I’m a 22-year-old who gets quite a few Facebook friend requests from people who don’t know me, but my profile picture thumbnail has them convinced I’m ‘pretty’ and all that. Random guys often concoct pick-up lines comparing my eyes to all things bright and beautiful, and by the time I’m done clarifying how little I care, it’ll be time to walk on.
What does it mean to be ‘beautiful’? From what I’ve learnt, it means the world uses you as a benchmark you didn’t choose to set, and resents you for it — being ‘beautiful’ automatically rips you off the right to not be it. It means having everyone look into your soul through plastic layers of their own making, beyond which no one wants to understand you.
It means being considered incapable of an intellectual understanding of beauty, because apparently you’re too busy believing you look it. Beauty lies in eyes of the beholder? Not even if William Shakespeare left his grave to convince me. No, not beauty.
I’ve lost track of the number of times people have started a conversation with, “Oh, you’re cute!” Now, call me a hypercritical loser who can’t take compliments, but it’s as if long before knowing who I am, someone’s holding up a mirror to me because they don’t trust me to have the faculties to see beyond it.
Moreover, I know I’m cute. That’s not news. Instead, let’s talk about how I’m at my creative best in my saggy pyjamas. Maybe then I’d tell you I’m nursing scores of eczema patches on my body at any given time. And oh, have you noticed that my hair looks like a bird’s nest when tied up? Incidentally, my hands and legs are permanently covered in verses of poetry because I don’t believe in scrounging for paper before unleashing my imagination. And when I snuggle into bed for a good night’s sleep, I don’t feel pretty. I feel what it feels like to be me. And that feeling evades definitions. Would you dare turn any of that into a compliment?
If a triangular face, hooked nose or cleft lip is no one’s fault, then doe-like eyes, or rosy cheeks, or hair like Rapunzel is to no one’s credit either. It’s useful to remember that everybody struggles with who they are.
Years ago I came across research that found that attractive people live happier lives — scientists called it the Beauty Bubble. “Beautiful people don’t know how good they’ve got it. In their world, strangers give flowers, compliments flow like water and there’s always a taxi available,” they argued. They added that ugly people have it so bad their rights must be protected under law. When I first read that, I was furious. But come to think of it, it’s from that same vantage point that I can best explain the predicament of the beautiful people.
So, in a beautiful person’s part of the world, strangers give flowers, compliments flow and there’s always a taxi available, right? Agreed. But, ever wondered how that affects this person? It asphyxiates her self-worth in her face, robs her of challenges she’s been looking forward to, and prevents her from demonstrating her abilities when the world is already dismissing them.
The Beauty Bubble scientists had stated that beautiful people lead happier lives. Maybe they should try pulling an all-nighter preparing for a Physics viva, then walk out with a 10/10 to hear someone joke the professor is a kook around pretty girls. None of that makes me happy.
However, being beautiful has taught me to be the bigger person, forgive those who stereotype me, and help them see what they close their eyes to. It has taught me beauty is not skin-deep, but our understanding of it definitely is. That beauty is complicated — it has secrets, vulnerabilities as well as strengths. That beauty is beautiful in itself.
So I don’t need you to let me in the line before you, or offer me that free frappe, or the extra discount. I am beautiful, and I know it, and I know you know it too. But that’s no reason why I’ll be pushed to a safe corner for the rest of my life, when I can totally take on the big bad world tomorrow. All by my beautiful self.
