Things are not looking good on the dating-a-beauty queen front.
Last week, distressed at the quality of my romantic life, I went to the Miss New Hampshire competition with the goal of meeting Miss Right. I still maintain that my reasoning was sound: all Miss new Hampshire competitors are lovely, talented, of the highest moral character and very, very smart.
Too smart, seemingly, to be drawn into my subtle web of romantic intrigue. While not beyond the reach of mere mortals, Miss New Hampshire contestants are, however, apparently beyond the reach of those as mere as myself.
Sitting in the audience at the Miss New Hampshire contest, I had let myself develop a crush on Katherine Pike, Miss Winnipesaukee; not only beautiful, she was a certified bartender and seemed to have a great personality. Unfortunately, she also had an engagement ring, so I had to revise my strategy. I left the auditorium wracking my bran on how to wrangle an introduction to my other favorite competitor, a brunette and gifted soprano from Raymond.
Obviously, a task of this delicacy needs to be handled by a man of great sophistication and wit - in other words, someone brighter than myself. I decide to consult some experts.
Michelle Strout is a good first step. She was Miss New Hampshire in 1997 and presumably knows what it would take to date someone like herself. She has good news and bad news for me. On the one hand, she says, beauty queens do date. Obviously, they can't be married, she points out (the whole Miss New Hampshire thing) but there are no explicit rules against an occasional tete-a-tete. "You just have to use good judgement," she explains.
This is not great news for me - I had been banking on poor judgement.
On the other hand, Strout goes on to explain, just because participants in the Miss New Hampshire program are allowed to date, doesn't mean that they actually do. In point of fact, she says, many girls in the program give up dating entirely between the ages of 17 and 24. The burden of being a role-model is a heavy one and the girls don't want to risk disgracing their crowns. "You have to be careful how you act," she says.
This is not as encouraging as I'd hoped, so I move on to my next expert. Over the past year, there have been at least two major motion pictures devoted to beauty contests. While I couldn't watch them myself, I know someone who has. I call Amy Diaz, the HippoPress movie critic. I ask her what lesson's Beauty and Miss Congeniality have for a prospective suitor of a beauty queen. They both involved soppy romances, right?
"Actually, one of them did not," Diaz says, explaining that Beauty with Minnie Driver was directed by Sally Field and attempted to be heart-warming, rather than romantic. "It was very lame," she says. Apparently, Miss Congeniality isn't much more useful. "She (Sandra Bullock) actually did find love and whatever with Benjamin Bratt, " Diaz explains. (This is good news, because I'm particularly anxious to move into "whatever" territory.) "Actually though, she liked him already but he didn't like her until she got prettied up," Diaz tells me. "I'm sorry. Movies, at this time cannot help you out."
So, how do I go about romancing a beautiful, classically trained, operatic beauty queen? I do some quick research on the internet and find some data that makes my prospects sound like a credit card commercial:
Six lessons at a charm school - $550
One year's tuition at Juliard - $12,000
(Or alternatively) Classical Music For Dummies - $24.99
Flowers - $10
Liposuction - $2,000
New Suit - $700
Audiobook: The fine Art of Small Talk: How to Start a Conversation, Keep it Going, Build Rapport and Leave a Positive Impression by Debra Fine - $15.99
The opportunity to make a fool out of myself - priceless.
