So you’ve been on a few dates. So you carry the conversation most of the time. So he claims “liking beer” is a viable personality trait. So there are “no good guys” in your city and you aren’t much of a prize yourself. It’s not a death sentence – there’s a chance you can still turn this drab nobody into the kind of interesting boyfriend you can use as a conversation starter at the dinner celebrating your flawless sister’s new PhD next week with your hard-to-please parents.
Here are some foolproof tips on how to make that transition.
1. Blow your paycheck on an entirely new wardrobe for him. Be sure to hit up places like World Market and the store called “Everest” in your affluent, largely-white hometown’s mall that sells knock-off clothing mimicking what white soccer mommies think can be found on the China-Nepal border. Grab him a few pairs of flowy, colorful Elephant Pants and some ethnic-looking bracelets. Maybe this will add some spice to his personality that screams “I’ve never left my middle-class Maryland suburb.”
2. Bully him into reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love and encourage him to pass off her whimsical travels as his own life story. So he can’t find India on a map? This probably won’t come up. Ignore the fact that your sister’s PhD is in geography with a focus on South Asia.
3. Send him a voucher for a free hotel stay a few blocks away and then break into his apartment while he’s not there. Replace his navy Walmart sheets with a luxury option sourced with Egyptian cotton with a 500 thread count. Layer his bed with avocado leather pillows. Toss out all his empty plastic water bottles and fill any empty space with leather-bound books on topics like anthropology, birth order, art history and the global financial crisis. When he mentions to you later in text that his room magically underwent a full makeover when he was away and asks if you know who did it, feign ignorance and say he’s always been into that kind of stuff.
4. Break into his social media accounts while he’s sleeping and delete all the photos of him holding a fish, playing soccer in early high school and his frat brothers unsmiling around a keg. Post stock images of coffee shops, faraway lands and him receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. Be sure to add captions like “love it here,” “my fave spot!” and “ugh, recognition embarrasses me!” Don’t reply when he accuses you of having done this, you psycho. Smile and embrace your first fight – you’re stronger as a couple after having it!
5. Trick him into calling you his girlfriend by telling him that he already called you that, last week at drinks with his friends after he’d ripped a few shots. Tell him he must’ve blacked out, but was surely referring to you as his loving girlfriend. Be sure to pepper the story with extremely specific details that simply must be true; they’re so particular. Continue to introduce yourself to people as his girlfriend until he decides you must be right. Don’t feel bad about essentially gaslighting him on this one. Men do it to women all the time!
6. Visit the apartment of your sick coworker with strep throat to deliver her some soup, but not without taking a few pieces of her silverware with you. Feed him dinner with the aforementioned tainted silverware so that he contracts strep and is thus unable to speak for himself at dinner with your family. Ensure that his banal excuse for a personality doesn’t come out in the form of him telling a story that has no point or talking about his interest in beer again. Don’t forget to upstage every success of your sister’s by talking about a fascinating trip taken or an anecdote about your boyfriend so that your parents know you’ve caught an interesting man and are thus doing better than her. Anything to move up on the inheritance list!
