Sex Appeal of Plain Women (This is excellent!)14:01 May 30 2011
Times Read: 586
They tend to go out on the town in pairs, I’ve noticed: the conventionally pretty one, all dolled up and shining, and her average-looking friend, who’s barely had time to do her hair. The pretty one, I have a hunch, is generally the instigator. With the plainer one by her side, she thinks she’ll look even more dazzling than usual. And the plainer one goes along with the idea because she wants to bask in her friend’s glow—or maybe because she just doesn’t get out much. I don’t know. I do know, however, that when I spot them and manage to push in beside them at the bar, I often feel sorry for the pretty one.
Because she’s about to learn she’s not the pretty one.
“What are you girls drinking?”
The pretty one answers for both of them in most cases. Hers is the dominant personality, and her heels are higher, too. The plainer one (the supposedly plainer one) isn’t wearing heels. They hurt her feet, and she’s not afraid to say so because she has no image to preserve. This makes her much easier to talk to. It also makes her more interesting to talk to—and, as the night wears on, to look at. By then, see, the bar is full of pretty women, and pretty women tend to look quite similar. They may not look similar before they dress and put on makeup, but afterward they do.
“Where in Ohio?” I ask the plainer one, who doesn’t look half so plain now. I like her nose. I like the fact she has one. The pretty one had a nose at one time, but she hired a surgeon to cut most of it off.
“Akron.”
“I love that city,” I exaggerate. “It’s so…I don’t know…so…”
“Depressing?”
“Industrial.”
That’s when the pretty one, who’s tired of standing around with nothing to do but check out her look-alikes and estimate her own rank in the evening’s pageant, wanders off to use the bathroom. I don’t really notice; I like her friend. Her friend has hands that are too big for her wrists, and when she gestures with them to make a point, I’m mesmerized by their power, their vitality. I’d like to hold them, to feel them on my back. I bet they’re warm—much warmer than the pretty one’s, which are small and slender but look icy.
Could I have your phone number?”
I ask.
The woman who’s no longer plain at all says, “Sure.”
I nod and hand over a pen. My crush starts writing. Her friend walks up and sees what’s happening. She stiffens. She narrows her eyes.
It isn’t pretty.
In the fairy tale, Cinderella goes unnoticed until her appearance is magically transformed to match little girls’ ideal of loveliness, which they grow up believing is little boys’ ideal of loveliness. This belief is wrong, though. And I should know, because I’m a grown-up boy who longs for Cinderellas who’ve never touched a pair of glass slippers—who are plenty alluring barefoot. I prefer them to some princesses I’ve danced with. I prefer them—these unconventional-looking women who too frequently call themselves ugly or imperfect when they ought to call themselves perfecting—because their transformations are still ongoing.
Maura, the first barefoot Cinderella I fell for, was not a fussy eater, and it showed. It showed in her substantial hips. It also showed in her contented face.
Radiant happiness was Maura’s best feature, the kind that comes from filling up on pasta and not leaping up afterward to go running. This distinguished her from the other girls I’d dated during my first two years at college. They were slimmer than Maura, their features more symmetrical, but their facial expressions were harder and more anxious, particularly at mealtimes. Salad without dressing will do that to you.
“Can I scrunch in here with my tray?” I asked her in the dining hall one evening. She smiled and scooted over to make room. I’d been watching her. Her skin had the glossiness of a caramel apple. Her figure reminded me of an apple, too, but this was not a flaw because apples reminded me of pie, pie reminded me of ice cream, and pie and ice cream made me hungry for…Maura.
I didn’t go hungry that fall semester, fortunately, but my appetite for Maura confused those who thought she wasn’t worth pursuing. A girl I’d once dated, the type who counted her croutons, asked me one day if I had “a thing for heavy women.” I told her no, I had a thing for women who enjoyed life. My old girlfriend seemed to find this threatening. She realized, I think, that it’s easier to keep off the weight than to keep on the happiness.
The charm of a barefoot Cinderella is that her beauty obeys no formula and therefore can sneak up on a man. When he becomes aware of it, he feels like he’s discovered a secret. And secrets are always exciting.
COMMENTS
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Requiem
18:41 May 30 2011
I LIKE this. :)
ladySnowStrixx
17:28 May 31 2011
Oh Wow From one woman who as you say"enjoys life " basically I like food. I so enjoyed this ,thank you