Earlier today, OSer Mark Pritchard posted “Question for beautiful women”. (read here) I clicked on it because I was curious. Sometimes a provocative title draws readers but the actual post is about something unrelated. I moved to his post, read it and wondered about answering: Does it mean I think I’m beautiful if I answer?  I think his questions are fair. But my answers are complicated.

My first comment on his post:  Sitting at a cafe in Korea, a handsome man who appeared Arabian in heritage approached. He stood in front of me and said, "I only want to tell you something, not to trouble you. You are one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in the world. I hope your life is as beautiful as you."

I was struck speechless. He nodded ever-so-slightly and left. To this day (20 years later), I treasure the gift this man gave me that day. If he had stuck around, I probably would've discounted his words. But his leaving allowed me to take in something I otherwise found difficult.

Later, I even dared to believe him.

I checked back later to see the comments of others.  Some comments were about internal beauty, stating comments about their looks didn’t really matter if it came from someone who didn’t know them.  And I thought, oh no, I look like a bimbo with my comment!  Now OSers are going to think I am stuck on my looks!  

I wrote a second comment: And, yes, now I feel totally self-conscious. I am about self-growth and development, who I am inside and letting others know me in all my flawed and wonderful ways. And accepting that I can like my looks, accept them, has been a part of that journey. Oh shit, now I am writing a post on this.

I hid behind my looks growing up. I knew I was considered pretty, gorgeous, or whatever term was in vogue at the time. It didn’t matter. It didn’t help ease my awkwardness or give me any advantages in the self-esteem arena. I was shy, avoided social situations where I didn’t have a ‘role’, found it hard to make small talk.  And, if you are outwardly pretty, and you don’t talk, people make assumptions about you based on your looks. Because if you are pretty but don’t talk, people infer that you are stuck up, aloof, thinks she’s too good for us.

Sometimes I wished I could disappear. My looks weren’t ME. Try telling that to a culture accustomed to objectifying women. Take a shy 17 year old, give her big boobs and blue eyes and have her streak her long hair because it is the 70’s and have her wear lip gloss because her mom said to and you have a disaster in the making. An internal disaster. If I had had any internal compass I might have been able to navigate the waters of attraction. I didn’t.  

I moved to Paris at 18 and felt frankly relieved that I could lose myself in a country of beautiful women. No matter what I looked like, I knew I did not possess the internal sense of beauty and security of these women. Every French woman seemed to carry with her beauty from birth. Not all of these women were actually ‘pretty’ but they had what I did not:  Each woman seemed to just KNOW she was beautiful and radiated this from within. There is a magnetism to those who feel good just being in the world.

Stopped on the street by a persuasive man, I agreed to be a day model for a couture house. It beat cleaning toilets for pay. I lasted one day. One day in which I was handled like a piece of meat, clad in a frouffy outfit, made up beyond my imagination and my own recognition. Pushed out onto the floor my job was to simply be the best clothes rack I could be. No one was interested in ME.  Mademoiselle, a motion for me to turn around, a flick of the wrist indicating they were done with me...

I am more beautiful today than I ever was in my youth.  I found my internal compass. I nurtured my esteem, built my confidence, learned how to relish my intelligence and my talents. Am I pretty? Some times I feel beautiful and then I see myself in the mirror and go, whoa, girl, those are some big bags you are sporting under those eyes! Or I notice my deepening wrinkles. My inside feelings of beauty don’t always match my outside. I’m okay with that. 

Here’s what I like best about me these days: I feel good about being in the world and that attracts people to me. That’s a great feeling.