I love the story that Ronda Rich, author of What Southern Women Know About Flirting, tells to illustrate the importance of using the ripest, juiciest adverbs and adjectives to enhance a story. She describes how she was going over some fabric and wallpaper samples with Rudy, her interior designer. When she finally found the perfect combination, she announced, “This is it! This will be so cute!”
Rudy’s response?
He threw back his shoulders, crossed his arms, looked at the ceiling, pouted and declared, “I don’t do cute. I do spectacular, fabulous, magnificent, pretty, gorgeous, stunning, handsome, breathtaking, sensational, beautiful, to-die-for-glorious, wonderful, and I have, on occasion, done bodacious. But never, under any circumstances, have I done cute.”
This story is made more imaginable to me because I picture the marvelous dress designer and pageant coordinator Frankie Simmons-North saying the exact same thing with that exact degree of diva-tude. Gown-designer Frankie wouldn’t any more do “cute” than interior decorator Rudy would. And therein is the lesson. If cute is the best you can strive for – as an adjective to describe someone or something in a story you’re telling or in your own personal style and image – then girlfriend, we have a problem.
Without ever having met him, I adore Rudy’s pluckiness and I totally agree with “I don’t do cute” as a personal manifesto. Cute simply isn’t sufficient. To stand out in the dating scene, you must strive to be colorful. Not in a just-hangin-in-the-locker-room-with-the-boys kind of way, but in a good kind of way! Wear attention-grabbing color. Have colorful conversations. Conjure up colorful images for your audience as you regale them with the stories of your day, your week, your hair, your life. When writing your online profile, use vivid language to describe who you are, what you enjoy, and what you’ve experienced. Remember, “cute” is for baby booties and toy poodles; I want you to be amazing, fantastic, extraordinary, splendid, dazzling, and incredible. Repeat after me: “I don’t do cute!