A useless guide to annoying ballerinas

I met Sylvia during a corporate event. Well, by corporate event I mean a drinking event where almost all attendants were colleagues from the office. And by Sylvia, I mean... well, privacy is important. That, and I think do not think her identity would bring any value to anyone. Her real name is Silvia, but nobody should make a connection now that I have changed it to something more difficult to type (especially on a keyboard with German layout). To further obfuscate her identity throughout the story, I will add subtle variations, depending on whether I remember to. Also, if you see her name in other story somewhere else, it might not be the same person; my attention to such details slightly hovers above zero when it comes to names, being predominantly allocated to crucial aspects of life, like being partial to clothes with pockets that have zippers or making sure that I use the minimum number of dishes when I am cooking. So, if you read about the active aggressive ogre Sylvia in my useless guide to the Lord of the Rings*, it is not the same person. Well, it is, wrong example. But if you read about the bitter larch called Sylvia in my useless guide to coniferous forests in the polar areas of Vietnam... damn it! Look, usually it is not the same person, ok?
Svetlana was the kind of woman that men would notice quickly at such an event. Let me explain. It was a party of IT people. For people not familiar with the world of IT, at such parties the ratio of women to men (some may not be called men, but let's anyway, for the sake of brevity and superficiality) is significantly insignificant. Most often she is a waitress or an exceptionally rare happy accident. As I would find out later at that event, Stephanie turned out to be a bit of both. Happy, tough, she was not.

(Later at that event...)

As I was the other woman at that party besides Suzanne, I started talking to her to keep the other, um, attendees away; they seem to be attracted by women who drink by themselves as if they see them on a computer monitor. An expensive computer. With a big monitor. And fast internet. Synthia (I am running out of names, sorry) told me she was some sort of project manager, but the more details she provided suggested she was an assistant manager. More exactly, an assistant to a manager. It is common in the corporate world to use made-up titles to paint rosy colors on less appealing hierarchy levels and duties. Sue (whew) was a glorified secretary and I would imagine most time she would be invited in the boardroom because the very white collars feel their time is too precious to take notes themselves. And for coffee or pastries. On several occasions she shared details about some communication she was about to send to her colleagues, and it turned out to be mostly summaries of notes she'd taken from meetings and asking them to confirm what they had said. Being observant, I understood she was discreetly asking for feedback and I suggested her ideas were tedious and void of content, which made them great for corporate communication and encouraged her to send them. Overall, my impression was that Suzy did not feel appreciated because her colleagues did not take her seriously. She did not ask for any advice regarding the coffee and pastries, but I was keen to divert from PowerPoints and emails and frustration caused by the discriminating corporatist nomenclature; I tackled the topic anyway and suggested mini-kebabs, onion rings and unfiltered German beer as an exciting distraction from the monotony of croissants, Danishes and decaf. Thus, hoping to cover all the aspects and bring the conversation to an end.
Silly me...
For people like Sharon, talking turgidly about tepid topics such as what they think they do at work is important and she kept on and on and on and on and on (and on), but her monologue was gradually stalled to a standstill by men trying to chat us up encouraged by 1) my silence breaks and 2) their alcohol intake. This led Susie to tackle a more stirring topic: men being pigs. Not only in the office, but in general. I am confident this last detail was a reasonable link between the derailed wagons in her train of thought.

(Painfully soon at the same event)

Sara used the scant sample of slightly inebriated men she'd just met at the event as a relevant example for the entire herd of men that have plagued her entire life. If you are precious like a ballerina (this would be end-quote if I remembered to start one) and are smiling and friendly men interpret it as you are being easy and inviting to lewd behaviour. As an ugly woman, I can certainly debunk such myths. But Gertrude (I panicked, sorry) was unstoppable: because of absolutely every man in the history of men she cannot be herself, she cannot wear the clothes she feels like wearing and cannot be as friendly and happy as nature has blessed her to be. And she cannot be as gracious as she can be, she continued briefly after downing half a pint of Guinness. She continued about how men misunderstand her easy-going attitude and how they do not take her seriously and are only looking for frivolity. Normally, I would have been happy to keep on answering with silent nods given that S-meralda did not really need input or other people's opinions in her debate. Unintentionally ironically, she was getting quite loud about how she keeps a low profile because of that. People would start to notice. And the last thing I needed was protracting the discussion. At that moment I decided to intervene gently and calm her down before any escalation. I began by suggesting there were other options of being discreet than a layer of make-up thicker than some low reliefs (which at least have the ornaments on the outside) and glowing red lipstick with a black contour. And I did agree with wearing slacks so tight, mostly when that is possibly the largest size available. To put things to an end I mentioned that ballerinas wear tutus instead of slacks, but warned it would be difficult to find her size in white; tutus that big are only available in camouflage colors for the army or in pink and yellow for circus tents.
I don't know how effective my advice was eventually, but it was great short-term. She did not say another word while I finished my drink, paid, and went home to work my fingers at Patapon. I would say it was pretty good, overall.

If this narrative feels long to you, it means I conveyed it right. Although it was probably five to ten minutes, it is exactly how I felt it, too. It was a dear price for learning how to spot and handle a Sophia ballerina (subtle hat tip here to Francis M.P. Boyle) but there you have it, for free. You are welcome.


*Note: After giving it some thought, I guess it makes more sense to call it "Lords of the Ring". There was only one ring relevant to the story and it involved several lords, which means this handles the plurals correctly. The wrong thing is that there is no drug lord in the film, which would cause his loyal gang of baddies with big motorcycles and heavy weaponry to quickly shift the balance of power between the over-sized leathery eagles and the struggling Sir Ian McKellen in favor of the latter; it is a known fact that gringos can beat griffons any time of the day. Mainly because griffons are nocturnal predators. Of course, this would not work so well if the fight is taking place at dusk, because there is a two-to-three hours tie-break until it gets dark and then the griffons have the advantage of superior sight against sleeping enemies. Or at dawn, when the griffons have the edge due to the gringos being hungover. Without getting more granular about time slots and the location of the battle relative to Earth's movement schedule around the Sun during the battle, such an imbalance during daytime would have led to a shorter film and speedier happy-end. And the rare footage of a Mexican stand-off between a wizard, a motor-gang and the cyclopic Sauron. 
I am afraid in this case Narcos would be deprived of some originality, but I am not 100% sure. I have not watched it yet, but I would like to think it has griffons in it. Griffons are famous for their ability to carry vast amounts of narcotics across short-to-medium distance without wasting between two to three seasons digging a tunnel under the southern US border. Griffons are also known to take a derisive stance when it comes to annoying ballerinas such as Sylvia -this is why the namesake ogre was spared her life in the film, on grounds of being entertaining. Which makes them relevant to this story.

On the other hand, Mexicans are partial to big asses.