Beauty, Eh?

Alas! Girls do worry about what our faces look like until the age we actually have to start worrying (i.e. when we're old enough to have teenage daughters), and then we sort of don't. Middle age brings grey hairs, sags and lines but often a confidence that few woman have as teenagers.

From a 39 year old's perspective, women in their teens and twenties look radiantly beautiful, unless they do their best to wreck their beauty with weird make-up, fake tans, scary piercings, tattoos, too much booze or drugs, and too little sleep. Really, all a young woman has to do is eat sensibly, go for walks, wash her face, brush her teeth, put on a smidge of make-up, hide all evidence of underwear, remember to smile occasionally and she's positively lovely.

I hear your feminine shrieks of doubt and protest. Okay, okay. There is also something we think is an objective appraisal of female beauty, and it has stringent rules. Women all know what women are "supposed" to look like: big almond-shaped eyes, straight little noses, gently tapering jawlines, bow-shaped lips, medium-sized breasts, long legs, tiny waists, slender arms, shiny silky hair... Waaah!

Fortunately, most men do not limit their concept of beauty to this. YES! Very few of them read fashion magazines. The ones who do usually aren't the ones ripe for falling in love with you anyway. One of the very loveable things about men is that they are stubbornly attracted to what they are attracted to, and it is hard to talk them out of it.

"I prefer a woman with some flesh on her bones," wails one Italian man I know. When he goes to a bar or club full of slim women, he is disappointed.

What, does he mean flesh, like...er...fat? He likes fat? How can he like fat? I mean, nobody likes fat. Fat is...well, let's face it, a certain amount of fat is feminine. No fat means flat breasts. Most women do not look like adolescent boys, and most men are not, in fact, attracted to adolescent boys, although one might suspect that most fashion designers are. This should make you think twice about a beauty standard based on their ideas.

If you have that kind of power, you might want to sit a captive straight man down with a fashion magazine and ask him which clothes and models in it he likes best. If this can actually be done, it might provide you with all kinds of revelations. (I'd rather try to shampoo a cat, myself, but you never know.)

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that most men do not carry around a checklist of what women are supposed to look like. They feel attracted to girls without being able to tell you what "beautiful" means or why they think a certain girl is attractive. They just do. Yay, them!

The dark side of all this is that there is no point pursuing a man who does not think that you are attractive. Women discover that men get more attractive the longer we know them and the nicer they are. Men, though, seem to be less flexible. Really, it's best just to get out there and keep your eye peeled for the men who sneak interested peeks at you.

Sometimes men can be confusing about their attentions. Are they just nice, or are you the kind of girl they find attractive? Fortunately, men sometimes give out clues as to what images rule their submerged sexual consciouness. Take one man I know, who loves old films. He is a big Rita Hayworth fan. One of my red-headed friends had a big old crush on him. He used to come to her place to watch Rita Hayworth movies. Frankly, I thought it was only a matter of time before he seized red-headed her in his Rita-Hayworth-loving arms, and I was right.

I've often thought it could be helpful to ask men who their favourite Hollywood actresses are. However, whenever I've remembered to ask, I've always asked a German man, and he has always said "Sandra Bullock". I've often wondered if this is because of her looks or because she, in fact, half-German, but I've never dared to ask. Anyway, making a man think hard enough about his feelings to come up with his favourite Hollywood actress is enough work for one day.