Thursday, October 15, 2009

Beautiful

“On the way back,” I shot at him with a smile as I hurried past his little table with its collection bucket and rushed to the bank.  I saw him again about half an hour later, this time laden with a few arbitrary purchases, and I remembered my promise.  I stopped, dug in my handbag and hauled out a euro coin.  “There, see, I didn’t forget.”

He looked up at me, quite a handsome chap.  “I just have to say this.  You’re a really beautiful woman.”

My smile widened.  “Thanks!” I said, and went on my way.

This is me:

Nothing special, nothing to write home about.  What could have inspired this sweet guy to say I’m beautiful?

He couldn’t have been hoping to move me to give to his cause, as I had already popped my coin into the bucket.  There was no sense of this being a chat-up line, and you’ll have to take my word for it because I was there.  It was merely an observation, without any expectation of it leading to anything.  Also, it wasn’t the first time I’d been told I’m beautiful.

Guys started reacting to me in this way when I was around twenty.  I had come through the most difficult years of my life, and emerged on the other side of a bout of self-harm, near suicide and the loss of all my dreams shaken and stripped of self-confidence.  I had nothing left, both spiritually and physically.  At that point, I stopped giving a shit.

Now very often, people who say they don’t give a shit actually do give a shit.  Not giving a shit is a carefully cultivated part of their image.  What I mean when I say I stopped giving a shit is that I looked at myself and truly believed I could never be attractive to another human being beyond the superficial level.  There’s stuff I know about myself which makes this statement heartfelt, a genuine sentiment which I still hold.  I am a horrendous piece of work on the inside, and I have done unspeakable harm to those around me.

Accepting this fact about myself brought about a kind of freedom.  I stopped wearing clothes to try and look good, and started dressing to feel good.  I’m not talking worn-out track suits in which I was comfortable but looked like shit.  I’m talking dungarees and tee shirts, hiking boots and sandals.  Comfortable but not looking yucky (you might disagree, but the important thing was how it made me feel).  I stopped wearing make-up.  I stopped thinking about my hairstyle as something to make me look good to others, and started wearing my hair in a way that looked okay to me and was comfortable and practical.  I stopped trying to present myself to the world as anything but what I was: a failure.  And I started living my life to enjoy it as much as was possible while trying not to harm anyone else.

As I mentioned, the effect was puzzling.  The more honest I tried to be about who and what I was, the more I found guys taking an interest in me.  Of course, the most important guy who took an interest in me also married me, and gave me a life I could only have dreamed of before he came along.

I’m not stupid or ignorant (I think), I noticed what was happening.  Men being interested in me was a change in the status quo – I’d been a lonely, boyfriend-less teen – so I couldn’t help but notice.  And I did wonder what on earth was going on.  I’m not one of these women who hate what they look like, but I’m also under no illusions that I’m a beauty queen. I’m not fat, but I’m not thin either.  If I cared to make myself all depressed I could make a very long list of physical flaws here right now.

A guy friend I trusted told me some things which left me quite touched (and a bit stunned, but that’s another story altogether).  He said: “I find you one of the most attractive women I’ve ever met.  There’s a quiet self-confidence and a deep friendliness about you that makes me weak at the knees.”

No, he was not trying to get into my pants.  This was after we’d tried having a relationship and realised it would never work, and went into one of these lovely comfortable friendships you can have between a guy and a girl when the whole let’s-have-sex thing is dealt with and discarded as a bad idea.

And the reason I indulge in such a self-indulgent, onw-horn-blowing kind of post is because I so wish I could convince every woman in the world of this: just accept yourself, flaws and all.  And at the same time, strive to be as honest about who and what you are as you can.  That is what is attractive in another person.  Not a perfect body, not flawless make-up, not any amount of hairspray or the best stylist in the world.

I don’t particularly like myself.  I don’t think I’m physically all that.  But most importantly, as a rule, I don’t think about these things at all.  I just am who I am.  And honestly, I think that’s what guys see, what attracts them to me.

They get over it quickly when they find out what a mess I really am. (c;  If I can come across as attractive, I promise you, so can you.  It’s not in the mirror image that stares back at you.  However cliched this statement may be, beauty lies in what you are.  And how much you accept yourself.

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