Excuse My Beauty

I’m sure all of you could guess that I’m a little touchy. About…everything.  (And with things. Like cats. Ask Butters: she gets corporal cuddled at least twice daily. And yes, you should watch the video below. It’s set up to start right when he explains — then demonstrates — corporal cuddling. Stay tuned right after for cat yodeling.)

Truth is, I long to be one of those women who isn’t intimidated by the fact (or rumored lore) of other women’s beauty. But – surprise, surprise – I am.

Just the other day, Paolo was telling a story of a girl who would sit in next to him in a music class he took in college (which was as recently as the past year). Certain details of this girl were revealed: mainly, how good looking she was and namely, that she had a killer body. Even though Paolo went on to purport that she managed to annoy the living shit out of him daily, I barely heard that part. It didn’t much register. All I heard was how sick this girl’s body was – a detail not, apparently, lost on Paolo. I half expect stories like that to end with him breezily admitting to fucking her at least once, if not for an entire year. Because he’s, just, well, banged a lot of women.

Even when I briefly dated Bobby Darin (you remember him, of the Fuckwit Without a Cause fame last spring) I remember serving him dinner, and as we sat across from each other, thoughtfully chewing, he gave me a long rundown about the former love of his life. He made sure, as I was gumming my enchilada, to tell me that she was 5’2” and weighed 105 lbs. Twice. Twice that big dumb bastard mentioned that detail. Immediately I put down my fork and stopped chewing, since I had lost my appetite. I mean, is that classic “shit you should never say on a date, especially a date with a plus sized woman” or what? Fuck me running.

Because the thing is, no one’s ever going to sit across the table from a new date and extoll the details of my anatomy. Or, if they are, it’s not going to be anything I’d want to hear. I might get a, “She had big tits,” out of someone, but that would be the extent of it.

I’ve long been the jealous type, as I’ve detailed here many times. I mean, it’s almost epic. When I was 5 – and perfectly cute, perfectly normal-sized – I had a doll someone had given me. I hated it. Frequently disavowed her existence or simply hurled her across the room…all of which came before my final act of dismissal, which was to chop all of her hair off. My reason for disliking her? She was prettier than I was. Yeah. A doll. A fucking doll. And something I somehow perceived as a threat. I’m telling you, folks: this shit is deeeeeeeply engrained with me.

The reason details of other women stick in my craw so much is because I’m just usually the one described as having a pretty face, a verbal must-experience if you’re a fat chick. And the worst part is, it’s a compliment people give out liberally. Turns out, most assholes aren’t even selective about issuing it. I’ve witnessed many a fat chick complaining of the same thing and I’ll look at her and think, “I’m sorry…was the person who told you this blind?” Because very often, the fat chicks who hear such things aren’t even that attractive. But apparently when one does not know how to give a proper back-handed compliment to a fat chick, and have simply run out of nice things to say, the “You have such a pretty face” is the first thing to bubble up in one’s brain and must therefore be used. So it almost negates the compliments that actual somewhat-pretty fat chicks (moi) get.

I’ve long said: I’m not a dog. But visually stunning I am not. I am…okay. Even my wicked grandmother, after I was born, took one look at me and said to my mother, “Well. She’s certainly no raving beauty, is she?” (And I wonder where my mother’s tendency to say inappropriately mean shit to me comes from, even though at the time, when my grandmother said it, my mother ran off in tears and wouldn’t speak to her for months, and still talks about it 35 years later.)

I’ve never, not once, gotten by on my looks. No, fuck that shit: I had to be good at something. I had to carve out a niche. I had to learn to be funny. I had to be all fucking friendly to people and shit. In other words, I had to cultivate a life and personality. And I think most women feel that way. Because most women aren’t little Lolitas in training, or running around looking like supermodels or well-kept Texas trophy wives.

Still, I know many average/slightly above average looking women, and most of them don’t foam at the mouth with jealousy like I do when beautiful women are mentioned. I think there are lots of women who embrace the way they look – faults and all – and are relatively comfortable by my age. And most of them should be – most of them are married, some to very handsome fellows, and are still a good size 8 or below after popping out litters of children. But maybe they had their day – or their month, or year – when they were younger and were fan-damn-tastic looking. I never had that. I’ve never once, ever, felt genuinely attractive, even when I was. (And this was many moons ago…but I was too fucked up at the time to even realize what I was working with.)

(I totally did.)

What never helps is seeing really facially unattractive, boring, vapid, insipid women who have managed to wrangle a man. It only furthers my theory that you can be borderline horrible, but as long as you’re not above a size 12, you’re fine. You’ll find someone. But you can look like Catherine Zeta Fucking Jones in the face but if you have a cottage cheese ass and love handles, you can forget it.

I’ve told Paolo that I feel invisible to men. And it’s true – I pass men all the time in my building, and they look right through me. I am a non-issue. I do not create boners. My mother chided me for not going to a Christmas luncheon hosted by our building today. “You could meet someone!” she hissed.

“Or I could scoop up some saucy shit out of a chafing dish and blow my Weight Watcher points all to hell,” I said back. “I’m going to Panera for a cup of soup and a half sandwich. I know how many points are in that shit. Plus you know I hate crowds.” And the truth of the matter is, I am almost positive that I am not going to meet my future husband while my ass is holding a plate with one hand and ladling ranch dressing from an economy sized tub onto my salad.

 (Even as ranch-belongs-on-everything Texan, this grosses me out quite a bit.)

And there are times when it’s tempting to want to meet someone, especially when Paolo’s no-committing ass has been virtually ignoring me for the past two days. I just imagine him dick-deep in someone else, all the while I’m sending innocent little texts trying to start up conversations by asking him how his day has been. I told him when I saw him last week that I envisioned myself in about 6 years, married to some perfectly harmless, boring CPA type, only to miss the days of sleeping with and being with him, even though he can’t (won’t) make a commitment, is touch-and-go with attention, and doesn’t even write Happy Birthday on my Facebook wall. Which reminds me, my next post will revolve around a “He Loves You, He Loves You Not” article I read in Glamour today about how you can tell if he really does…or really doesn’t. Like those hos really know. But I’ll give you a sneak peak: it doesn’t bode well for me.

I need to get some HOPE up in this bitch.

I realize I have a long way to go, emotionally speaking. Part of me would like to give myself kudos for properly assessing my demons and shortcomings in the first place. Some people have their heads so far up their own asses they never can actually name their issue. (Sounds like a great game show, doesn’t it? Name That Issue! “Ken, you’ve got 30 seconds on the clock. This poor bastard probably is unable to date women long term, since he is secretly infatuated with his mother and wants to fuck her.”  Ken: “What is an Oedipal Complex?” Host: “That’s right for $500!”)

But I still feel like a slave to it. I still have visceral reactions to people describing beautiful women, or women they find sexy (unless they’re making the case for Kathy Bates), because I feel like there’s a unstated clause: “Britney Spears…back in the day, yo! She had that tight little body!” and what I hear is, “Britney Spears…back in the day, yo! She had that tight little body, unlike you and your fat ass. You could never look like that.”

What I’m endlessly curious about is from where these issues stem. Some of them cropped up so early that it’s hard to imagine they were drummed in by anyone….anyone except that disproportionate bitch Barbie. Let’s blame her, goddammit!