How To Be Adorkable

I remember the time I brought one of my ex-girlfriends to see Zooey Deschanel and her band She & Him at the LA Times Food and Wine Festival. Although she was familiar with her celebrity she was mostly attending the event to be the dutiful girlfriend supporting my musical interests. Well, that and the free food. After each song I could feel her love for Zooey grow when she said things like “ughh I love her dress,” “she’s so awesomely awkward on stage,” and “I feel like we could be best friends!” The phenomenon I had witnessed first hand was the same spell America had been put under when her TV show New Girl, and thus Zooey herself, was given the endearing, if cheesy, adjective of “adorkable.” Men want to date her and women want to befriend her, but what are the actual qualities that make her so charismatic? And how can you model yourself to be your very own Zooey?

Have eccentric skills and interests.

Zooey has the market cornered on the ukulele and old jazz songs so you’re going to have to up your game on this one. May I suggest the accordion or the harmonica? Now you can effortlessly rip polka and/or blues tunes to topics like “these buttons on my dress are too big” or “I have too many different types of spoons.” When asked about your hobbies in interviews, constantly try to reference things like your bottle opener display case, vintage doorknob collection, or all the memorabilia you own from the set of “Bonanza.” And I would also recommend you change your name to something unique like “Zoe” but spell it unlike anyone else (may I suggest “Zoweee”).

Be attractive, but not too attractive.

It’s a tricky line to toe, but you want men to feel like you’re the approachable “girl next door” type without having women hate you because you get all the male attention. So what should you do to get both guys and girls attracted to you but not in a way that they will feel you’re a threat? One word: bangs. That’s right, guys will instantly be less sexually attracted to you and you will still have a hours of built in conversation with other women. So go ahead and banish yourself to being type cast as Kate Hudson’s peculiar friend in all future rom coms.

Get an eccentric style of your own.

Girls love fashion, clothes, and playing dress up (or so I’ve heard), so why would you want to look like any other girl that shops at H&M and Zara when you can totally go vintage or at least pretend like you are by shopping at Anthropologie? Wear glasses when you don’t have to, carry around a pet salamander, and declare your love for bedazzling with a funky T-shirt. Now any girl can feel like she can come up to you and say “OMG I love your shoes/dress/brooch.” Instant ice-breaker. As a bonus, you will look refreshingly unlike every other girl in town, so guys will think “oooohhh, wow, she’s so exotic.”

Try to develop a really odd speech pattern.

Think of yourself as an adorable Yoda. Use words that hardly anyone does in the 21st century. Instead of “bedroom,” say “boudoir.” Instead of “cat,” say “kitty cat.” Instead of “right,” say “starboard.” Now mix up the order of your verbs and nouns liberally in speech and “on way to adorkable can you be.”

As a fan of Zooey that frequently gets lost in a YouTube nexus of her music I notice that the one unifying thing with all of her qualities is that she’s confident in herself. While she may ham up the “quirky girl” at times to uphold public image I do believe that is actually who she is at the core.

Whatever it is that you are, “adorkable” or not, just own it — but make sure to buy it secondhand.