Woman Explains What It's Like To Go Through Life As A "Really Beautiful" Person, And Some People Are NOT BUYING IT!
The Cut- Around eighth grade people started to tell me I was pretty. I was tall and willowy. I had a great figure and I never weighed more than 120 pounds throughout my 20s. I started modeling in high school and had waist length dark brown hair and brown eyes. When I do the whole makeup, eyelashes, high heels, gown look I am very intimidating.
My looks definitely opened doors for me. I worked in PR and as a news producer, writer, reporter, and talk-show host. I did acting in daytime soaps, TV commercials, and theater. I never interviewed for a job I didn’t get. I had a good degree from a good college, sure, but I think all things being equal I’d get the job above other candidates because of the way I look.
One of the worst things about being beautiful is that other women absolutely despise you. Women have made me cry my whole life. When I try to make friends with a woman, I feel like I’m a guy trying to woo her. Women don’t trust me. They don’t want me around their husbands. I’m often excluded from parties, with no explanation. I imagine their thought process goes something like this: “What does it matter if I hurt her feelings. She has her looks and that’s more than I have. Life has already played favorites …” It’s kind of like being born rich, people don’t believe that you feel the same pain. It’s a bias that people can’t shake.
Men were more loyal friends, but my boyfriends would always say: That’s because they want to get laid. So I’d think: Women dump on me. Men just want to have sex with me. Who am I? My closest friend was a gay man, he wasn’t jealous and he didn’t want to get laid. That might have been my only pure friendship.
Here’s the really sad part. It doesn’t matter how beautiful you were in your youth; when you age you become invisible. You could still look fabulous but … who cares? Nobody is looking. Even my young-adult sons ignore me. The irony is that now that I am older I am a much better person. I went through some suffering in my 40s — raised two kids, dealt with an alcoholic husband, watched my parents get sick and pass away — and I really grew. But as far as the world is concerned? I’ve lost all my value.
And here I was, scrolling into the twitter reactions from other women:
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We’ve seen this sort of thing before. Emily Ratajkowski complained about how difficult it’s been to get movie roles because she’s too sexy, which sounds like the most backwards, illogical sentiment ever given that we, the movie-going audience, prefer a sexy cast. That’s why Fast and Furious has made like 100 billion dollars while Phillip Seymour Hoffman died from a cheap heroin overdose. His movies were really good but nobody saw them because his breasts looked bad on camera.
Now here we have an interesting lament from a self-proclaimed “beautiful” woman. Of course a bunch of people on twitter rolled their eyes so far back into their head that they looked like Bran Stark when he’s google mapping a landscape. But there are a few totally reasonable points that she makes, like:
“When I try to make friends with a woman, I feel like I’m a guy trying to woo her.”
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This point really hit home with me because every time I’ve ever tried to make friends with a woman, it was because I was a guy trying to woo her. Not necessarily for sex, but… usually for sex. I have a lot of girl friends, and if any one of them ever propositioned me for sex, I would accept. Why? Because I’m a good friend. I don’t want to hurt my friends’ feelings.
But the last paragraph is where she loses a lot of credibility:
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful you were in your youth; when you age you become invisible… As far as the world is concerned, I’ve lost all my value.”
If you spend your entire youth jumping from one meaningless relationship to the next, not cultivating meaningful relationships because you “don’t want the merry-go-round to end,” then you’re right–you won’t have enduring value in later life. Maybe spend that time learning to fly solo across the Atlantic like Amelia Earhart. Or show Lewis and Clark the way for 1,000 miles with a baby on your back like Sacajawea. Or win two nobel prizes for your work on radioactivity like Marie Curie. Or write Pride and Prejudice. Or Their Eyes Were Watching God. Or SEVEN Harry Potter books fueled by an imagination that captivated and delighted men, women, and children all over the world. Try telling these women they became invisible, or lost their value, as they grew older. Looks may fade with age, but great legacies burn bright through time, fueled by the force of achievement. Personally, I think that’s a beautiful thing.