12 ways I'm failing at being a lady. You can do it too.

Being ladylike all the time is exhausting. Monique Bowley suggest we give up entirely. If you never want to shave your legs again, get on board.

When it comes to being a lady I feel like that guy on Little Britain who gets around in a wig and bad lipstick. This one:

At school I was happier playing sport at lunchtime than sitting on the terraces with the other girls. I missed the school formal, parties, and graduation ball – all of those girly milestones where you frock up – because I was always playing sport. And as the eldest of three girls (the trailblazer), I had no older sister to pillage clothes from or show me the ways of wearing heels, makeup, and perfume.

My two younger sisters were the same. Tom-boys, all of us.  Short hair, mud-pies, and cricket on the street was our game. And one day, after a ball went over a fence, we scrambled home, crying.  The neighbour has answered her door with “what can I do for you boys?”

My sisters have since grown out of it. But me? Nope.

If you, like me, can’t be bothered being a lady, here are my best tips. Ladies have expensive habits, so if you follow my lead here, you’ll save a lotta cashola.

1. Leave your legs hairy.

Yeah yeah, we all do.  Except the difference is, a lot of you do something about it. I don’t.

My body hair situation is eerily similar to THIS:

2. Embrace the toe hair. 

Every lady wishes for full, voluminous hair.  I have it.  On my toes.  I have never seen a woman with hairy toes. Is this because everyone else deals with the hair down there? If I was a lady, I would forensically pluck this out, but again, I’m not. And when my toes appear in a Pantene commercial, who’ll be laughing then, ah?

3. Stop washing your hair.

A very long time ago, a hairdresser told me to stop washing my hair so much. I think. Or maybe I made that up. In any case, it’s something I have taken as gospel. Sometimes, I go a week. Sometimes I go a bit longer. It’s now reached the point where, if I wash my hair, I get lots of encouraging comments.  Like “Wow! Have you had a facelift? You look so fresh.”

4. Dress like Jerry Seinfeld. 

Right now, I’m massively in fashion. That’s because normcore is in, and so my regular uniform of jeans and a grey tshirt is ON TREND. But fuck, I just got lucky this time. Fashion somehow aligned with me.  And soon it will move on and I will still be here in the same jeans and sneakers waiting patiently for normcore to return in a few decades time. My style icon is… The Big W catalogue. Or Seinfeld.

5. Chew your nails like a dog would chew a schmacko. 

Ladies have such nice nails. Everyone in this office has lovely manicured nails and hands. I missed the memo on this because I really love a good nail chew. I know it’s a disgusting habit but when you think about it, you’re filing away bits of your body with a teeny-tiny saw and then putting paint on it. Now who’s the crazy one?

6. Trip over in heels. 

“Oh to be able to strut in heels. Oh to be able to dance around a pole in heels”. LOL. Jks.

7. Wear terrible underwear.

A proper lady would take pride in wearing nice underwear. She’d feel sexy knowing that beneath her demure slip her lady pocket was sheathed in a lacy scrap of fabric. Not here. I’ve got a ten-pack of beige grundies on rotation.  They’re a size too big, so my back fat isn’t cut into with the elastic. Like I say: too big and nude? Gets no one in the mood.

8. Wear horribly pajamas. 

I love wearing pyjamas that make a man want to pant.  PANT? Oh sorry, I mean paint.  I don’t know what ladies wear to bed. Probably nighties or cute matching two-pieces with some silk or a ribbon or some flouncy thing on it. I’m in an oversized man’s t-shirt, waiting for the moment that Peter Alexander releases his “here’s an old-tshirt with paint on it” range so I can finally feel vindicated in my choice.

8. Don’t learn to cook.

My biggest cooking tip is ‘open the can’. Oh, I can bake, but that’s ‘cos I’m a pig who loves to eat cake batter. When it comes to cooking? I’d rather walk barefoot across lego.  Don’t bother coming around for a Sunday roast.  It’s more likely to be Sunday toast.

9. Don’t wear jewellery.

No one has ever given me any. And I wouldn’t go buying any. What’s the point in that? You only take it off anyway when you shower/ play basketball/go about day-to-day life.

10.Throw out your perfume. 

A roll-on MUM deodorant is about as lady-like as it gets around here. I once had someone spoil me with Chanel No 5 in the hopes it would turn me into a sophisticate. But I accidentally left it in the car on a hot day and it exploded. Now my car smells like woody, musky notes and squashed banana.

11. Wear a backpack at all times. 

Stylish ladies have an array of handbags that they use for various occassions. I have a navy blue backpack. It has three pockets. It is the best.  The weight distributed evenly across your back, padded shoulders, it’s a triumph of comfort.  Why don’t they give every kid a leather handbag to carry to school? Because packs on the back deserve back pats.  Once you have a back pack you won’t look back (pack).

10 embarrassing things all women do. (But we never admit to.)

 12. Give up on make-up. 

A friend is about to go to the US and asked me what I needed from Mac. “Are Apple products much cheaper over there?” I replied. Exactly.

I’m annoyed I’m not a lady. I wish I could be a lady. I WANT TO BE A LADY. I want an Oprah style makeover where I can sashay in tailored clothes, clip clop along in heels, wear lipstick and have neat cuticles and shiny hair and a nice bag.  I want to be Kate Middleton. I want to trot in the fields of Paris like Palermo.

But then I think “Oh get off Instagram you dick, and go read a book.”

More Honesty: the Mamamia Outloud podcast