A brief and poorly-informed meander through pop psychology

[susie_flo]

How can you tell if your boyfriend is a half-empty kind of guy?  Here's how... launch into a dreamy reverie about how lovely it would be one day to have a big garden full of fruit trees. Then hear him reply "in other words, a garden full of wasps."

On a totally different subject, I want to share my current, ill-formed theory on beauty...   (and by this I mean extreme, conventional, physical beauty - male or female - the sort that turns heads everywhere it goes.) 

First of all, am I alone in thinking that it may be a curse, rather than a blessing?  It seems to me that so many of the people endowed with outstanding physical beauty also suffer from terrible low self esteem.  Does the psychological baggage outweigh the benefits?  I mean, don't get me wrong... nobody in their right mind would choose to be ugly.  And obviously we all do whatever we can to make the best of ourselves... but I do have a theory that the perfect state to be in is a state of average attractiveness, rather than extreme beauty. 

Being born beautiful must be like being given ten million pounds at birth, and going through life feeling well-loved by all, and not knowing any other way to be... until one day you start to wonder whether some of the people would still love you without the money...  and then discovering that your bank notes have started  slowly to disintegrate and there's nothing you can do to stop it.  That's got to be a seriously traumatic process to go through.

So, having nursed this half-cocked theory for a couple of years, it came back to me this morning when I read a sad story in the Metro about a very beautiful and clever teenage girl who died in her sleep, seemingly due to severe anorexia.  Apart from the obvious thought that it was a terrible waste of a promising life, I couldn't help but wonder whether she would have felt so unhappy with herself had she been more average-looking in the first place... 

Oh alright, I am well aware that this entire theory could just be the average Joe's attempt at self-delusion... and given that I am on extremely shaky ground, I will step away from the pop psychology and revert to shallow topics immediately. 

So... a colleague just came back from a shopping trip to Millets and displayed, with excitement, a selection of bargain fleeces she had just purchased.  I'm afraid politeness abandoned me and all I could manage was "you lost me at Millets"

Edit:   Ooh, I just remembered something...    the other day, my cat walked on my laptop and inserted the word 'lol' into an email I was typing... what are the chances of that?

 

Comments

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Heh! Very good!

[inbetween-girl.livejournal.com]

Southern trees bare strange fruit.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

er.... "Eastern bushes nudie odd legumes?"

[inbetween-girl.livejournal.com]

I was right the first time. Grizzly, not naked. I've spent too long talking to young people on Facebook lately and forgotten how to spell. Gah!

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

Being averagely attractive is at least one way of making sure someone doesn't love you for your looks.

I dunno though, lots of people seem completely oblivious to how attractive they are or don't believe it when people compliment them. Others totally take it for granted. I go to exercise class with a young woman who's a model/actress. She has the usual angst about her body but otherwise seems breezily unaware of what nature has endowed her with.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

"She has the usual angst about her body but otherwise seems breezily unaware of what nature has endowed her with"

...except she's a model, which means she's well aware of her charms and is merely feigning humility in order to avoid being tripped up by other cross, sweaty women at the gym ;-)

Conventionally beautiful people must find it hard to remain completely unaware of their good looks... after all, people are so much niceer to pretty people, on the whole. But I think unconventionally beautiful people are often painfuily unaware of their charms... which I guess adds to their charms.

The good thing about being average is, as you say, the feeling that someone loves you for more than your looks. And in any case, there is still that phenomenen when you start to fall for someone (personality-wise)... where you suddenly discover that you find them physically irresistble, even though didn't look twice at them when you first met them.

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

See, I think, she *is* pretty, but kind of nothing special, if you know what I mean? She's pretty in the standard sort of way. (And she does have a lovely figure, great teeth, beautiful hair etc etc. and she doesn't ram her achievements down your throat)

where you suddenly discover that you find them physically irresistble, even though didn't look twice at them when you first met them

Absolutely!