Brutal Honesty
It's not such a great thing to be really attractive when you're young.
It messes up your judgement. Good looking young people tend to put way too much value on their appearance. In other words, they think that their beauty is a much more valuable asset than it actually is. I guess it's hard to blame them.
After all, if you're good looking (and especially if you're female), you enjoy many advantages. Financial favours, social status, and eager mates tend to come easily. So easily, in fact, that you might never bother to develop any other useful skills. Or, say, a personality. Those are just things that normal people need so that they can have self esteem, financial security, and personal relationships. But why bother, when your good looks already provide those things?
This blog posting is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I'm not sure which I find more entertaining--the original author's transparently shallow question, or the brutally honest (but completely accurate) answer that she receives. This is a woman who thinks that her physical beauty entitles her to something that most people would love to have: a lifetime commitment from a desirable, wealthy mate. But she's made a mistake--one that beautiful people seem to make all the time:
She's drastically overestimated the value of her good looks.
Sure, guys love to be around a pretty girl. After all, physical beauty is very important--it's what draws people to each other. But it's not what keeps people together. Good looks fade with time, which means that if your appearance is really the only thing you can bring to the bargaining table, then the best you can hope for is a temporary deal.
Being attractive--at least when you're young--isn't a free pass to a life of luxury at all. Mostly, it's just an explanation for why you have the emotional and intellectual development of a 17 year old when you're 35: you've never needed anything more.
In the long run, you're far better off to be smart, or funny, or even just easy to get along with. At least those things will last.
October 5th, 2007 - 06:43
I have to agree with you that most of the highly attractive people I’ve met are extremely shallow. The first things on their minds are clothes (designer ones, or course), or celebrity gossip – not what they want to do when they get older, or how they are going to support themselves. They just assume that there will always be a guy around to buy them the things they want.
I found the response to the “spectacularly beautiful 25 yr old’s” extremely insightful! I guess you can only get those kinds of responses from a business man