Be Afraid

Almost everyone has a horror story around bringing a significant other home for the holidays. And while we can all agree that every family is their own brand of crazy, I think it’s safe to say that my dad’s side of the family may be a little worst than the norm.

I grew up enjoying tales of the hijinks my aunts and uncles put any potential newcomers through. Some were amusing but harmless – like when they declared it was “weird hat day” or when they went through the house and turned all the photos upside down in their frames. They played a few pranks on girl/boyfriends that were foolish enough to meet the family, but by far the worst shenanigans were whenever someone was engaged. My uncle Dave is still a little bitter about the family vote on whether or not he was allowed to marry my aunt Deb. Of course, it wasn’t a vote in the normal sense. That would be far too easy.

What actually happened was that for Easter dinner, one of my other aunts put eggs full of m&ms at each plate. After the dinner was over, they announced that it was the official vote on whether Dave was accepted into the family, and anyone that ate their m&ms was voting against Dave. Both Deb and Dave are chocolate lovers, so they were dismayed to discover they had inadvertently voted against Dave by eating their candy. In the end the vote to accept Dave passed, but it was a very near thing.

There hasn’t been too much crazy in my generation yet. We like to pick on any significant others with small things, like encouraging them to drink a lot or targeting them when we play games. One Christmas when my brother brought his girlfriend of the time, somebody wrapped a fake diamond ring and stuck it in with the gifts, but thankfully somebody else overruled them and took it out of the pile before madness could ensue.

Of course, until this year no one has been engaged out of my group of cousins. This year though, my cousin Kristen was the first Cameron of our generation to bring a fiancée back for Christmas.

There was a lot of texting, and emailing, and eventually it was decided my father was in charge of coming up with the plan to torture Kristen and Matthew, her fiancée. While we were on vacation in November my dad and I plotted all sorts of potential scenarios about what we could do. My mother didn’t contribute much, possibly because she’s too much of a goody two shoe, or maybe because she didn’t have to go through too much to get into the family.

Once we had a really good idea I floated it past my brother, some of his friends, and some of my friends to see general reactions. When my brother thought it was brilliant and friends thought it was insane, I decided we had an official plan. Given that I was (and still am for next year, seriously why doesn’t anyone else want this job) the Game Commissioner for the day (if you’re unfamiliar with how my family does Christmas, click here to catch up on the awesome), I ended up facilitating things.

My cousin Kristen is a lawyer, so what we decided to do was hold a trial to determine whether or not Matthew was accepted into the Cameron clan.

Impartial Judge Jason

I pretended we were running another game at the end of the night, and then directed Kristen and Matthew to their chairs of honor, Matthew as the defendant and Kristen as his lawyer. I left an empty chair across from them, and then wheeled out my brother’s friend Jason who was acting as our honorable judge for the evening, announcing that as he is not actually part of the family he would be the most impartial and could make a verdict.

Then, I revealed that I had tried to gather character witnesses on Matthew’s behalf, but that none were willing to speak, so instead we had secretly put Matthew through a series of tests over the weekend. One by one I called up other family members to the empty chair to announce the results of these tests.

Shooting Expert Witness Dad

First up was my father, who had taken the adorable couple shooting the day before. He sadly discussed how Kristen clearly outshot Matthew, and that he found this to be very shameful and a point against him.

Drinking Expert Witness Aunt Deb

Next was my aunt Deb, who performed wonderfully considering I had roped her in last minute when one of my brother’s other friends decided against speaking (you may wonder why there are so many random people at our family Christmas. Just more proof of the awesome. If you would ever like to come or want a full detailed description of our games this year let me know!). Deb pointed out that Matthew was drinking red wine, something no one else really does, and how he was barely halfway through the bottle. Moderate drinkers do not keep up with Camerons. Clearly another strike against him.

Walleyball Expert Witness CJ

Finally I called up my brother CJ with the results of the walleyball competition from earlier that day. CJ described how he was really pulling for Matthew to do well, but he was a failure on the court and of course our cousin Kristen really deserves better.

Every so often Kristen tried to make a point or respond to some of the statements, but Judge Jason cut her off. She started to question his (and our) impartialness, but finally I announced that Kristen could now make her case as to why we would allow Matthew to join our illustrious family.

Kristen of course did a stellar job, so good in fact that when we asked Judge Jason for his decision, he agreed with both sides and could not make a final judgment. Instead, he proclaimed that the final game of the evening would determine Matthew’s fate. The planned final game? A poker match, with the victory going to whichever team had the winning player. Matthew was on my team, the reindeers. Unfortunately for him, and as I clarified to the family, the elf team had Jason on it, and Jason is an actual poker champ (like he’s made money doing it).

Kristen & Defendant Matthew questioning the proceedings

For those of you concerned about Matthew’s fate, don’t worry. As Game Commissioner I overruled to remove the poker tournament and allow Matthew into the family. After all he had done a pretty good job all day on the reindeer team, was pretty much solely responsible for winning the corn hole competition, and he took the trial in stride.

Some of my family had questioned why we were carrying on the tradition of torturing potential new members, but I believe in the system. I don’t even care that I could one day go through some similar nonsense. Because the thing is, my family is special. If you stick around long enough you are guaranteed to experience some craziness. I think it’s better to make sure you have someone that can accept that straight off the bat, rather than it being a big surprise later on. Also, my uncle Dave was pretty adamant Matthew should have to go through something. Like I said, he may still be a little bitter. This probably means Kristen and Matthew will take a special interest in whoever is engaged next. So take this as fair warning if you ever consider marrying a Cameron. I don’t know what you’ll go through exactly, but it’s pretty safe to say it’s not going to be your average meet the family.

3 Real Perks to Being Friends With (My) Boys

So as you may or may not know, sometimes I get a little obsessed with Buzzfeed. It comes and goes, so I’m not really worried about it. However, as I was jumping through page after page a few weeks ago I found this article on the 27 Perks of Being a Girl with Guy Friends. As a girl who has always had a lot of guy friends, I was super excited to read it.

But for the most part, I found it infuriating. Sure, some of it rang true (my guy friends have been some super awesome wedding dates, and man pockets are the best), but a lot of it seemed just like stereotypical nonsense. I would NEVER dream of having my boys beat up a guy on my behalf. Their “love” advice just frankly sucks half the time. Plus I am perfectly capable of overindulging in delicious junk food with my female friends, thank you very much.

I have been mulling it over for a week or two, becoming more and more offended by these so-called “perks,” and finally I decided the only way to combat the lies is to share some perks of my own. Now granted, these still won’t be universally true, because while you can always try and break things down as “girl” versus “guy” behavior, a lot of things just depend on personalities. With that being said though, here are the top 3 benefits I’ve found from being friends with guys.

1.     The Drinking.

I said I am capable of eating junk food with my girl friends, and I’m certainly capable of drinking with my girl friends (and trust me, I do), but without a doubt I drink more when I’m with my boys. This is twofold.

For whatever reason when I’m hanging out with the guys we are far more likely to just have a casual beer or two with whatever we’re doing. Getting dinner? Better have a beer. Playing Settlers of Cataan? Clearly need a beer. Watching anime? Definitely should turn it into a drinking game.

This may partly be because of my own drinking preferences. It’s rare for me to drink wine, so a glass with the ladies just doesn’t happen as often as a beer with the boys. It may partly be because the boys tend to have alcohol around, and they tend to start drinking it. I know when I visit my brother the fridge will always be well stocked with beer. Heck, I just helped some of my friends build a kegerator for their house a few weeks ago (and by helped, I mean in my normal manner of assisting wherein I mostly watched and occasionally handed over a tool or held something when asked).

Besides drinking more often, when I’m with the boys I also tend to drink larger amounts. It’s tough to try and keep up with them. I should really know better. I run around trying to remind them “but I’m tiny!” with the appropriate hand gesture to indicate my smallness, but they encourage the drinking anyway.

Now in their defense, if I really didn’t want to drink I wouldn’t. I do have some self-control, thank you. I think I give in more frequently with the boys because I know first of all that they are going to drink excessively, so at least I’m not the only super drunk person. And second, I feel utterly safe with them. Not only will they not let anything bad happen to me, if I’m ridiculously hung over the next day they’ll take care of me without judging. I think they half expect it at this point.

2.     Shit Gets DONE.

Maybe this explains it...

Call me sexist if you want, but one of my favorite things about my boys is that they handle things. If a problem comes up, they fix it. I’m not saying I can’t handle things myself, but I tend to ignore problems until the point where you absolutely need to do something. Same with my female friends. We talk and discuss and complain and only eventually do we actually do something about the issue.

For instance, when my amazing brother sent me a Wii I was having an issue where I had to keep switching cords between it and my Playstation, which I found super annoying. My friend Pietro was over and when I started complaining about it he looked through all my cords and my tv, and figured out how I could solve the problem by getting a HDMI cord. A simple fix, but I guarantee if he hadn’t gotten involved I would still be switching out my game consoles whenever I wanted to use one.

Last night they managed to get a swimsuit stuck in the washing machine. My approach after a few attempts to fix a broken washer would probably be to go to bed and ignore it until I was out of clothes (which I’ve discovered recently would take a LONG time. I own 29 pairs of black underwear alone). But Kevin and Pietro poked it, and turned it upside down, and attempted various strategies until finally they fixed it (my contribution was to get my hand briefly stuck in the machine. FTW as always).

Again it’s not that I think girls can’t accomplish things. But I do think we tend to delay and deliberate over a problem before we look at actually fixing it. The boys just try to handle it immediately. It’s awesome.

3.     The Partial Nudity.

Again this breaks down into 2 benefits. The first one was definitely more of a big deal back in high school. The guys always want someone to be naked-ish. You cannot even imagine how many different things they can turn into a strip game. Strip poker is for the squares. Once you’ve played a game of strip pool, or strip Magic, then we can talk.

That might seem odd as a benefit (unless you’re an exhibitionist), but the truth is that hanging out with the guys has made me far more comfortable with nudity. With girls, even when you’re friends there’s a bit of awkwardness when someone has to strip. You say things like “we’re all girls here,” “well we all got ‘em,” or my favorite “it’s nothing you haven’t seen before” in order to make it feel acceptable to take off our clothes. Sure, eventually good friends can just wander around in whatever state of dress, but you’re always aware of it on some level.

With the guys, it’s like their own nudity doesn’t mean anything. They’ll play strip games all night long because they don’t seem to care what you see on them. That attitude rubs off. Thank goodness, because inadvertently I end up ruining/losing clothes. A few months ago I happened to be wearing an adorable red dress and then attempted to hop a fence to recover a Frisbee, which was a poor choice as it completed tore open the whole side of the dress. Did I freak out? Nah, I just hung out the rest of the night with my side exposed. Whatevs.

Who needs strippers when you have male friends?

Besides strip games, since nudity doesn’t seem to matter to guys, they spend a lot of time taking off their clothes. They wander around in towels, and on hot summer nights strip down to boxers when they’re playing Starcraft. Which means when you’re a girl hanging out with a bunch of guys, you get to spend a lot of time admiring their half-naked bodies. Hey, we can be platonic, and I can still admire your pecs! They’re not mutually exclusive!

Of course there are many more benefits to having guy friends. Sometimes I worry that there might also be come cons, such as hanging out with the guys all the time makes me less like a girl, but my boys are definitely worth it.   

P-p-p-poker Face

Last night I was playing poker with some of my boys, which let me tell you I haven’t done in YEARS. We went through a big poker phase in high school, which continued a bit into college, and then I just stopped. Possibly because I am the worst poker player in the history of the world.

Seriously, poker is complicated. I hardly ever remember what beats what (it seems to me like 2 pair should be better than 3 of a kind, because there are 4 cards involved, but they always tell me I’m wrong on that). I have this issue where the 6 and 9 cards look the same and confuse me. Not to mention I continuously forget the denominations for the chips.

Even worse, as they tell me in Jennifer Crusie’s wonderful book Faking It, poker is actually about knowing the other players. You need to know who’s bluffing and who’s actually got something good. The idea is you learn everyone’s “tell” and use that to better play the game. If you’re not a reader, you can see excellent examples of “tells” in movies like Maverick and Casino Royale.

This is a good (and sexy) poker face.

I find this just about impossible. I’m not particularly good at reading people. I’ve discussed before how I’m constantly missing the conversational subtext. You can imagine how well I do reading the subtleties of the poker table.

The amazing thing is that I do sometimes win at poker. Last night I was one of the last 3 playing. Probably would have finished 3^rd, but we just quit the game. How do I explain this? Well, because of my horrendous poker face.

To be clear, ideally you should have a GOOD poker face. Also to be clear, I’m talking strictly about your face at the moment (none of the Lady Gaga muffin-bluffin whatnot is under discussion). A good poker face is like a mask. No one knows what you’re thinking; no one knows when you’re bluffing.

A BAD poker face gives everything away. Every emotion - from when you pick up your cards, to the moment of the flop, to when you’re betting - makes it entirely clear what you’re doing.

I have a BAD poker face. But my saving grace in poker is that half the time I don’t know what I’m doing. I think I’m bluffing, and my face tells everyone thus, but meanwhile I didn’t realize I have a straight in my hand. This has happened multiple times (although not always specifically with a straight).

My hysterical laughing prolly didn't help matters.

Honest and true time, this is something I should probably work on. Not specifically for poker (I don’t play that often, and worst case scenario I could cover up like one of my friends last night... see example to the left) but more so for life. I sometimes worry that I have overly expressive eyes and face. We used to play a game in college where we would cover the bottom half of our face and guess emotions just based on the eyes. When they were looking at my face, my friends had a 100% success rate. My sign (Taurus, for those that don’t pay attention) is known for our “bedroom eyes.” Well that’s fine and dandy except that I have no control over it whatsoever. So at any given point I do not know what my face is telling you.

This is especially dangerous because my thoughts are all over the place. What shows up on my face may have absolutely nothing to do with the conversation. I swear almost once a month I get in a situation where someone’s like “what’s THAT look about!?!?” and I don’t even know what they mean.

Now if you haven’t realized this already I’m about to reveal something super useful for dealing with me. What this all comes down to is I can’t lie worth crap when it matters.

I have to clarify, “when it matters,” because for really stupid stuff I can lie awesomely. I can look you straight in the eye and convince you I grew up in Russia on a beet farm. That’s not even an exaggeration; I totally had a guy from work believing that for like 5 minutes. Then I realized he was taking me seriously and I had to clear it up. I only have this ability when I find what I’m saying so absolutely ridiculous I don’t think anyone will believe me.

So when I seriously need to lie, such as for surprise parties, or when I’m talking about people I’m interested in, it doesn’t actually work. I’d be a horrible spy. I blame this entirely on my stupid face. Because even when I try to control it, the best I can do is a lack of emotion, which apparently looks so completely different from normal that no one believes it anyway.

The right puppy eyes could take over the world!

Maybe this should be a goal for next year, learning to control my expressiveness. There’s a scene in Memoirs for a Geisha where Chiyo learns how to use her eyes to make a delivery boy drop his packages. Granted, she had awesome eyes, but the idea appeals to me nonetheless. If I could learn to use my expressiveness who knows what I could do?