Marie Claire Editors Were the Girls I Hated in High School

Hey, teens! Have no idea what you’d like to do with your life? So awkward and insecure you’ll attend your ten-year high school reunion with something to prove? 

Then Marie Claire’s November issue has just the thing for you! In “The Savvy Girl’s Guide to Surviving a Reunion,” the magazine lists some accomplishments—er, “accomplishments”—you’ll want to rub in your classmates’ faces. What better way to retaliate against that hateful Facebook bully than by wearing a hot outfit? Just pick one of this issue’s six personas (in bold below), plan your ensemble, and live happily ever after. Really, it’s that simple.

Look out, world! Behold the best and brightest of Marie Claire High School’s graduating class!

Budding CEO Status

Only smart people wear glasses, right? So if you had specs in high school, get ready to impress your classmates with your perspicacity…by wearing even more prominent, less flattering frames.

Remember those thick Buddy Holly frames everyone made fun of? They’re in.

And maybe once your erstwhile classmates hear how much money you hauled in last year, they’ll stop snickering about how unflattering your glasses are.

New Body

Were you the girl who had to walk her laps in gym class? The last picked for every game of badminton?

Wow everyone with a skintight dress and booties…

Flaunt it! All the guys you crushed on years ago now have bald spots and pot bellies, but that won’t stop them from getting hammered and slurring pathetic declarations about how they always thought you were beautiful back then. Be gracious. You’re more attractive than they are—therefore, you win at life!

Bun in the Oven

I’m going to quote this one without commentary. It’s just that ludicrous.

At the 10-year reunion, the entire girls lacrosse team chided your workaholism—you’d simply forgotten to have children, they sneered. Make like Angelina in a long jersey jumper that clings in all the right places, revealing your on-trend baby bump.

See what I mean?

Independent Streak

Were you a curfew-meeting, demerit-free, rule-abiding killjoy? What better way to demonstrate how you’ve learned to eschew convention than by wearing mismatched clothes and candy-colored heels!

The more you clash, the better you look.

That’ll show ‘em! Everyone knows wearing exactly what a fashion magazine tells you is the best way to demonstrate individuality. What a special snowflake you are!

Husband, 2.5 Kids, and White Picket Fence

Did you stay home with a stack of VHS tapes on prom night and graduate without having experienced a single kiss? Good news! Your existence has been validated now that you’ve somehow found some dude to pledge eternal devotion and impregnate you multiple times!

Coordinate your outfit with an element of your hubby’s without going full-on Jada and Will. A shell, pencil skirt, and cape pull together the whole smug package.

And everyone likes a smug married! Don’t forget to tell those bitches from the songleading squad about the darling thing little McKenna did at last week’s mommy-and-me yogilates class!

Hefty Divorce Settlement

There are excellent career prospects for a high school heartbreaker—you won’t need one. As an adult, men will actually give you money to break up with them!

…[show] up in your favorite fur coat thrown over a red-carpet-worthy dress—after all, your ex is paying for it.

Suggested cocktail hour conversation topic: divorce attorneys. If nothing else, you’ll be able to recommend the best one around.

But really, I don’t understand Marie Claire spending so many pages talking about high school reunions as if they’re events to be wary of. What woman wouldn’t want to spend hours trapped in one room with her entire high school graduating class reminiscing about the very best years of her life? Right?

Comments

[Working Rachel]

Wow, seriously? I'm actually shocked at how insane these are. This is straight out of 1963...except for the bizarre baby-loving women's lacrosse team.

[Sara]

"coordinate your outfit with your hubby's?"
What?
Matching straight jackets, I'm hoping.

[Becca]

Is this a serious article? Because it sounds suspiciously like "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion".

Plus, I am so tired of the phrases "on-trend" and "baby bump", so I cannot imagine why anyone would have to combine them.

[Glossed Over]

Seriously. It's part of a package about reunions that also included the essay about Wasilla I mentioned last week. http://www.glossedover.com/glossed_over/2008/10/everything-i-ne.html

In case it isn't clear here, the six categories (bold) and the fashion tips (indented) are straight from the magazine. The rest of it, of course, is me.

[SJ]

Phooey. The only one that gets at actually being a HAPPY PERSON is the "smug marrieds" one, and the word there isn't happy, it's smug. Even the pregnancy is an accessory. They don't even bother with "the contentment of motherhood" line. It scares me to think that women are having children because it's on-trend. The last time we did that, our country was gifted with Baby Boomers.

Do people really give a rip what their former HS classmates think? I am a "smug" member of my class's MIA list, hee.

[Emily]

Wow. how bout just not going at all you're gonna be seeing is a bunch folks... you'd rather not see?

I hate that magazines seem to always tell us we need to engage in unending competitiveness with other women, instead of seeking out galpals who support us and leaving those that act like their shit don't stink be.

[Bee]

Marie Claire is dead to me. I'm going to go to their website and cancel the last 3 issues. The mag is just a waste of paper.

[Ryan]

Before you pointed out that the first two were with commentary, I thought ALL of that was a direct quote from Marie Claire. Whoops. But aren't all of these personas, other than the last one, directed at the same stereotype? Hey, were you the girl who sat at home not screwing everyone so you could study and get into college like a LOSER? I want to see what outfit the girl rumored to have multiple STDs who skipped class to smoke in front of Taco Bell needs to wear to her high school reunion to blow all of her classmates minds.

[Rugi]

Gosh. I even LIKED highschool and would hate to come back to my reunion as any of these women. Do you really have to think that hard about how you are going to dress for a party full of people you haven't seen in ten years and won't see again in like another forty? Are there really women STILL agonizing 10 years later about whether the people from their highschool will think they are cool?