Woo girls: the new hip

I am beginning to believe that the key to happiness is the decision not to be the smartest person in the room.

This summer at the end of my friend Clare’s wedding, her uncle Craig said to me, “I’ve figured out who you are. You’re a woo girl.”

With my mama in Seattle, likely pre- or post- woo.

“Well, I mean, I live in the Pacific Northwest and bike everywhere, so I’m kind of hip, too,” I responded, thereby negating any of the hipness left over after a night of dancing, befriending Josh-the-bartender, and, yes, lots of wooing. I know woo girls are not highly regarded by all. I’ve watched How I Met Your Mother. Though I’d had one of the best days, celebrating my dear, dear friends, I felt the need to explain my personality type on the Enneagram, Meyers-Briggs, and StrengthsFinder, and to point out that when I took the StrengthsFinder test three years ago, I was not, in fact, a WOO.

My hypersensitivity to other people’s impression of me reached its height when I studied abroad in Ireland and became acutely aware of the “obnoxious American” stereotype. I did not want to be that girl. So I kept myself in check—and when I didn’t, I fretted that my new friends and Irish family would write me off as just another one of those American girls.

This thought pattern inhibited my connection to the two great loves of my life: risk-taking and rowdiness. And it inhibited it for much too long. I frequently found cause to explain the complexities of my personality and to point out that smart, hip, and observant as I was, I knew what boxes people were placing me in. How exhausting! How unnecessary! How much happier I am when I choose not to be the smartest person in the room, not to speculate as to what others are thinking of me!

At the wedding, my mom joined in the conversation I was having with Craig, who asked her if she was a woo girl, too. To answer the question, she’d gotten in trouble in high school for “being boisterous in the lunch room.” At one point, my ma and I wooed in unison.

We may be woo girls, and I do know what that means in popular culture. But we also have the most fun of any girls at the party.