I’ve been home sick for a couple of days.  For the most part I’ve just been curled up miserably, waiting for the worst of it to pass.  When that palls, though, I’ve been reading trashy articles on What Guys Like and How To Tell If He’s The One.  I always get it wrong–I don’t know what guys like and I couldn’t tell if he’s the one if you put a gun to my head.  It’s left me with some confusion:  am I a girl or not?

So, in honor of all the quizzes I’ve been doing about What Jeans Are Best For Your Body Shape and Which Sex Goddess Are You, I’ve created a quiz for all those who are with me on the whole Cosmo-doesn’t-always-speak-for-me front.  If you like, you can take this quiz pretending you’re me and see if you think I’m a girl, or you can take it for yourself.  Either way, have fun, and tell me your results!  I promise I won’t make fun of you.  To your face.  And for heaven’s sake:  this is meant as a joke!

A.  You’ve been dating a guy for three months.  You think he’s great, he thinks you’re beautiful without your makeup, all is paradise.  He takes you out somewhere special and, after dinner, hands you a gift: an emerald bracelet.  You think:

1. How thoughtful!  And so beautiful!  I wonder if there’s a matching necklace coming in another three months…
2. Gonna have to take out a rider on the homeowner’s insurance for this one.
3. When have I ever worn a bracelet around him?
4. That’s really expensive for a three month ‘anniversary.’  And who celebrates three month anniversaries, anyway?
5. I hope he doesn’t mind that I only got him a subscription to Real Simple.

B.  You’re out about town, running some errands.  You pass a new shoe store and:

1. Go in, duh!
2. Leave an impression of your nose against the glass, but don’t actually go in.  You can tell just by looking that the shoes in the store are outside your budget.
3. Think, I should probably get some new nude pumps one of these days…and keep walking.  You’re probably good for another 6 months or so.
4. Think, if I wore any of the shoes in the window of that store, I would snap my ankles before I made it to the sidewalk.  Why do women do that to themselves?
5. Think, Isn’t that where the kitchen supplies store was?  Now where am I going to get a decent pasta maker?

C.  You have three free hours that must, for various reasons, be spent at a very large shopping mall, and for once you have some disposable income.  You:

1. Thank the shopping gods that you wore a button-down shirt (won’t mess up the hair when changing in dressing rooms), take a look over the mall directory, and map out a plan of campaign.
2. Take a minute to think about what you actually need to buy, make all your purchases in a department store, then buy a magazine and stow away in the Food Court.
3. Take a look at what you want to buy in the stores, then look online with your smartphone and find out that you can buy it for half that much online, finally leaving without purchasing anything.
4. Look only at the bargain racks of every store you enter, leaving with five bags full of various items you may or may not actually need that cost you a total of $37.29.
5. Hit the kitchenware first.  Hey, you’ve been looking for a decent pasta maker ever since that shoe store replaced the kitchen supply store in your neighborhood.

D.  One of your girlfriends has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend and is a sobbing mess on her living room floor.  You, as one of her dearest friends:

1. Rush over armed with ice cream, wine, and movies, collecting the rest of your friends on the way for maximum comfort.
2. Rush over armed with minor explosives and the blueprints to the bastard’s house, collecting the rest of your friends on the way for an all-out assault.
3. Post a comforting, supportive message on Facebook, then finish eating dinner.
4. Finish eating dinner, then post a comforting, supportive message on Facebook.
5. Talk to her on the phone about how much better off she is without him, and offer to make her some spaghetti with your new pasta maker.  You can really taste the difference!

E.  You’re at work and a very large insect scuttles across the carpet right by your office door.  You:

1. Shriek and beg one of your male coworkers to kill it.  You can handle cantankerous clients and hostile takeover bids, but you’re terrified of bugs.
2. Shriek and beg one of your male coworkers to kill it not because you’re terrified of bugs, but because you don’t want to get bug guts on your shoes by stomping on it.
3. Stomp on it.
4. Make fun of your female coworkers who shrieked, and then stomp on it.
5. Catch the bug in an improvised container and drop it out the window.  You don’t want to push the eggs into the carpet where they can hatch.

Answers:

Mostly 1’s:  Congratulations, you’re a Cosmo-approved girl!  I’ve never met one of you, but I’ve heard rumors of your existence for years.  If we ever meet, please tell me:  what is the point of a manicure if it chips within five minutes of leaving the salon?

Mostly 2’s:  You’re me.  Sorry about that.  You may or may not qualify as a girl.  Expensive jewelry makes you a little nervous, you love shoes but only buy them rarely, and you’ve taken to heart the saying that the female of the species is deadlier than the male.

Mostly 3’s:  Even I think you’re boring.  Wear a little pink from time to time, and would the occasional ruffle or velvet bow kill you?  You’re female!  Have fun with it!  And if you don’t want to wear pink, I don’t blame you at all.  I don’t like pink, either.  Or ruffles.  Or velvet bows.  But then, I may not actually be a girl.

Mostly 4’s:  You may be a dude.  That’s fine, if that’s what you’re going for.  It’s really less about the trappings and more about the fun of being a chick with other chicks and having fun being chicks together.  However, if your best girlfriend breaks up with her long-term boyfriend, you must go over there and comfort her.  Facebook isn’t going to cut it.

Mostly 5’s:  You’re my sister.  She’s a mom, which is a special subset of being a girl.  She’s smart, sexy, sensible, and scary all at the same time.  It’s a superpower you get when you give birth.  Or adopt.  Just go easy on the pasta makers.

So, are you a girl or not?  I think my official result is that I’m a girl, but with reservations.  I’m going to a remedial class on pearls and twinsets, but I think I’m going to blow it off for an evening showing of Prometheus.  What were your results?  If you’re a guy and you got the result that you’re my sister, I’m really not sure what to tell you, except that the post is already filled.  By a chick.  God, Gloria Steinem’s going to put a hit out on me!