The Dating Game: Clothes Don’t Make the (St. Pauli) Girl

There are plenty of brews marketed with guys in mind, none more so than St. Pauli Girl beer _ with a picture of a sexy blond fraulein plastered on the bottle.

“You never forget your first girl” is their slogan. While I have tried to forget my first girl, I wondered about the real person in the St. Pauli Girl cutout I saw at the grocery store. Turns out, she would be signing autographs at a nearby store. After my friends convinced me this wouldn’t be stalking, I decided to go meet her.

Bobbi Sue Luther, who’s appeared in Maxim magazine, hosted a TV reality show and is in the film “Extreme Movie” (coming out Jan. 1) is this year’s St. Pauli Girl. Her reign ends Dec. 31. When I saw her, I couldn’t believe she wasn’t in costume. How could this be? She’s the St. Pauli Girl!

Instead she was wearing a black tank top, black gym pants and sneakers. Definitely not the traditional St. Pauli garb. As she signed an autograph for a male fan, he brought up the same question.

”I don’t wear the outfit, I am not a character of myself,” she said. “Most guys are upset about that.”

You bet I was. Like the guys who meet her at conventions or bar promotions, I was slightly disappointed.

”I think [guys] show up expecting to see a character and they find a girl, so they are taken aback,” she said.

Now there’s a thought: How many times do singles go on a date acting like something they’re not?

“The worst thing you can do on a date is not be an honest depiction of yourself,” Bobbi Sue said. “Don’t put up a front. Be true to yourself.”

Bobbie Sue doesn’t like to be thought of as a mere “beer girl.” She attended the University of Maryland on a tennis scholarship, runs a charity organization, Cuties for Canines, which rescues dogs, and now lives in Los Angeles. Aside from movie aspirations, Bobbi Sue is a certified firefighter licensed to handle hazardous material.

“Hazardous material _ does that include drunk, obnoxious guys?” I asked her.

“I have been able to take out an inebriated guy or two on more than one occasion,” she said.

So do the HAZMAT skills come in handy in the Los Angeles dating scene?

“The dating scene in L.A. stinks,” she said. “Most girls present themselves like hookers in L.A. They dress like hookers, they hang around with other girls that act like hookers, not that they are. So if I [were] a guy, I would treat them that way. They think the guys are players, but look at what the pool is. Give them something to appreciate.”

Bobbi Sue, 29, endured her share of bad dates and frustrating relationships until she met her husband just over three years ago. It was at a movie premiere in L.A. (why does this sound so Hollywood?) where makeup and special effects artist Robert Hall, 33, had seen her walking the red carpet and wondered if she was a star in the movie.

“I was sitting there with my girlfriend and it was like being the fat girl at the prom,” she said. “Nobody wanted to talk to us. He had been lingering around the whole time and he said `I’ll talk to you.’”

Married for two and a half years, the St. Pauli Girl says she has never been happier. And after chatting with Bobbi Sue, I’ll never forget meeting my first St. Pauli Girl, regardless of the costume.

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(Contact Fred Gonzalez at fgonzalez@MiamiHerald.com.)

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(c) 2007, The Miami Herald.

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