I am handsome. Really?

During my teenage years, I was convinced that I was not one of those guys with charming looks who instantly won girls over.  Had I known then the word "nerd," I would have instantly connected with that emotion-laden word.  In addition, almost every other week, like clockwork, a big fat zit would appear on my nose.

We never talked about feelings those years.  I did not even know it was possible.  All I knew was that I felt sad sometimes.  And perhaps was even on the verge of tears--but, of course, boys don't cry!  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder is all baloney, I decided.

I was not exaggerating much when I blogged a few months ago on life if one is not the object of dreams.  As I wrote there, I bet there are many among us who worried, or worry even now: "What if I were nothing but an ugly pile who could not, and would not, attract anyone?"

Of course, the pressure to look good is immensely worse on girls and women.  Even on older women.  A few years ago, when I told my mother that she ought to walk more, and get some sun on her for the essential vitamin-D, my father immediately jumped in and said that she could easily go for short walks in the morning after having coffee.  Seems logical, right?

My mother had a response that I could not have imagined.  She said that she had to look presentable when stepping out, and that meant she could do only after showering (or, take a bath, as they say in the old country.)  To her, going for a walk was not all that simple a thing as stepping out of the house.

A young Irish woman writes about the "embarrassment I felt as a teenager about not fitting some ideal of beauty."

Yes, we have all been there in some manner.  She then makes an important point about the contemporary "inclusivity ": "somewhere along the way, the message of inclusivity went from “every kind of person can be beautiful” to “every person is beautiful," which she argues is "actively harmful."

Wouldn’t it be freeing to admit that most people are not beautiful? What if we stopped prioritizing pleasing aesthetics above so much else? I wonder what it would be like to grow up in a world where being beautiful is not seen as a necessity, but instead a nice thing some people are born with and some people aren’t, like a talent for swimming, or playing the piano.

Quite an interesting way to think about it.  We say some are good at swimming, while others---like me--swim like a rock.  We state it as a fact.  The truth.  Why can't we be the same way about appearances?  Hmmm ...

In another part of the world, in Bangladesh,  a 29-year-old photographer documents the pressures on women in Bangladesh to be attractive through a unique series of photographs like the one that I have included in this post.

The women in Habiba's photos look bright and colourful but their faces are entirely covered, representing a loss of the inner self even though outwardly the women have made great efforts to look beautiful.
Habiba wants to draw attention to how much of themselves Bangladeshi women have to compromise to make others happy.

Life is complicated in so many ways!

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What if you are not the object of dreams?

About the time that Dream Girl was released was also when I started looking at the world that eventually has brought me to where I am now.

No, I don't mean to suggest in any way that I owe my American life to Hema Malini; be patient and read on!

It was back in my early teenage years, which now seems like it was a previous birth, that I was, as a classmate described much later in life, "besotted" with a girl.  No, not with Hema Malini, dammit!  Why are you so obsessed with Hema Malini? ;)

My feelings were directed towards a smart and beautiful classmate of mine.

It was also about the same time that I started thinking about life in ways that made me question a number of different of things all around me.  Discussing love and life cemented my friendship with a classmate, who later became a wandering Indian in his one way.

One of the challenging questions that we could not understand was why we felt attracted to whoever it was.  And, therefore, the other side of the coin, as far as I was concerned: What if I were nothing but an ugly pile who could not, and would not, attract anyone?

Think about the old historical paintings and sculptures and stories.  Do the wealthy ever pay good money for paintings of unattractive people?  Wait, are there any old portraits of unattractive people?  Full disclosure: No artist or photographer as ever asked me to be a model! ;)

So obsessed we humans are that we make fun of the unattractive!  Like how American comedians routinely joked, and continue to joke, about British teeth.  If you have been to California and looked at all those beautiful men and women with their perfect teeth that are sparkling white, you know why the jokes are always about the Brits.

If all that was back then, the pressure is even worse now in the age of Instagram.

 Plenty of Indian women, and men too, vigorously scrub themselves with creams and lotions that are marketed to make them supposedly beautiful from their less attractive dark selves.  There are hair transplants for us bald and balding men because bald is ugly. We short people are ugly.

We ugly people are then forever trying to fit in, it seems like.

I have always wondered if whether it was  bunch of unattractive people like me, but fortunately endowed with thinking brains, who came up with platitudes like "beauty is skin deep" or "what's is inside is what really matters."  Keep in mind that the patron-saint for us ugly but thinking people--Socrates--was not handsome by any means ;)

Socrates, my man!

House of lashes

A couple of years ago, I was in discomfort after a routine eye exam at the optometrist.  As if something was poking my eyes.

I went back to the optometrist. The guy (yes, a guy) looked at my eyes again.  He decided that maybe I needed polarized lenses.

The annoying poking never went away.

I figured I needed a real doctor, not these fake "doctors" of optometry.  I went to an ophthalmologist.

I had barely finished explaining my problem to her (yes, a woman) when she figured out what it was.  "You have two eyelashes curving inward and they are poking your eye.  I will pluck those two and you will be fine."

She picked up a tweezer and plucked them.  "If it happens again, go to a beauty shop. It will be much cheaper," she joked.

The problems that I have to deal with because of my long and beautiful eyelashes! ;)

Why do we have eyelashes?

Some scientists believe that if eyelashes even have any real function, it’s to diffuse airflow that might threaten to dry out the eyeball, and that their length is generally determined in relation to the size of the eyeball itself rather than the gender of the mammal they belong to.

But, keep in mind that anytime we talk about hair, there are gender and beauty ramifications.  It is one thing for me to walk around with facial hair, but a bearded woman is, well, out of the ordinary, to say the least.  As mammals men and women have hair, yes.  But, all hair is not created equal.

Even though both men and women have eyelashes, they have increasingly become a thing of beauty for women.  But, we shouldn't fool ourselves to blaming Cosmo for this!

The earliest documented efforts to emphasize the eyelashes date back to as early as 4,000 B.C.; if you’ve ever watched any movie or TV show set in ancient Egypt, you’ll know all too well that in certain regions, eye makeup was worn on the lids, brows, and lashes of wealthy and royal men, women, and children. (It was used sometimes as a cosmetic, and other times for religious purposes like warding off evil spirits, though in 2010, researchers found it may have also inadvertently served some medicinal purposes.) Fast-forward to today, though, and products like mascara, false eyelashes, eyelash extensions, and lash-growth serums — both over-the-counter and prescription — are marketed almost exclusively to women. According to a 2017 Washington Post story, “99.9 percent” of leading false-eyelash manufacturer Ardell’s sales are to women (and those sales saw a dramatic 30 percent spike from 2016 to 2017). Drag queens, in turn, often say their oversize false lashes are a key part of their look.  

So, why the femme eyelash fetish?

For one thing, the eyes and mouth are more reliable “attraction magnets” on the face of a woman than that of a man, says Marianne LaFrance, professor of psychology and gender and sexuality studies at Yale. “What eyelashes do is like what lipstick does, and eyelashes may actually even do it more: They draw a contrast between the eye itself and the eyelid, like lipstick draws attention to the contrast between the lips and the surrounding area.” Attractiveness indicators in men, she says — facial features whose larger size and more striking definition suggest a man possesses traditionally “masculine” qualities, like confidence and assertiveness — are more likely to be the eyebrows and jawline. Emphasizing the eyes and mouth, then, by contrast, diverts attention away from these qualities that might suggest a female face looks masculine.

Hmmm ... if eyebrows and jawline are the facial masculine qualities ... Too bad you can't see my fluttering eyelashes as I wonder if that is also a reason why most men don't sport a beard even if they can?

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