perception of him. It's like finding out that the guy you're dating is into Dungeons and Dragons. I'm not gonna break up with him over it, but now he'll always be the D+D guy.
D+D is justifiable cause for a breakup in my book... :)
What about guys who played multiple instruments? Like, if a guy played the guitar and the flute, does that just make him middle of the road? Just, uh, as an example.
And girls who play D&D (or at least express curiousity) are irresistible to guys, even if the guy has never played D&D in his life. Discovering that when dating someone keen... man. It's like finding out your favorite sandwich cures cancer.
Until this post, I had completely forgotten that my most recent long-term boyfriend had played the flute in his high school band. I just remember he told me about it, then played "Colors of the Wind" for me, and then we never spoke about it again. This sounds like a super-boring dream, but it most definitely happened in real life. I'm surprised at myself, as I am typically vehemently hyper-critical, I cannot believe I let this one slide through the cracks for two years, and the year apart that has followed it. Lucky him.
Anna - don't forget that an oboe player usually starts out as a flutist. That means the guy plays a flute and plays it long enough to start playing the oboe. Yikes.
The guy who played the flute in my middle scholl band was the captain of the football team in high school.
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