When introducing people to one another, it’s always good to adhere to the “one interesting detail” rule. “Tommy, this is Joe. Joe is an avid sailor. Tommy has a terrific house on Nantucket- we should all sail there this summer!” These crucial details frame a conversation that would have otherwise been epically awkward, with the added bonus of getting the wheels rolling on your next vacation. 24 little words, but OH so much substance. This weekend, playing hostess at my house for some pre-party cocktails, I found myself framing a similar conversation. “Lucy, this is Flanky. Lucy, Flanky is from Lebanon. Lucy just returned from a tour of the middle east!”
“You’re Lebanese?” Lucy replied excitedly. “My friend dated a Lebanese guy- he was a prince!”
Flanky’s jaw dropped.
“Darling, there are no princes in Lebanon,” Flanky said gently breaking the news.
“Your friend got served!” I added (not at all tactfully, apparently).
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard about a guy faking being a prince (no, seriously). It got me thinking: What is it about the idea of royalty that made girls so susceptible to utterly ill suited Cinderella fantasies? Even when the prince in question is a spiky haired, Armani wearing whore of a man who’s high school GPA was so bad that his purported subjects had to pay for him to be admitted to a school as shite as GW? In a city like Washington DC that attracted students, diplomats and general crazies of every ilk, we were privy to the existence of a number of these alleged “princes.” Actually, they were everywhere. Swinging from the rafters of our favourite clubs, pouring vodka in each other’s mouths at our favourite clubs, and starting “pushing fights” at our favourite clubs (ok, all these guys did was club). And somehow, for all their visible lack of intelligence and charm, they consistently landed the hottest girls. These girls weren’t gold diggers either, I mean they spent more on a single handbag than these guys did on an entire year of clubbing. They meant business. The business of what Jane Austen would call a “profitable union.”
As an “American”, I never really understood the appeal. I viewed being a princess as a profession in which it would be harder for me to do the things I enjoyed the most: namely, acquire copious amounts of pot. Surely there were other reasons too, I just don’t really remember them, for rather obvious reasons. And also, somewhere deep down, I felt like these guys were embellishing their titles. Especially the Arab Guys.
It retrospect it’s not too hard of an act to pull off. I’m not trying to be insulting or a bitch (mainly because I needn’t try at being either) but lots of American girls will believe anything. So starved is the female population for any sort of gentlemanly behavior that any man who opens your car door is a veritable prince- and if that door just happens to be attached to a Bentley, well then ever more so. More crucially, if the Red States are any indication, Americans’ knowledge of world geography is an utter joke; it’s much easier to pull off being a prince when the country to which you’re alluding is as real to these girls as Candy Mountain.
Still, it’s so utterly pathetic to have to create a fake fucking kingdom to get in a girl’s pants that the second installment of our White Gravenor Stall writ large has just been written.
“Dear Saud al-Ahmad al-Mallak al-Blablabla,
That whole thing about you being a prince and stuff? That shit ain’t right. I’m fresh to your game and I’m spreading the word- of course its my word against those of your 80 cousins who have also paid their way into GW and armed themselves with the same lie (what are they btw? Dukes? Marquees?) but I’m pretty intent on getting the message across. So do yourself a favor and tell Chrissy, Candy and Missy the truth. Your parents are just dumb enough to give you an exorbitant allowance, one that affords you the ability to purchase insane quantities of Black Label in hopes of filling the passenger seat of your LEASED 911 turbo with some cheap tail. Shame on you for using their guilt over having sent you off to boarding school/cheated on one another to such vile means.
PS Though of course, I’ll keep your little secret quiet in exchange for 4 years of gratuitous drinks.
PPS What is that you say? We already did? Haha oh ya right. Thanks for the good times!"
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