Thursday 8 August 2013

After Nancy: A Note on Girly Voices.

'Women of a certain age shouldn’t have a girly voice,’ says the redoubtable Nancy of somewhere-north-of-New-York-City. I think she’s probably right, and I’ll tell you why.

When I was a couple of days short of my eighteenth birthday, I went to a fancy dress party where I met a girl called Pauline McNicol. (I went as Sinbad the Sailor; Pauline went as herself, which I thought was much more imaginative and much less embarrassing.)

Pauline was very lovely. She was the daughter of an Irish bricklayer and had the classic colleen look, so I gave her my phone number and she called me the following day. It was a long conversation, during which I said all the things you’d expect a libidinous and ego-ridden 18-year-old lad to say to a beautiful 17-year-old girl, and she replied with all the things you’d expect of a saucy Irish colleen. So far, so good; we arranged a date a couple of days later.

Her opening gambit amounted to a confession. It hadn’t been she I’d been speaking to on the phone, apparently, but her aunt. Isn’t that wicked? Her aunt had a girly voice, it appeared, and also a good giggle by all accounts. So had Pauline who’d been listening in, and I’ve never trusted women since. (Well, all apart from… erm…)

Postscript:

Pauline had standards, and I treated her with the utmost respect – partly because I respected those standards, and partly because Irish bricklayer fathers aren’t noted for behaving magnanimously towards young lads who fail to treat their daughters respectfully.

Nevertheless, she finished with me a few weeks later. Seems she'd read my respectful attitude as being synonymous with softness, and said she’d prefer a man who was a bit more domineering. What’s more, she’d met one.

How the young man fared with her Irish bricklayer father I never got to find out, but I learned my lesson. Well, several lessons really, not the least of which is:

‘Never trust a girly voice on the phone. It might be somebody’s aunt.’

4 comments:

andrea kiss said...

I have a very girlish voice and I absolutely hate it but there is nothing I can do about it. I have even considered hiring a vocal coach because often people seem to not take me seriously, especially over the phone. I can't tell you how many times I've answered the phone and been asked if my mother is at home. I am often very set conscious about it and it sucks. What's worse is when people assume its intentional or because of some sort of childhood trauma. I think mine is just because I'm rather small. SO... no hating on us genuinely girly voiced gals! ;)

JJ said...

Hey, Andrea, you're yelling at me all the way from Tennessee. I like girly voices. I do, I do. And I know you're an aunt, but your nephew isn't 17 yet, is he?

Maybe you should consider having your tonsils out. It lowers the voice, apparently. And when are you coming to see my sunken lane?

andrea kiss said...

Maybe yelling from TN will help, too :) oh, and smoking.

I have a little niece now, too. She was born last Friday. We'll hop on our little brooms and fly right over to visit your sunken lane. It would be a nice first trip for her.

JJ said...

Congratulations. Just think, in a mere twenty years you could be into grandchildren, great nephews and first cousins once removed. And so the rolling tapestry rolls on.