"If you're really that good then people would just notice
without you trying so hard to show it."
without you trying so hard to show it."
Monday, November 10, 2014
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Pitfalls of Dating the Freakishly Attractive
"The other day, at a Fashion Week party, my friend Alan and I stood against a wall, scanning the room for hot people, as you do. “It’s weird,” he said contemplatively, staring into a sea of models. “Lately, in order to want to sleep with someone, I actually have to like them as a person.” He said this as if it were a mind-blowing revelation. I told him that, at 31, the realization was probably a bit overdue, but I knew what he meant: As one gets older, it becomes harder and harder to be attracted to someone simply because of the way they look. Is it because, with age, we care more about a relationship’s potential longevity, rather than just instant sexual gratification? Or perhaps we become more acutely aware of the impermanence of beauty after experiencing our own signs of aging? Or, more simply, have we just realized that dating freakishly beautiful people isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?
A female friend once told me, “It’s always best to date attractive men, but not so attractive that everyone’s constantly trying to jump on their dick, because that’s just stressful.” The sentiment actually made a lot of sense to me. While some people clearly feel proud to have a hottie on their arm, others are more comfortable having the upper hand in the beauty department. If you’ve ever had someone look at you during sex with this completely euphoric expression, like, “I can’t believe I get to do this with you,” you understand that “dating down” in terms of attractiveness can be a confidence boost in its own right. And while I’m drawn to extremely beautiful people, I more often want to just stare at them or hang an oil painting of them on my wall rather than lie on top of them nude. But I’ve also wondered if, deep down, I’m just intimidated by the idea of dating someone hotter than me.
My friend Millie Brown, a performance artist widely known as the "vomit artist," has a lot of experience with dating freakishly attractive men. Millie and I lived together during our early and mid-twenties, and at the time, it felt like every other week she had a new model boyfriend. "It wasn't that I was specifically attracted to models," Millie clarified recently. “It just so happened that, about five or six years ago, what was fashionable in terms of male models were thin, tattooed punk boys who looked like they’d just been plucked from a skate park, and that’s what I was into. Of course I’m attracted to beauty,” she concluded, “but so is everyone else.”
It’s true: It’s human nature to want to kiss and touch and penetrate beautiful people. Most of us, at some point in our lives, have hung posters of models and movie stars on our bedroom walls. And no matter how much I love my partner, I still occasionally masturbate to Tony Ward. But according to Millie, the reality of being romantically involved with the world’s most desired has its downsides.
“What’s annoying is that when you’re with a really hot guy, other girls have no qualms about coming up and hitting on him right in front of you,” she said. “Or girls will turn and blatantly stare at your boyfriend in the street. At certain times that can be a confidence boost, but it’s hard to deal with on a daily basis, especially when you don’t 100 percent trust the person you’re dating.” And this doesn’t just go for models, Millie says, but hot people in general. “When you have so many people throwing themselves at you, you’re spoiled for choice, so there’s less incentive to be faithful. Not to mention that people get away with so much more when they’re attractive.”
And that’s not just true of relationships; it’s true of life in general. It’s a widely documented psychological phenomenon that good-looking people are perceived by others as being better people overall—as being nicer, more intelligent, better at their jobs, and yes, better to date. And, according to economist Daniel S. Hamermesh, author of Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, there are also many economic benefits to looking good, from higher wages at work to getting better deals on loans.
But according to Millie, all of this unearned praise and attention can present problems in relationships. “When you’re a model, or just extremely good-looking, people are constantly telling you that you’re beautiful, but those people usually want something from you,” she told me. “You’re surrounded by ingenuine people, and therefore lack the knowledge of how to form good, honest relationships.” Because of all the attention, she said, beautiful people often become obsessed with how other people perceive them, which can ultimately lead to a pronounced insecurity. “At one point I felt like I was dating a teenage girl,” she said. “The guy I was dating would endlessly post half-naked selfies, and then wait around to see how many people liked them. He just constantly needed validation.”
Personally, the people I’ve been most attracted to—not the superficial kind of attraction we feel to a pretty person on a page, but a deep, chemical attraction—have not been conventionally beautiful. The attraction felt almost indefinable, relying on everything from their looks and style to their mind and profession, to the smell of their skin and the sound of their voice. Deep attraction is, of course, a multisensory experience. But, as un-shallow as I have congratulated myself for being on many occasions, I will admit that there have been times when someone’s looks overwhelmed any need for a deeper compatibility.
Case in point: A couple years ago, I dated a writer whose work I really admired—he was kind and intelligent, we got along wonderfully, and the sex was good, too. However, he was bald and a little shorter than me, and ultimately just not that hot. It never bothered me when we were alone, but as things got more serious, I began to feel nervous about introducing him to my friends. I hated myself for having such superficial impulses, but I couldn’t help it: I want to be able to show my partners off to the world for both what they do and how they look. And I expect the same from my friends. In the past, when a friend has introduced me to a new partner who’s superhot, but clearly an idiot, I’ve judged them for it. On the other hand, whenever a girlfriend of mine starts dating a middling, out-of-shape guy, all I can think is: This isn’t feminism.
Popular culture tells us that it’s normal for average-looking or even unattractive men to date beautiful women, as long as the men are successful—the trollish tycoon with the supermodel wife is a classic archetype—but that the reverse is somehow remarkable. In sociology, this is called the “beauty-status exchange”—an attractive person pairs with a wealthy or powerful person, and both win. And usually, this exchange is heavily gendered.
But according to new research by University of Notre Dame sociologist Elizabeth McClintock, despite outliers like Anna Nicole Smith and J. Howard Marshall, in the practical world, this very rarely happens. The study, “Beauty and Status: The Illusion of Exchange in Partner Selection?,” finds that people are ultimately looking for compatibility and companionship; that men and women are actually equally shallow in terms of beauty and status. Well-educated people want to date other well-educated people, and the beautiful are drawn to their beautiful counterparts. In other words, before we make claims that women use their beauty to “marry up” in terms of economic status, we have to take into account our country’s 70-percent wage gap, according to McClintock. Women tend to marry men who make more money than them, whether they’re beautiful or not.
As for Millie, after years of dating models, she eventually had to cut herself off. “When I was younger, I could see a photograph of a guy and fall in love with him,” she said. “But now, even when I find someone extremely attractive, I’m indifferent to act on it unless I’m also attracted to them intellectually and emotionally—they have to still be hot when they open their mouth, basically. As I get older, I naturally want to be with someone who can do more than look pretty in a picture.”
It makes sense. As we grow up and become more dynamic, intelligent people, we expect the same from our partners. That’s not to say that beauty doesn’t matter—sexual attraction in a romantic relationship is clearly vital. But if a superficial quality is the focal point of your relationship, or the source of what binds, that’s a bad sign. If I’m ever feeling particularly superficial, I just think of this quote from Andy Warhol, which pretty perfectly sums up my idea of beauty: “I really don’t care that much about ‘Beauties.’ What I really like are Talkers. To me, good talkers are beautiful because good talk is what I love. . . . Talkers are doing something. Beauties are being something. Which isn't necessarily bad, it’s just that I don’t know what it is they’re being. It’s more fun to be with people who are doing things.”
--As copied from this article from Vogue
A female friend once told me, “It’s always best to date attractive men, but not so attractive that everyone’s constantly trying to jump on their dick, because that’s just stressful.” The sentiment actually made a lot of sense to me. While some people clearly feel proud to have a hottie on their arm, others are more comfortable having the upper hand in the beauty department. If you’ve ever had someone look at you during sex with this completely euphoric expression, like, “I can’t believe I get to do this with you,” you understand that “dating down” in terms of attractiveness can be a confidence boost in its own right. And while I’m drawn to extremely beautiful people, I more often want to just stare at them or hang an oil painting of them on my wall rather than lie on top of them nude. But I’ve also wondered if, deep down, I’m just intimidated by the idea of dating someone hotter than me.
My friend Millie Brown, a performance artist widely known as the "vomit artist," has a lot of experience with dating freakishly attractive men. Millie and I lived together during our early and mid-twenties, and at the time, it felt like every other week she had a new model boyfriend. "It wasn't that I was specifically attracted to models," Millie clarified recently. “It just so happened that, about five or six years ago, what was fashionable in terms of male models were thin, tattooed punk boys who looked like they’d just been plucked from a skate park, and that’s what I was into. Of course I’m attracted to beauty,” she concluded, “but so is everyone else.”
It’s true: It’s human nature to want to kiss and touch and penetrate beautiful people. Most of us, at some point in our lives, have hung posters of models and movie stars on our bedroom walls. And no matter how much I love my partner, I still occasionally masturbate to Tony Ward. But according to Millie, the reality of being romantically involved with the world’s most desired has its downsides.
“What’s annoying is that when you’re with a really hot guy, other girls have no qualms about coming up and hitting on him right in front of you,” she said. “Or girls will turn and blatantly stare at your boyfriend in the street. At certain times that can be a confidence boost, but it’s hard to deal with on a daily basis, especially when you don’t 100 percent trust the person you’re dating.” And this doesn’t just go for models, Millie says, but hot people in general. “When you have so many people throwing themselves at you, you’re spoiled for choice, so there’s less incentive to be faithful. Not to mention that people get away with so much more when they’re attractive.”
And that’s not just true of relationships; it’s true of life in general. It’s a widely documented psychological phenomenon that good-looking people are perceived by others as being better people overall—as being nicer, more intelligent, better at their jobs, and yes, better to date. And, according to economist Daniel S. Hamermesh, author of Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, there are also many economic benefits to looking good, from higher wages at work to getting better deals on loans.
But according to Millie, all of this unearned praise and attention can present problems in relationships. “When you’re a model, or just extremely good-looking, people are constantly telling you that you’re beautiful, but those people usually want something from you,” she told me. “You’re surrounded by ingenuine people, and therefore lack the knowledge of how to form good, honest relationships.” Because of all the attention, she said, beautiful people often become obsessed with how other people perceive them, which can ultimately lead to a pronounced insecurity. “At one point I felt like I was dating a teenage girl,” she said. “The guy I was dating would endlessly post half-naked selfies, and then wait around to see how many people liked them. He just constantly needed validation.”
Personally, the people I’ve been most attracted to—not the superficial kind of attraction we feel to a pretty person on a page, but a deep, chemical attraction—have not been conventionally beautiful. The attraction felt almost indefinable, relying on everything from their looks and style to their mind and profession, to the smell of their skin and the sound of their voice. Deep attraction is, of course, a multisensory experience. But, as un-shallow as I have congratulated myself for being on many occasions, I will admit that there have been times when someone’s looks overwhelmed any need for a deeper compatibility.
Case in point: A couple years ago, I dated a writer whose work I really admired—he was kind and intelligent, we got along wonderfully, and the sex was good, too. However, he was bald and a little shorter than me, and ultimately just not that hot. It never bothered me when we were alone, but as things got more serious, I began to feel nervous about introducing him to my friends. I hated myself for having such superficial impulses, but I couldn’t help it: I want to be able to show my partners off to the world for both what they do and how they look. And I expect the same from my friends. In the past, when a friend has introduced me to a new partner who’s superhot, but clearly an idiot, I’ve judged them for it. On the other hand, whenever a girlfriend of mine starts dating a middling, out-of-shape guy, all I can think is: This isn’t feminism.
Popular culture tells us that it’s normal for average-looking or even unattractive men to date beautiful women, as long as the men are successful—the trollish tycoon with the supermodel wife is a classic archetype—but that the reverse is somehow remarkable. In sociology, this is called the “beauty-status exchange”—an attractive person pairs with a wealthy or powerful person, and both win. And usually, this exchange is heavily gendered.
But according to new research by University of Notre Dame sociologist Elizabeth McClintock, despite outliers like Anna Nicole Smith and J. Howard Marshall, in the practical world, this very rarely happens. The study, “Beauty and Status: The Illusion of Exchange in Partner Selection?,” finds that people are ultimately looking for compatibility and companionship; that men and women are actually equally shallow in terms of beauty and status. Well-educated people want to date other well-educated people, and the beautiful are drawn to their beautiful counterparts. In other words, before we make claims that women use their beauty to “marry up” in terms of economic status, we have to take into account our country’s 70-percent wage gap, according to McClintock. Women tend to marry men who make more money than them, whether they’re beautiful or not.
As for Millie, after years of dating models, she eventually had to cut herself off. “When I was younger, I could see a photograph of a guy and fall in love with him,” she said. “But now, even when I find someone extremely attractive, I’m indifferent to act on it unless I’m also attracted to them intellectually and emotionally—they have to still be hot when they open their mouth, basically. As I get older, I naturally want to be with someone who can do more than look pretty in a picture.”
It makes sense. As we grow up and become more dynamic, intelligent people, we expect the same from our partners. That’s not to say that beauty doesn’t matter—sexual attraction in a romantic relationship is clearly vital. But if a superficial quality is the focal point of your relationship, or the source of what binds, that’s a bad sign. If I’m ever feeling particularly superficial, I just think of this quote from Andy Warhol, which pretty perfectly sums up my idea of beauty: “I really don’t care that much about ‘Beauties.’ What I really like are Talkers. To me, good talkers are beautiful because good talk is what I love. . . . Talkers are doing something. Beauties are being something. Which isn't necessarily bad, it’s just that I don’t know what it is they’re being. It’s more fun to be with people who are doing things.”
--As copied from this article from Vogue
Saturday, June 28, 2014
The A-Team
X: "Sometimes I feel like I want to be fashion buyer for the firm."
Y: "You can't make a living from that."
X: "That's what my sugar daddy program's for!"
--------------
X: "So I met A, she's editor in chief of this famous female magazine.
She said that I dress more and more like Olivia Pope."
Y: "Oh yes, she's right!"
X: "Yeah right, but I don't sleep with the President!"
Y: "Not yet, X. Not yet."
--Conversations in all-female team I'm gonna miss.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Apology
You can't just yell and say hurtful things to people then expect them
to be nice to you the very next day. Have some goddamn brain.
And heart.
"An apology is the super glue of life. It can repair just about anything."
--Lynn Johnston
Sunday, February 16, 2014
You Need to be Nicer
Sit. Good dog. Stay. Bad dog. Down. Roll over.
Well here's a good man and a pretty young girl
Trying to play together somehow
I'm wasting my life, you're changing the world
I get drunk and watch your head grow
It's the good times that we shared
And the bad times that we'll have
It's the good times
And the bad times that we've had
Well it's been a long, slow collision
I'm a pitbull, you're a dog
Baby you're foul in clear conditions
But you're handsome in the fog
So I need some fine wine, and you, you need to be nicer
For the good times and the bad times
That we'll have
Sometimes we talk over dinner like old friends
Till I go and kill the bottle
I go off over any old thing
Break your heart and raise a glass or ten
To the good times that we shared
And the bad times that we'll have
To the good times
And the bad times that we've had
Well it's been a long, slow collision
I'm a pitbull, you're a dog
Baby you're foul in clear conditions
But you're handsome in the fog
So I need some fine wine, and you, you need to be nicer
For the good times and the bad times
We know will come, yeah
I need some fine wine, and you, you need to be nicer
You need to be nicer, you need
For the good times and the bad times that we had
Sit
Good times, bad times
Sweet wine, bad wine
Good cop, bad cop
Lapdog, bad dog
Sit
("I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to be Nicer" - The Cardigans)
Trying to play together somehow
I'm wasting my life, you're changing the world
I get drunk and watch your head grow
It's the good times that we shared
And the bad times that we'll have
It's the good times
And the bad times that we've had
Well it's been a long, slow collision
I'm a pitbull, you're a dog
Baby you're foul in clear conditions
But you're handsome in the fog
So I need some fine wine, and you, you need to be nicer
For the good times and the bad times
That we'll have
Sometimes we talk over dinner like old friends
Till I go and kill the bottle
I go off over any old thing
Break your heart and raise a glass or ten
To the good times that we shared
And the bad times that we'll have
To the good times
And the bad times that we've had
Well it's been a long, slow collision
I'm a pitbull, you're a dog
Baby you're foul in clear conditions
But you're handsome in the fog
So I need some fine wine, and you, you need to be nicer
For the good times and the bad times
We know will come, yeah
I need some fine wine, and you, you need to be nicer
You need to be nicer, you need
For the good times and the bad times that we had
Sit
Good times, bad times
Sweet wine, bad wine
Good cop, bad cop
Lapdog, bad dog
Sit
("I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to be Nicer" - The Cardigans)
Monday, February 3, 2014
Vice Versa
"We live in a world where I see guys walking around with makeup,
and girls walking around in boys' clothes."
--Marc Jacobs (in an interview with NYLON magazine)
Thanks, Mr. Jacobs, for now I have a legitimate reason
to obsess over my boyfriend's sweaters.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
All for One and One for All
So, I stumbled upon BuzzFeed (as always) last night & my attention was drawn to this article I could not help but read.
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Anyways, this movie starts with the reuniting group of four girls (Samantha, Roberta, Teeny, and Chrissy) in their hometown of Shelby, Indiana, in 1995 (the 'now' part, as they were already grown-ups at that moment). And then there goes the flashback to the summer of 1970, when the four girls were 12. With all its bicycling, Red Rover game, tarot reading, library hopping, and seances, this is a good movie to tell what it was like being adolescents and how to spend summer before the years of video game and internet invasion.
I almost forgot how much I was obsessed with this movie when I was 8. (Yes, I watched it the first time when I was 8, which was around 4 years late since the movie came out in 1995) I'd watched it, like, 2 or 3 years ago on YouTube that I should jump from one part to another & the buffering lost my concentration so it kinda didn't do for me at the time. I thought my obsession was over, until I watched it again for the first time in years. The full part of the movie.
It turned out that some scenes still get me. Like, the scene when Sam almost drowned that night in the storm drain right after Teeny gave her a friendship bracelet, and Teeny couldn't do anything but crying, and then Crazy Pete came out of nowhere to save her. Or when Sam finally found out that Crazy Pete was Dear Johnny's father and being told a lesson that would've taken him a lifetime to learn. (I admit I'm a sucker for lonely old men) Or that time when Roberta got into a fight with some scumbag at the softball field and Sam did a heroic action. (That little guy screaming 'FIIIIIIGHT' was the highlight, though) Or the scene when they stole away the Wormers' clothes and left them chasing around naked. Or when Roberta was hysterically angry at Sam's grandma's attic finding out that some people might have died in pain, and the girls finally learned that the town they lived in was not as safe as they thought it always was. Or Teeny's room. Or the seances. Or Chrissy's OCD mother. (Seriously, a little dust on the gramophone and facing-upward cap is not okay?) Well, pretty much every single scene still gets me.
It's such a heartbreaker though finding out some of the girls' casts didn't grow up as expected. The girl who played pre-teen Chrissy, Ashleigh Aston Moore, even already passed away in 2007 with unconfirmed cause of death. (Some said pneumonia, some said heroin overdose) Well, after all, this is truly a movie a girl (or woman), regardless of her age, if you have bestfriends, should watch. Just like the tagline: "In every woman, there is the girl she left behind".
"C: I say we make a pact. Here and now. We're here for each other, always,
no matter what happens in life. If Teeny goes off to Hollywood or I marry a rich doctor,
we remember this day and this pact. Whenever we need a friend, we're here for each other.
We can count on it. Always. No matter what.
no matter what happens in life. If Teeny goes off to Hollywood or I marry a rich doctor,
we remember this day and this pact. Whenever we need a friend, we're here for each other.
We can count on it. Always. No matter what.
S: It's a pact.
C: All for one...
C, S, T, R: And one for all."
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