On "pretty" | | and a contest preview
Being pretty fucks you up, not being pretty fucks you up, and somehow we're still not past this bullshit | | And something new for my readers
Trigger warning: brief mention of an abusive relationship
I’m writing this because that’s how I figure out my own feelings on something. And today it’s on being pretty. Something I wish we as a society had just fucking gotten past.
And let’s be clear. I’m not an idiot, or falsely humble, because that’s annoying as hell in its own right. I know I’m attractive. And I know life is statistically easier for people who are considered pretty by typical societal standards. I know I’m lucky, genetically.1
Well, in that way. My brain is kind of a dick to me a lot, so I’m not sure on the whole that it balances in my favor.
But yes, I’m pretty. I’m self aware enough to have accepted that. And I have four points on the subject that make me wonder if it was worth it, for me.
Do you have any idea how much is inside me? How much I’ve seen and done and survived and written and created and how much fucking potential I have left? And we all still care that I’m pretty?
Jesus motherfucking Christ, how fucked up is that?
First: I had a nanny in the formative years who raised me to be proper and polite and girly. I was quiet and didn’t make a fuss and always tried to be kind to everyone. I told everyone they were beautiful (and I was rarely lying; I’ve been told I have odd taste; I like features that stand out and are unusual; if I find I want to sketch your jawline I probably think there’s something gorgeous about you and I want to sketch so many strangers on the street). But the thing is: I assumed everyone else was the same as me. Saying it, rote. Hearing it, just white noise. So hearing I was pretty for years meant nothing more than that those around me also had proper etiquette, nothing about me. I was wildly insecure about my looks like any other child, teenager, adult. I still struggle.
And have I ever even been pretty enough to make up for all the bullshit in my life, in my own head? What would that even mean?
Second: When I began to believe it might be true, I might be considered more attractive than the average passerby, I realized how often I heard it. From everyone. And then realized that that meant it must be the most important thing about me. What would happen if I weren’t pretty anymore? Would I have any value? Any worth? Would anyone still care what I had to say? About my opinions and experiences?
What will happen as I get older? I’m a bit terrified. I hope I age gracefully, like my mother, and I hope I learn to keep caring less and less (also like my mother). But what will I do when I no longer have pretty as a defining characteristic? It’s been one for so long that it’s scary to imagine my life without that extra boost.
It won’t be all bad. I might get taken more seriously. I will certainly get hit on less. And, leading into the third, I’ll know that people like me for something more than this decaying package.
Third: Dating is hard. It’s hard for everyone. Like everyone, I think over the pictures I choose for Tinder. I try to have one or two good ones, and make the rest silly, so no one is expecting ta model to walk through the door, but someone with a personality. Yet even when I say I want something serious, so often people admit, after a while, they don’t. Or they lied about something like being vaccinated (which, by the way, don’t do. Long covid completely fucked my immune system. I mean, just don’t lie, but seriously?) to keep talking. Because they know nothing about me but how I look, so they say what they think I want to hear, and if they say it well enough, I believe them.
As I get a bit older, and can weed out some of those, I have no idea how to do the dating thing. Not really. I focused on nothing but school for most of my life. My first serious relationship, after college, fucked me up for years, it still does, and my longest one never quite had a definite end, just starts and stops. It’s only the people who I’ve been able to admit my fears of being some sort of trophy to that I’ve felt like we had a chance. Because I’m used to people wanting pretty, and me wanting validation, and now that I’m over that, I’m lost.
I know one particular, brief timeline and that’s usually it.
My friends and family make jokes about how no one needs to learn my latest paramour’s name until it’s been six weeks, because that’s as long as most of them last, til the spell of my pretty face and the façade they put on because they want that pretty, or that adventure, or even the enigma of everything I hold tight to my chest begins to fade and we’re faced with reality and I realize I don’t actually want this person. I wanted momentary validation, they pulled me in and put me on a pedestal based on a few interesting facts and made me feel happy and not alone and I clung to that because I’m still a fucking child when it comes to my heart.
Would they have even bothered to get to the adventure in my past, to the mysteriousness I can’t help, to the desire I have to save the world if I weren’t pretty?
What will I do when I’m not pretty any longer? No one ever taught me.
Third and a half, I suppose: How fucking privileged am I that I can complain about being pretty? How much will I beat myself up for thinking these things, let alone sharing them, because I’m so worried that I sound just… I don’t even know, but ridiculous in some way?
But the thing is, pretty didn’t save me. It got me free drinks and muffins, but it also brought trauma down on me, more than once (which, of course, can happen to anyone for any number of reasons, but, for me, the Big Trauma, well, he made it clear that my looks were my fault and meant he just couldn’t control himself; that my sundresses were inappropriate around his friends because I looked too sexy and despite the things he did to me god forbid I was considered anything but the ideal girlfriend on his arm out in public), because sometimes people see pretty things, and they want them, and if those pretty things (people) don’t yet understand how the world works and what “no” is supposed to mean or how healthy relationships are meant to go, they get trapped.
Point the fourth: “pretty” made me obsessed with always maintaining the appearance of a perfect life, no problems because they didn’t fit, pretty girls didn’t get to complain about problems, and if they did then who knows what creeps come crawling out of the woodwork to offer sympathy?
If I could choose? I’m honest enough to say I don’t know what I would have picked, pretty or not. Obsessing over anything where I don’t look “good enough,” versus never having had that privilege in the first place; I honestly don’t know.
All I can say, is being pretty—being called pretty, constantly, first and foremost, that can fuck a girl up.
You know what? Make it four point five points. Because I’ve got one more. (And I haven’t even gotten to the societal bullshit; that’s another post entirely)
Do you have any idea how much is inside me? How much ugliness and torment? How much hell I’ve seen and work I’ve done and life I’ve survived and words I’ve written and things I’ve created and how much fucking potential I have left? Do you know what I’ve accomplished and what I’ve lived through? Do you know how much more I’m going to do? And you care that I’m pretty?
I care that I’m pretty?
Jesus motherfucking Christ, how fucked up is that?
And seriously, I would love to hear thoughts on this. Special shoutout here to
.
And the news: I have planned out a writing contest! I think it’s a good one!
Update: I have about 4k views a month, so the winner gets their work posted, and the runners’ up get my favorite excerpt of their work posted.
If you have other brilliant ideas though, please leave suggestions!
Also, if anyone knows how to do anonymous submissions, please let me know because I am still figuring it out.
Also! Doing an AMA all day whenever people happen to ask questions and I’m not asleep (I’m sick) so if you’ve got something, head on over to the chat!
In that way, I mean. I had shockingly bad eyesight until I saved up for Lasik which legitimately changed my life, and though the dentist often comments on how well I brush my teeth I’m still predisposed to cavities, and while I’ve accepted that I will always be quite pale with freckles, that took some time to come to terms with. The sides of my body are wildly uneven: one side of my waist is normal and the other is an hourglass; and one of my legs is like an inch longer than the other. But who cares? I have a pretty face and a nice figure so why should I worry about the rest, right?
Lobe this, I will definitely reply to you properly. Life keeps hitting me with too much at once but I'm interested in this. Thank you for mentioning me, it means alot. This subject is far more complex for alot of us than we want it to be but we want out of that feeling. Thank you Maia, put so well as always. Speak soon xxxxx
Wow! I loved reading your thoughts on this complex, difficult subject. US culture has sm baggage and trauma surrounding the ideal image of the archetypal woman; it’s hard to navigate the volatile, harsh, at times dangerous terrain of female beauty. I noticed a comment here about how they didn’t like seeing someone hating on a writer for her appearance; unfortunately I have seen this phenomenon as well. Somehow there’s a lot of cruelty and vile directed towards pretty girls. In the words of The Smiths “pretty girls make graves” (my friend Hannah tattooed that phrase on her arm.) I feel like just as we aren’t meant to judge women for their body sizes or shapes; likewise that principle applies to pretty women. I’m sorry to hear that you endured the pain of trauma and abuse. There’s a lot of us who have gone through hell and back again (I survived something real bad last December. I try not to talk about it, bc it still hurts.) it’s funny to me that even tho I modeled, when I look in the mirror it’s hard for me to see that model image of myself (kinda like how our voice sounds different when we listen a voicemail.) in my mirror image, I tend sense my inner character, the complex interior existence, the past hurts that lie beneath my skin below the surface. Your honest discussion of existing as a women in this world is very moving and thought provoking. Thank you for sharing this window into your inner world.