Mindy Kaling - Why Not Me?

ALSO BY MINDY KALING

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

Copyright 2015 by Mindy Kaling

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Crown Archetype and colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kaling, Mindy.

Why not me? / Mindy Kaling. First edition.

pages cm

1. Kaling, Mindy. 2. ActorsUnited StatesBiography. 3. AdulthoodHumor. 4. Conduct of lifeHumor. I. Title.

PN2287.K18A3 2015

791.45028092dc23

[B]

2015020444

ISBN 9780804138147

eBook ISBN 9780804138154

In some instances, names and identifying characteristics have been withheld or changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Conversations in the book are written from the authors memory.

Endpaper design and interior illustrations by Kate Harmer

Cover design by Christopher Brand

Front of cover photograph by Emily Shur

Back of cover illustration by Hum Creative

Please see for additional photography credits.

v3.1

For my mother

I N SEVENTH GRADE I started at a new school. On the first day, I was so anxious to make friends, I brought a family-size bag of Skittles to homeroom so I could pass them out and entice my new classmates to talk to me. Do you like Skittles? I asked. Kids would nod, cautiously. Here, take some. Im Mindy! I said, trying to rope them into conversation. It didnt work very well. Even back then the kids thought this was suspicious behavior, like I was covering for something unseemly they couldnt quite pinpoint. Still, I persisted, striking up conversations like a middle school Hare Krishna, and cornering kids with aggressively banal chitchat. Thats so funny you like the color blue. I like turquoise. Were so similar . I did this until my art teacher, Mr. Posner, pulled me aside.

Mr. Posner was soft-spoken and wouldnt let us talk about the movie Silence of the Lambs , because it contained violence against women. I hated him. You dont have to give people candy to like you, Mindy, he said. They will like you for you . I nodded meaningfully, knowing he wanted to see that my mind had been blown by his awesome humanity. Then he took my Skittles and I thought, What a load of garbage. At twelve years old, I had experienced enough to have zero faith in the power of my looks or personality to reel in the friends I wanted so badly. I needed my Skittles. The next day I brought in more, and Mr. Posner called my parents. The Skittles stopped, and I wished that Mr. Posner was trapped in the bottom of a well, and later killed, like in Silence of the Lambs . My parents encouraged me to play field hockey, where I eventually did end up making a few friends. I remember that time as one of the most stressful periods of my life. Every kid wants approval, but my desire to be well liked was central to my personality.

As I got older, I got craftier and less obvious, but Ive always put a lot of energy and effort into people liking me. Thats why Ive never understood the compliment effortless. People love to say: She just walked into the party, charming people with her effortless beauty. I dont understand that at all. Whats so wrong with effort, anyway? It means you care. What about the girl who walked into the party, her determination to please apparent on her eager face? Sure, she might seem a little crazy, and, yes, maybe everything she says sounds like conversation starters she found on a website, but at least shes trying. Lets give her a shot!

And these days, I find Im caring less and less about what people think of me. Maybe its my age, maybe its my security in my career, maybe its because Im skrilla flush with that dollah-dollah-bill-yall, but if I had to identify my overall feeling these days, its much more Eh, screw it. Heres how I really feel. The truth is, its hard to get people to like you, but its even harder to keep people liking you. Youd have to bring in Skittles every single day. The result of my not caring so much about what I say allows me to care more about how I say it. I think it makes my writing more personal and more enjoyable.

If youre reading this, youre probably a woman. Or perhaps youre a gay man getting a present for your even gayer friend. Maybe you accidentally bought this thinking it was the Malala book. However this book made its way from the Female Humor/Brave Minority Voices/Stress-free Summer Reads! section of your bookstore to your hands, it doesnt matter. The important thing is you are here now. Welcome. Im excited to share my stories with you, so you can see what Im really like. If my childhood, teens, and twenties were about wanting people to like me, now I want people to know me. So, this is a start.

Enjoy.

Mindy Kaling
Los Angeles, California

A T SOME POINT in the past few years, I transformed from Mindy Kaling, boring anonymous comedy writer who buys her bras at T.J.Maxx, to this person: