“Beauty, more than bitterness, makes the heart break.” Sara Teasdale Early 20th Century American Poet
A friend of mine, when she was a teenager, too tall, too skinny, buck teeth and generally unsightliness - prayed over and over to be what is now referred to a hot. No prayers seemed to be answered so instead she learnt to be witty and gained confidence by things other than outward appearance. She had a fair circle of friends of both genders, no boyfriends of course and the hot girls hung together in a clique, but by all accounts she had a happy teenage-hood. Eventually she left for Uni. However, someone must have answered her prayers because peoples reactions started to change, the pretty girls wanted to be her friend and boys started throwing their hat in the ring. She is still a fine looking woman. A real Ugly duckling who morphed to live out her life as a swan.
Funny enough she say’s ever since then there has been nothing but trouble. She wouldn’t give up being a hot woman (who would) but having started life as an ugly duckling, wandered untrained into swan territory and having been left behind there alone as the other swans age terribly… she really doesn’t think of her good fortune as much of a blessing. Like she says “Since the transformation…. nothing but trouble.”
You see the route of the problem is that Hotties really don't have much else to contribute other than the way they look. It's a fair trade off that in place of wit, confidence and stimulating conversation there is a stimulating vision. In fact as a society we are so comfortable with this trade off most people put up with the fact that hot girls have legs, boobs and proportions that ordinary women don't have. Even hot men find the necessity to offer much more than rugged good looks and a toned body not a requirement they have to fulfil. It's kind of viewed that good looks are compensation for the lack of anything of substance. Besides everyone gets old, so there is comfort in the fact that looks will fade quickly but intelligence has a longer shelf life.
But slow bloomers, who have ugly duckling decades before nature’s bounty kicks in, don't have the training on how to be sweet and demure. They have instead decades of having to find other ways of standing out by taking notice of everything and having an opinion. Of not shying away from dangerous topics, of being funny, of drawing attention by being oblivious to their own outwardly appearance. This is lousy training for being hot - especially for a woman. What on any other woman would be viewed to be confidence is seen to be arrogance. What on any other woman would be viewed to be an opinion is seen as grandstanding. What on any other woman would be seen as individuality or character would be viewed as showing off. In other words having a dazzling personality is just not viewed as necessary – but once installed learnt behaviour is hard to change. The slow bloomer needs to have a dazzling but brief spell as a swan if she doesn't want to be attacked by the rest of the pond.
Still none of this matters much as somewhere around 35, the ageing process kicks in and levels the playing pitch for all. Hot men become slightly portly no matter what the gym regime. Hot women either fill out or wizen. Both gain lines, or bags, or greying hairs - thinning on top being the scourge of both genders. However the men have the advantage that female eyes are kinder when viewing the ageing process and it is a curious dynamic that hot younger women actually like ageing men. Through female eyes a man becomes distinguished with age.
Given the choice of a 25yr old or a woman approaching 50... well.... you don't have be a rocket scientist to figure what most men will choose. No longer able to attract the attention of age appropriate men solidarity breaks out amongst women once they approach their half century which was sorely lacking in their earlier days. The former adversaries wonder why they never bothered to get to know each other before. The aging hot girls find the wit and confidence of the aging ordinary girls amazing and the ordinary girls at last get to hang with what used to be the elite whilst feeling inwardly a tad superior. Somehow the crow’s feet, laughter lines and grey hairs unite the gender.
However women LOVE having women to hate. It's almost a biological need to act tribal. But, with the ageing hot girls now united with the ageing ordinary girls... who on earth is their left to hate.
If the late bloomers thought they had it bad, this group have it even worse. It's an unfortunate mix to be witty and confident AND hot AND ageing well.
While men are happy to snap up the hot girls while they are still hot. They would like to grow old with them… not instead of them. A man looks virile if he is 50 with a 25yr old on his arm – but looks redundant if his age appropriate wife looks fabulous and he looks…well… fifty. If a man isn’t looking for a trophy of his virility then he wants to be with a woman who reflects where he is at physically. Hot women in their middle years are much more likely to be dumped by their spouses than a more ‘homely’ looking woman. And if you think for one moment that would make other women feel sympathy for her - then you know nothing about women. There is nothing a homely looking attached middle aged woman hates more than a single woman who is aging better than her.
My friend is a classic example.
When she was young… all the young men chased after the hotties. The hotties had been chased for quarter of a century and were tired of the chase. Most were happy to be caught. There were a lot of hotty weddings between the ages of 25 and 30. My friend had only just found herself in this category and was quite enjoying being chased by the very same type of people who ignored her. So, she was a tad slow to get on the settling down train. Thankfully the biological clock kicked in around her mid thirties and she slowed down enough to commit to a rather hot age appropriate opposite number. And life was bliss until he woke up mid forties and looking it…and she didn’t. So he did what most men having an aging crisis do… he restored outward signs of his virility by replacing her for a younger model. Now mid forties, but with a young child, she did what most women in that situation do… got on with raising the child. And this was fine, but children grow up, become independent… and eventually leave. So now what?
Well… nothing. Any available age appropriate men were only interested in virility trophies or appropriately homely matches. And any woman of the same age was threatened out the park by my friend’s youthful appearance. My friend leads a full and active life, but in the same breath her appearance has sentenced her to a very lonely existence. Her connections to the adult world are superficial at best. As adults we have friends and partners so we have people who we can talk intimately to and share life’s journey with – for better or worse.
I don’t think we realise how beauty can be a total curse sometimes. Couples do not include beautiful single women in their activities. Younger single men assume beautiful women of a certain age are attached so do not approach. Age appropriate single men have a different criterion and women are threatened as we’ve said.
The importance of being included with your peers is noted when we talk of children. Great lengths are gone to by society to socialise children in age appropriate spheres. For my friend, she is as excluded from the adult world by her looks and personality as a migrant child in foreign playground. She just doesn’t belong. I do love her spirit. She accepts everyone else has their reasons. She accepts she will be alone forever. She accepts she can’t complain as she only got what she prayed for. She does enjoy looking the way she does – who wouldn’t! – even though the price seems awfully high. She’s witty and confident and breathtakingly beautiful… but she is resolutely excluded by her peers.
But sometimes – although she thinks she’s really masking it – I’ve caught that “I know why the caged bird sings” tone in her voice. It seems dreadfully to me unfair that something as superficial can exclude someone with such finality simply because they have personality, looks and not a wrinkle in fifty years on this planet. And sometimes it is so clear to me that beautiful beings are often segregated so the rest of us can just marvel at them because they are so beautiful, different, peculiar or simply amazing… we forget that in doing so they becomes lonely, and the amazing song we hear from the caged bird… is heartbreak.
Be careful what you pray for.
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