| Thursday, June 14, 2007 |
| Beauty and the beholder |
I've rambled on about this before, my dislike of internet dating approaches which start: "Hey beautiful/gorgeous/good looking!" I dislike the cheese, the un-originality and the blatant crassness of them. Start like that and you'll be at a disadvantage with me. Maybe I should be more gracious, but I often find they're just cc'd emails dashed out to many women, with no thought behind them. In fact, I recently received one which - word-for-word - I'd had from the same guy about 3 weeks earlier. And said no to him then!
I posted about this on one of the dating sites I'm on, and got this response in a mail from a 45-year-old guy (who's profile pitches him at about 15!). Can I point out, all the bad spellings are his.
Had any men walk into lampposts lately? Caused any accidents while standing
near traffic lights recently! Just read you're post. In a way I'm a little
puzzled that you seem surprised that men react to beauty. I guess you must've
experinced this before. I'm sure you know that men will stare at a big busted
woman longer than the bible.
Maybe you're surprised that christian men are
the same as worldly men, that seems just as unlikely as well. Unless you\'re a
new christian. Or you could be saying this in the hope of changing men. Hoping
they read your post and amend their ways? Now this seems more likely. Hey don't
you know you can't change men?! Only the love of a pretty woman can do
that.
All The Best,
NAME(Only Joking)
PS I'd be really interesting if you could share with me some of you're
experiences in this area. Like when you've no photo up do you get a different
kind of email.... ?)
So I responded to him:
Men walking into lampposts? Negative.
Accidents at traffic lights? Negative.
More emails without a photo than with? No different.
Surprised that Christian men are no different from worldly men? No, but
it's a shame.
Hoping men will change? Always! ;-)
Seriously though... it was summed up for me in thelondonpaper last week, in
a column called 'Don't just tell me I'm beautiful':"It actually forces negative
awareness - as if the superficial aspects are all that we embody. And eventually
it turns into a lot of pressure. As men, you're looking to do right by us -
complimenting us all the time etc. (bless your cotton socks) - but that's when
we end up spending half an hour in the toilet when we're only in the pub with
you. We're worried that this one time, if the make-up melts, you won't think
that we're 'stunningly cute' or 'dazzling' any more. And in a cheesy, Shallow
Hal kind of way, all I'm suggesting is that maybe you should consider
complimenting a girl for her sense of humour, her outrageousness or her
spontaneity - pulling the focus away from how a woman looks to the way she is as
a person."
Couldn't have put it better myself!
I resonate so well with that article. I can look good. I know I can. But that's only with clothes on. I'm not saying it's all due to push-up bras and hold-it-all-in pants: I could probably do with the latter, but I also like to breathe!
No, I mean the fact that if a man is after you only because of what you look like, then as soon as you don't fit his mould, you're out of the picture. And I don't fit that mould. Underneath my clothes is a very different, insecure me. The one covered in spots (hormones), lumpy-bumpy skin, dark hairs that will persist on growing despite waxing or epilating or depilation creams or shaving (I know some guys with LESS body hair than me), scars and scabs from cutting myself, falling out of trees when I was a kid, picking at myself (ingrown hairs are b**tards!): I can't wear skirts above my knees without tights. Nor shorts. Unless I'm feeling exceedingly devil-may-care, because my legs are not pretty.
And that's why I recoil at the 'hey gorgeous' approach (I got one in the street last night!). It might be a nice confidence booster. For about 5 minutes. Then I realise that if the guy is that superficial then I don't want to get close to him, because one day he'll see me without tights and will be repulsed. And I wouldn't blame him!
Interestingly, I'm now wondering if this is why I keep guys at arms length anyway, why I go for guys who're not interested in me: or just the excuse I use. 'Cos actually, the ex wasn't bothered by it. Not at all. He still thought I was gorgeous - it didn't matter to him.
Sometimes it's all a bit f***ed up, isn't it? I've been reading a fantastic book recently: Why am I afraid to tell you who I am? Read it! And, as a dear friend of mine who taught me so much about my faith on his course I took, says: "May you never be the same again!" |
posted by Calia77 @ 1:33 pm  |
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| 1 Comments: |
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I came over to tell you to be sure and check out what I am going to be writing about on my blog....and here you are writing along the same lines.
What prompted me is my recent experience on a dating site.
Ugh.
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I came over to tell you to be sure and check out what I am going to be writing about on my blog....and here you are writing along the same lines.
What prompted me is my recent experience on a dating site.
Ugh.