The Power of Beauty

For the second time this month my medium hazelnut latte to go from Costa Coffee has been forgotten. They take my money just like everybody else and add my receipt to the line of other receipts and yet somehow it just magically disappears. I stand there watching as people that were behind me in the queue are handed their drinks by the young, preppy, attractive baristas. And I just stand there too timid to say anything and wondering if I can leave without anyone noticing. I can’t help but take it personally, I mean why does this keep happening? Is it just a coincidence that the people who received the drinks they paid for are attractive and the person whose money was taken and then forgotten about was ugly me?

Perhaps I’m just being over sensitive, but it does make you think, does being attractive make your life easier? Or even happier? Because from where I’m standing it certainly seems that way!

Several years ago, I was born with a condition called “ugliness”, which is unfortunately for now incurable. Very sad I know, but I try not to dwell on it. The thing about being ugly is you are invisible to most people and believe me you see an awful lot when no one sees you. Things that other people don’t see. You get an insight into things that some “people” will never be able to understand. These “people” are the beauties of the world.

Many a time the customer I have been serving at the Department Store I work at is totally oblivious to me. Oblivious because someone attractive just entered the room. Sometimes I’ve been stood at the till waiting to serve and I smile and say hello and the customer ignores me and walks over to the assistant at the till next to me who is busy but just so happens to be attractive. My colleague then says to me rather abruptly “Can you serve these customers please, I’m in the middle of a job!” I try to protest and explain I wasn’t being lazy, I did in fact try to serve the customers but they were repelled by my hideousness and drawn to your beauty. But what’s the point I tell myself? And instead I ask the customer to come over and they do… reluctantly.

When your attractive people are so much nicer to you. A door will be held open for a beautiful woman but slammed right in my face. The barista will flirt with the handsome man and give him the coffee for free for being so delicious. They charge me but never actually give me my drink. I’ve never been flirted with but people do barge into me on the street, could that possibly be classed as foreplay?

But seriously I truly believe life is in some ways easier for the more attractive of the world. People will do anything for a pretty face, but the ugly ones like mine? Forget about it!

As far as I can see the only positive thing about being unattractive is your beauty will never fade, because you didn’t have it to being with.

People come to me for advice on all matters and ask me how I’m so knowledgeable? Well that’s simple, ugly people like me are like I mentioned before, in some ways invisible and because we’re invisible people have no problems divulging their inner most secrets when your around. You hear and see so much that it sticks with you, it feels like you’ve lived it. You listen to what advice the attractive friend gives and then I think about what I would have done in that situation. Believe me my advice is very different to the attractive friend’s advice. So, when someone comes to me with a problem I can give them advice from my perspective and from the attractive people’s perspective. I can see it from both sides and tailor it to fit the situation. Because I have something they don’t, insider information. Doesn’t always work I would like to add, but it can help.

I don’t have to have had a torrid love affair to know how to deal with one. The pretty girls at the table next to me told me how. I don’t need to know what it’s like when someone fancies you and you don’t fancy them back because the handsome guys over there told me. You might say I’m a sad, lonely, nosey person with too much time on their hands but that is so untrue! I never have too much time on my hands! All I’m saying is it feels like being ugly makes you miss out on so much in life. It’s kind of nice listening to the lives of attractive people and their problems and how they think and feel about things. We have some similarities I’ve noticed but on the whole unattractive people and attractive people think and feel very differently in many ways.

This is not a one-man-pity-party and I most certainly do not hate attractive people, of course I don’t. I appreciate their gorgeous aesthetic just as much as everybody else, but I just think they need to appreciate their beauty more. I see so many attractive people just wasting their beauty. I want to shake them and tell them to be grateful for what they have and to be thankful that they will never have to know what it’s like to be ugly like me. But alas none of us truly appreciate what we have until its gone.

And I know looks aren’t everything and that its what’s on the inside that counts and all the other scrumptious clichés that actually do very little to boost my flat-lining self-esteem. I know a beautiful façade isn’t everything but you’ve got to admit beauty does give you more choices in life and more variety too. Your choices are endless in love and in life.

As another year goes by I tell myself that this is the year I will finally learn to love myself, that I will finally except my face and body for how it is. But sadly, all attempts are fruitless. They say you care less as you get older, but if anything, I find myself caring more. Why do we give beauty so much power? Why do we allow ourselves to feel this way? Why am I not as important as a good-looking person? Do I not deserve the same respect the beautiful people get? Because I think I do! I may be ugly but I still would like the coffee I ordered and paid for! I may be ugly but I can still give great customer service if only you’ll give me the chance! And I may be ugly but you could still hold the door open for me once in a while. And while we’re on the subject some eye contact now and again would be nice!

I may always be ugly and I may forever be ignored and unloved, but I’ll tell you one thing my ugly face has done for me, it’s made me a better person. It’s given me an empathy for people and a loyalty that will never break. I’ll be the greatest friend you’ve ever had I promise you that!

So, to all my fellow “unattractives” of the world, just remember we may not have a face that gets us a free coffee but at least we are good people. And I’m not saying that if your good-looking you’re not a good person because that’s simply not true, I’m just saying that we have an empathy that comes from never being ever truly accepted by society.

So, my advice to all you delicious looking hotties out there is this; be nice to people who you deem “less attractive then you” and treat everyone equally. Don’t ignore us, we are here and we are just as important as you. And finally, please treasure you looks, appreciate them and enjoy them while you have them for they’ll be gone one day and then you’ll be like us less attractive people. But look on the bright side we still have our health!

By Robert Stratton