Thoughts on Being Normal
I'm normal looking. I'm of average attractiveness. I think it says something about modern society that I feel the need to qualify that statement, that identifying yourself as average is seen as either saying something negative about yourself or is seen as a violation of the girl code that says you are to think you are hideous and wait for someone to disagree. Evidence below:
Math was never my strongest subject, but being in the middle seems to be not that bad. And if I'm honest, it took me a while to even believe that I was average. As I'm sure many women have said before me, seeing only the most beautiful people on television, in movies, and in magazines, it took me a really long time to look around and realize that most people on most days don't look like that. And that's when I realized I was normal. These opening paragraphs might seem to be the start of an empowerment piece about how, once I felt like I fit in, I no longer felt self conscious about myself, was able to love myself, and once I loved myself some charming, above-average-looking man fell in love with me for my personality.
Oh, but you would be wrong. But no worries. This average status is pretty awesome. I feel normal in most settings, people don't pity me most of the time, and I don't get hit on in situations in which I'm just trying to go about my everyday life. I realized a few years ago that being extremely attractive actually has downsides. I noticed this when I was working with a girl who was absolutely beautiful. I noticed that while she was working at the computer lab help desk, just trying to work, men (not all of them--I never want to assume that all dudes are like this) would come up and start flirting with her, distracting her from her work, making her feel uncomfortable. And she had the awkward task of trying to figure out a polite way to make them go away. The same thing happens to my super-attractive friends now. Men walk up and interrupt our conversations when we are out and about and are undeterred by subtle brush-offs. We were once at a baseball game and two men (with daughters just a few years younger than my friends) spent the whole night offering to buy my friends drinks and chatting them up. While my friends wanted to watch the game with the people they came with, they had to find polite ways of handling these men's advances. As I sat there that night, I actually, without a bit of passive-aggressive jealousy thought, "Thank goodness I'm normal looking!" I was able to simply watch the game and eat my tater tots.
I should also probably note here that this is also not a piece on my resistance to modern beauty standards. I'm normal looking not because I refuse to wear make-up or because I don't get caught up in modern fashion trends. I put in effort. I try. I'm doing what I can with what I have to work with. There are just genetic limitations.
And I worry that people will take that statement as a sign that I am depressed or down on myself, but that's weird to me because if I admitted that I had natural limitations in another area of life (math, sports, car maintenance, sense of direction, need I go on), it would be seen as an honest assessment of my abilities.
For some reason, we've decided that everyone should and can be beautiful. That it is of the utmost importance that women look and feel beautiful. As if being beautiful is an essential element of being female. And I think this is seen as a feminist thing, but I actually find it quite the opposite. I think I have some strong abilities, I like my job and haven't been fired yet, I can (although I don't often choose to) feed myself and others, and I'm on good terms with all of my family members (as far as I know). These seem to be significant accomplishments, and none are attached to how my back side looks in a particular pair of pants or how my eyes look in a particular lighting.
And these are all things that people only know about me after they've known me for a while. And none of them are things that one could tell from across a crowded room. They're things people get to know over time, and I would hope, to the right person, they would make me attractive. But I find that my logic does not apply to the modern conversation about love and romance.
I recently bought Brett Eldredge's new album, and I adore him, so I was so excited to hear a whole album of sweet and personal songs. And his album is just that. And as I first listened to "The Long Way" I thought, "Oh my gosh! That's so sweet! He really wants to know her!"
But then I kept listening to it, and I thought, "Ugh! This song isn't for someone like me!" As I listened to the first verse more and more as it came up on my playlist, I kept noticing that the story of the song is that he sees a woman that is more attractive than any he's seen before, finds her striking, thinks (based on her appearance) that she has her stuff together, and wants to get to know her more. I'm pretty sure that when Brett Eldredge and friends wrote this song they weren't thinking about that. The rest of the song shows a respect for the woman that is admirable, but the opening verse still bothers me.
On any given day, I am not even close to this woman he's describing, and I'd be willing to bet most of people aren't. We're cute, we're fun, our friends find us hilarious and kind, but I'm not sure most people (male or female) are really at that "across the room, total stranger approaches" level. So although the song is incredibly sweet in that the narrator wants to get to know this woman, and wants to know all the things about her, and take his time getting to know her, I can't really relate because step one would not be a thing that happens in my world.
And I think this story line is actually incredibly common. I have belted out "Steal My Girl" more times than I can count, and Lady A declares that everyone wants their interest's body, but their love interest is going home with them in "You Look Good." Even one of my favorite new songs, Brett Young's "Olivia Mae", which is incredibly sweet and shows a respect and love for this woman he's writing about, starts with him wanting to get to know her because of how beautiful she looked from a distance. And as much as I love that song in some ways, I do have an "ugh!" feeling about the reason he wants to have coffee with her.
It's funny--when Liam Payne releases a song in which he wants to tell me what to do with my own body at the club, and the song is based on the idea that I'm the hottest thing there, I don't care. Because I don't want to be the girl in that song. And when TI promises to buy me whatever I want, I, once again, don't care that I'm not that girl.
But for some reason, these sweet songs really frustrate me. I have this dream of someone writing love songs for the normal person. You know, a song where the guy fell for the girl over time because he got to know her, or she was a classmate that drew him in with her patience with his dumb questions, or they were set up on a date and he fell for her because she was funny. I'm not asking for a song in which she has chronic body odor or refuses to shower. I just want a normal girl song. I just want a song I can sing along to. A song that says that normal-looking people can fall in love too. That I don't have to be perfect to be lovable. Can someone write that song?
Math was never my strongest subject, but being in the middle seems to be not that bad. And if I'm honest, it took me a while to even believe that I was average. As I'm sure many women have said before me, seeing only the most beautiful people on television, in movies, and in magazines, it took me a really long time to look around and realize that most people on most days don't look like that. And that's when I realized I was normal. These opening paragraphs might seem to be the start of an empowerment piece about how, once I felt like I fit in, I no longer felt self conscious about myself, was able to love myself, and once I loved myself some charming, above-average-looking man fell in love with me for my personality.
Oh, but you would be wrong. But no worries. This average status is pretty awesome. I feel normal in most settings, people don't pity me most of the time, and I don't get hit on in situations in which I'm just trying to go about my everyday life. I realized a few years ago that being extremely attractive actually has downsides. I noticed this when I was working with a girl who was absolutely beautiful. I noticed that while she was working at the computer lab help desk, just trying to work, men (not all of them--I never want to assume that all dudes are like this) would come up and start flirting with her, distracting her from her work, making her feel uncomfortable. And she had the awkward task of trying to figure out a polite way to make them go away. The same thing happens to my super-attractive friends now. Men walk up and interrupt our conversations when we are out and about and are undeterred by subtle brush-offs. We were once at a baseball game and two men (with daughters just a few years younger than my friends) spent the whole night offering to buy my friends drinks and chatting them up. While my friends wanted to watch the game with the people they came with, they had to find polite ways of handling these men's advances. As I sat there that night, I actually, without a bit of passive-aggressive jealousy thought, "Thank goodness I'm normal looking!" I was able to simply watch the game and eat my tater tots.
I should also probably note here that this is also not a piece on my resistance to modern beauty standards. I'm normal looking not because I refuse to wear make-up or because I don't get caught up in modern fashion trends. I put in effort. I try. I'm doing what I can with what I have to work with. There are just genetic limitations.
And I worry that people will take that statement as a sign that I am depressed or down on myself, but that's weird to me because if I admitted that I had natural limitations in another area of life (math, sports, car maintenance, sense of direction, need I go on), it would be seen as an honest assessment of my abilities.
For some reason, we've decided that everyone should and can be beautiful. That it is of the utmost importance that women look and feel beautiful. As if being beautiful is an essential element of being female. And I think this is seen as a feminist thing, but I actually find it quite the opposite. I think I have some strong abilities, I like my job and haven't been fired yet, I can (although I don't often choose to) feed myself and others, and I'm on good terms with all of my family members (as far as I know). These seem to be significant accomplishments, and none are attached to how my back side looks in a particular pair of pants or how my eyes look in a particular lighting.
And these are all things that people only know about me after they've known me for a while. And none of them are things that one could tell from across a crowded room. They're things people get to know over time, and I would hope, to the right person, they would make me attractive. But I find that my logic does not apply to the modern conversation about love and romance.
I recently bought Brett Eldredge's new album, and I adore him, so I was so excited to hear a whole album of sweet and personal songs. And his album is just that. And as I first listened to "The Long Way" I thought, "Oh my gosh! That's so sweet! He really wants to know her!"
But then I kept listening to it, and I thought, "Ugh! This song isn't for someone like me!" As I listened to the first verse more and more as it came up on my playlist, I kept noticing that the story of the song is that he sees a woman that is more attractive than any he's seen before, finds her striking, thinks (based on her appearance) that she has her stuff together, and wants to get to know her more. I'm pretty sure that when Brett Eldredge and friends wrote this song they weren't thinking about that. The rest of the song shows a respect for the woman that is admirable, but the opening verse still bothers me.
On any given day, I am not even close to this woman he's describing, and I'd be willing to bet most of people aren't. We're cute, we're fun, our friends find us hilarious and kind, but I'm not sure most people (male or female) are really at that "across the room, total stranger approaches" level. So although the song is incredibly sweet in that the narrator wants to get to know this woman, and wants to know all the things about her, and take his time getting to know her, I can't really relate because step one would not be a thing that happens in my world.
And I think this story line is actually incredibly common. I have belted out "Steal My Girl" more times than I can count, and Lady A declares that everyone wants their interest's body, but their love interest is going home with them in "You Look Good." Even one of my favorite new songs, Brett Young's "Olivia Mae", which is incredibly sweet and shows a respect and love for this woman he's writing about, starts with him wanting to get to know her because of how beautiful she looked from a distance. And as much as I love that song in some ways, I do have an "ugh!" feeling about the reason he wants to have coffee with her.
It's funny--when Liam Payne releases a song in which he wants to tell me what to do with my own body at the club, and the song is based on the idea that I'm the hottest thing there, I don't care. Because I don't want to be the girl in that song. And when TI promises to buy me whatever I want, I, once again, don't care that I'm not that girl.
But for some reason, these sweet songs really frustrate me. I have this dream of someone writing love songs for the normal person. You know, a song where the guy fell for the girl over time because he got to know her, or she was a classmate that drew him in with her patience with his dumb questions, or they were set up on a date and he fell for her because she was funny. I'm not asking for a song in which she has chronic body odor or refuses to shower. I just want a normal girl song. I just want a song I can sing along to. A song that says that normal-looking people can fall in love too. That I don't have to be perfect to be lovable. Can someone write that song?
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