Little Victoria Laine and Laura
Last week’s funny first date stories– and, oh I loved them!- reminded of other funny things we get ourselves into when we are young and so today we are exploring the world of alternate personas.
Here’s my story:
When I was a little girl, the name that I would take on whenever I played with my best friends (shout out to Tonia, Jenny, and Laura here) was Victoria. If Victoria needed a middle name in our game, it was Laine. So you could call me Victoria, Vicki, Laine, or Lainey, and we were good.
Years later, some conversation led me to tell this to one of my adult best friends (I am not naming names so as to protect her identity but I will call her My Person from here on out because that’s how refer to one another). Not long after that, My Person and I were out one night when a guy approached and asked if he could buy us drinks. We demured, but he stayed to talk and when he asked our names and what we did, My Person quickly introduced me as Victoria, a Spanish professor. I wasn’t a professor at the time, and I certainly wasn’t a Spanish professor (trust me: though I can absolutely hold a conversation in Spanish, I have no business being a Spanish professor. I once told a congregation of Spanish speakers that I was very embarassed that I was late. Or I thought I told them that. Turns out, I told them that I was very pregnant because I was late. Turns out embarrassada just sounds like it should be the Spanish word for embarrassed. It is, instead, the Spanish word for pregnant. The kicker? My parents were there). But My Person’s delivery was impeccable so we just went with until it was time for she and I to head home.
Just a few days later, I ran into the guy from the bar and his mother who, of course, I knew. And she promptly introduced me to him as Rosie and told him what I did for a living. Busted. To his credit, though he had been about to say, “Oh, I know her,” when his mom started the introduction, he nodded politely at her introduction and acted like we were meeting for the first time. It will come as no surprise that I have not taken on an alternate personality (or allowed someone to give me one) since then.
Now, it is your turn. When and why have you taken on an alternate personality and how did it work out?
in first grade i insisted upon being referred to as “katharine,” which is my given name. all of a sudden, my mom likes to recount, i transformed from relatively-type-a-little-girl to huge-obsessive-compulsive-know-it-all-brat. i wore my hair in a french braid everyday. it makes me laugh to think about. i am so not a katharine!