As I was sitting on the floor, knee deep in post Packer game laundry piles, inspiration struck! Sadly inspiration and I have not been on the best of terms these past few weeks, hence the lack of writing progress. Ideas would flutter by, on occasion, but none of them would actually motivate me enough to start striking some keys.
Today’s inspiration came from an unlikely source; a make-up commercial. The beginning of the commercial said something along the lines of ‘sure you’re pretty but its what you do that makes you beautiful.’ I think the girl was a volunteer firefighter with effortless make-up but that is beside the point. Coincidentally, earlier in the week I had been mulling over this very idea.
While preparing to go out with some friends, I took a second to anticipate the night ahead. Any given Saturday night out on the town is the same. You start by perfecting your hair, make-up, outfit and shoes. If you are a female, you spend hours trying to perfect your look and deep down hope that you look better than any girl there. (Don’t hate me for saying that, you know its true). If you are a guy, my guess is that you try to do the same...albeit in a little less time.
Next you strut down the street toward your local watering hole. You do a light hair patdown with your fingers, make sure that your outfit has survived the journey and nothing has shifted inappropriately, check for make-up smudges and end with some lip gloss. All clear, you are good to go! Let the mindless chatter with the opposite sex begin!
Sometimes, when I need a break from all this bantering (because lets face it, there are only so many times a girl can say, "Oh wow, thats awesome!" before she starts contemplating smashing her vodka tonic on the ground with the hopes that she can slit her wrists with a shard of glass in an attempt to get as far away from said dude as possible without seeming rude), I start observing.
A few years ago I read a study about attractiveness. Scientists used a facial spacing formula that determines beauty in art and apply it to human beings. After all the measurements and calculations are done, people are ranked on an attractiveness scale of 1 to 10, with ten being the highest ranking and unattainable to date. As I recall Angelina Jolie was extremely high ranking and had a very symmetrical face, aside from her lips which dragged her down to around a 9. How sad for her...
Using a focus group, as well as general observations, the study claimed people typically stayed within one to two deviations of their attractiveness numbers when choosing a mate. So if you are a 5 then most likely you will end up with someone in the 4-6 range.
During my Saturday night observations, I have found this to be true. Upon sharing my findings with female friends, I often get this question, "Why do I attract creepy guys who are way below my level and the guys that I think are cute dont even talk to me?" Honestly, I have no idea why that happens and I was always a little curious myself.
So on one Saturday night adventure, my friend asked a random stranger his take on this issue…to my surprised he was very insightful. The man's theory was this; when there is a very pretty and confident girl, good looking guys get intimidated and figure they dont have a shot so they move on. However, your uglier guys will go for it because they have nothing to lose. Why not start with the best looking one!
Everyone knows that the bar scene is superficial. It is all a bunch of smoke and mirrors and I think sometimes we forget that. You are judged instantaneously and harshly. When I'm having an insecure moment, this is what I like to keep in mind...most of the extremely pretty, perfectly put together people that I've met are seriously screwed up!
I remember meeting a man once and thinking to myself, “You are quite possibly the best looking person I’ve ever met and yet I have no interest in talking to you because people this pretty have issues.” In the course of about an hour he had managed to drink himself into oblivion and make out with a sloppy, sloppy girl of about 19 years old who I’m pretty sure threw up only a few short moments prior to their makeout session. Eww.
Some people are pretty in a club where it’s dark and you can only really hear half of the conversation. Heck, they are even pretty in daylight. But usually, after spending five mintues with these people, you realise that their beauty is ONLY skin deep and suddenly they're not so appealing anymore. Pretty isn’t everything, it’s all in what you do with it.
Someone told me a few weeks back, “One of the best things about you is that you have no idea how beautiful you are.” That was lovely and I thanked them. But, the whole notion that there is somehow an expectation on your personality or actions based on how pretty you are is still very confusing to me. But maybe if people paid less attention to how pretty they are on the outside and more to how beautiful they are on the inside, their world would be a little bit better.
As always, let me know what you think.
Till Next Time
~E
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