Dolphins are just Gay Sharks
And Other Things Brittany Knows Aren't True
Brittany always says things with a straight face. Other people will say something like she says all the time, and then they will smile and wink, and everyone will laugh. When Brittany makes a joke, they just give her an odd look. When she was younger, she didn't know why that was. She wanted people to think she was funny, and was upset when they didn't. When she noticed the pattern of winking and smiling after a joke, sometime around seventh grade, she tried it a few times. It didn't have the same effect for her as it did for other people. They would just look at her, puzzled, for a few moments, as they did before, and then move on with their lives.
She wished people would think she was smart. Well, not smart, maybe, but at least not terribly stupid, as they so obviously think. Maybe when she was younger, she didn't care, but by the time she hit eighth grade, it was getting to her. She started putting thought into her schoolwork. Before, she had simply not done it, or if she did, she didn't give it the thought it deserved. And suddenly, when her teachers had expectations of her, everything got harder. She didn't like having to expend thought on her work. It was so much easier to just let them think she was stupid. No one expected anything of a girl who couldn't tell her right hand from her left, or forgot her middle name. She missed being able to skate through school, and vowed that if she ever had the chance, she would not pass up the opportunity again.
Toward the end of her eighth grade year, her parents told her they were moving to some sort of tiny town in Ohio. She would miss her big city that she knew so well, but she would make the most of the situation. She started plotting over the summer, coming up with things to say and do that would contribute to her unintelligent image. She was already blonde, so she had that going for her. She figured that cheerleaders were considered rather dim, and she thought she would make a pretty good cheerleader, so she decided to join the team. It was a very good team, too, at the school she would be going to, so it might even be fun.
She was fully prepared by the time they actually made the move, in early August. She would have fun with this; it was like being a player on a stage. All the pieces she had so carefully set up would fall neatly into place, and no one would see through her act.
When school started, the first thing she did was sign up for cheerleading. The coach was harsh, but she thought that Brittany had potential, so she let her on the team. The cheerleaders here were referred to as cheerios, which she thought was rather silly, but who was she to argue? She was just a dumb blonde.
The second thing she did was announce to her math class that the square root of four is rainbows. At first the class broke out in laughter, but when they realized she was serious (or pretending to be) they quickly sobered and gave her odd looks. A few more strategically placed comments, and she was the new school moron. It wasn't like when she was very young, though. Nobody thought she was cute. People made fun of her. They called her 'retard' and 'moron' and some of the smarter and more politically correct ones called her 'intellectually challenged'. It wasn't enough anymore. Not even being a Cheerio was helping her image.
She had made friends with one of the Cheerios, a pretty Latina girl that nobody liked because she was so mean. Brittany liked her, though, because she never made fun of her for her stupidity. They were the only two unpopular cheerleaders, so they spent a lot of time together. Eventually they became true friends. Brittany had had many friends in her home city, and now she had only one. She made do. She would figure out something to help her become more popular.
It didn't take her long to figure out what she had to do. A senior on the football team came up to her after practice and asked her out. He didn't care that she was stupid; he just thought she was hot. Of course, not actually being stupid, she know exactly what he wanted. And it was a way out for her, a way to be accepted. (At least by the boys.) So she agreed, and he took her to dinner. After that, he took her to his house, and she gave him something precious without a second thought. She didn't think that the act was terrible, and it got her something she wanted.
She was ashamed of herself for a while, but she couldn't stop. After a couple weeks they broke up, and she started dating a different boy. She halfway wanted to keep it chaste, but the consequences of that were worse than the gain. (She wondered if that was really true, or if that was just something she was telling herself after what had happened with the senior, so that she wouldn't feel like it had been a terrible mistake.) In order to stop having to give the subject thought, she slept with this boy as well. This led to a long stream of boys, a great deal of which only wanted to see if she was as good as it was said. She didn't disappoint. She never did.
Being a good friend, she told Santana about this surefire way to get more friends. Santana was grateful, and took the advice. By sophomore year, they both were pretty, popular, easy cheerleaders. All the boys loved them, and they didn't need the girls to. They could go about their daily lives and not be treated like garbage. They could even join glee club, which would be social suicide for anyone else. They were goddesses, and ruled the school together. Life was good. Is good.
That is what she tells herself when she proclaims that a ballad is a male duck, or states that she went to a misogynist after pulling her hamstring. She likes her reputation, and wouldn't change it for the world. She worked hard to get where she is, and likes it. She never wishes that people would think she is smart. She never wishes that she could turn a boy down and spend the evening with Santana. She never wishes that she had never told Santana how to be popular, so that Brittany could spend the evening with her when she didn't have a boy of her own.
Brittany knows that these things aren't true.