Friday 10 July 2015

Accept Me For Who I Am--Or Else!

I was writing a story today in which a character wonders if a boy she likes would notice her if she wore fake tan. They're Scottish, so this is not a far-fetched scenario. And once for Hallowe'en, I went the whole hog on the fake-tan, fake-eyelashes look, and to my shock, Benedict Ambrose thought I looked really great.

<:-O

This did not come as a surprise to my beautician, who covers women with fake tan, wax, shellac, etc., for a living, but my mind continued to boggle. It occurs to me that it might be nice to do the fake-tan, fake-eyelashes thing again although I can't help thinking that would also be rather odd.

I am reminded of an episode of Married with Children  (a risqué 1980s sitcom) in which the mother and daughter reminisce about the time the daughter came home crying because the boy she liked only liked blondes, and so her mother bought her her first bottle of bleach. From the canned laughter, I learned that this was a disgracefully unmaternal thing to do, but now that I think about it, I wonder if that would work.

Why do so many women dye their hair blonde anyway? The expense of keeping the roots blonde must be immense.

Although on a basic level, men-in-general find women-in-general attractive, there is no use denying that not all men find all women attractive, and that a lot of men find the same women attractive, which is incredibly annoying for the women who are found attractive only by a few. However, if you find few men attractive, why should many of them find you attractive, eh? Anyway, there's no shoulds about attraction. Either we/they are attracted or we/they aren't. And meanwhile, there's a whole world out there of amusing and interesting things that you could enjoy even if you were literally invisible to the opposite sex.

In my gym-rat days, I picked up a muscle magazine and read with great enjoyment advertisements telling its readers that women were more interested in men with muscles than with money. A guy with a pair of muscled up arms--said the ad--was a lot more successful with the ladies than the fat or skinny guy with the fancy car. It was not a subtle ad, but it was not aimed at subtle readers. And the amusing thing is that I do now notice big muscled arms more than anything else, probably because I know so few men with big muscled arms. Incidentally, if you are a big Ed Norton fan, you can find his younger double at my swing-dancing.

No doubt there are men who think it outrageous that some women might notice men with big muscled arms more than ordinary nice guys with skinny or flabby arms, but that's just the way some women are. If I were a man--as I have said many times--I would go to the gym every day--or just buy weights and bring them home--because men can grow muscles with something like a third of the effort women have to put in. It is so EASY for men to get big arms, I wonder why they don't do it more. Possibly they think women should just accept them for the whom they are, or we are not worth the effort of ten minutes of arm-improving a day.  Or they have not picked up a muscle magazine and been convinced that women think more of big arms than fancy cars.

 I just read an article by a "John Smith" (brave) at "Thought Catalogue" about things a woman can do to be more attractive, and I'm not going to link to it because it is not little brother safe. To leave out the rude stuff, he suggests:
1. Keeping in shape
2. Don't dye, pierce or tattoo where it can be seen.
3. Make your own money
4. Be feminine
5. Be, uh, easy-going.
6. Don't have slept with a lot of guys.
7. Be intelligent.
8. [Single mothers have a harder time finding boyfriends.]
9. Cook at least three times a week..
10. Don't be glued to your Smartphone
11. Don't wear make-up. (Proof that this article was written by a man. They always say it, and they never mean it. They seem to think super-models never wear make-up.)
12. Stop swearing like a sailor.
13. Stop hoarding guy friends because apparently they all want to sleep with you, which I think cannot be true when I think about my own guy friends, who are usually 20 years my junior.

Sadly, the top internet articles about things a man can do to be more attractive to women are pretty brainless and involve slides. Sigh. At "Men's Health" (also not Little Brother Safe) I have found the following advice:

1. Travel about with male friends.
2. Be nice to babies.
3. Grow heavy stubble.
4. Borrow a fancy car.  (Ha ha ha!)
5. Walk a dog.
6. Volunteer.
7. Be funny.
8. A survey in Anchorage, Alaska showed that women found men who did hunter-gatherer things, like scaling cliffs, building fires, swimming rivers, more attractive. As well they might--in ALASKA.
10. Smile slowly. Quick grins make you look untrustworthy.
11. Show off your scars.
12. Carry a guitar. (What?)
13. Bring flowers. Apparently men with flowers are more attractive than men without.
14. (Fourteen?) Be strong and lean.

I feel my IQ falling to my socks as I type all this. Fortunately, I have found a  much better article on this topic at Thought Catalogue, and it is almost entirely safe for little brothers, so here it is. Naturally we will all roll our eyes at stuff in Item 6, but at least it points out that women also don't like dating people who have slept with a lot of people. And I see--HOORAY--it is about what men look like just as much as advice to women is about what we look like.

Avoid the comments. They are truly depressing, and there's a class of man on the internet which goes bananas whenever a woman gives men advice, for it assumes she's attacking them, personally, with the garden shears.

To return to the title of this blog, I think it is fantastic when men and women accept each other for who they are, no adjustments needed. However, I don't think its a given.  I know a poor guy who lost the love of his college life--which left him in a tailspin of depression--because he rarely washed or did his laundry.

22 comments:

  1. Not that reading about it is the best way to learn virtue (that's Latin for "heroics") but there is The Art of Manliness (sample article).

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  2. Mod Belfry Bat up. AoM is an enjoyable and well-thought-out site. It is to the general manosphere as your poster boy with the kilt-and-boat is to Men's Health (UK edition).

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  3. About hoarding guy friends - the ones who are 20 years your junior are looking for a mother. The guy friends who are around the same age really do want to date/have a relationship/sleep with you. That's why men talk about "the friend zone."

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  4. Woot! But I'm MAYR-reed! So okay for the mother stuff, but defo not okay about the sleeping. Bad bad guy friends my age! Wicked! Bad! Slap!

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  5. About make-up: I have a very deep suspicion.
    Man: Women look better without make-up.
    Woman: Very well, dear.
    Woman (behind Man's back): The silly fellow! Of course he prefers women with make-up! He just doesn't realize it!
    Do y'all have any... evidence... that you know men's preferences better than they do? After all, you always say to listen to men, even if you don't like what they say.
    I wear make-up only when physically forced by the mater, who insists that my fiance prefers me to wear it. Behind her back, when I NEVER wear it, he praises me for not wasting my time with that rubbish and laughs at her.
    She also insists that my father is secretly appreciative of her extensive make-up collection, although he told her for years that she looked better without and eventually stopped arguing (not agreed, stopped arguing.)
    I genuinely think that it's all a load of road apples. Pardon my bluntness, I don't mean to be rude. There just seems to be a huge disconnect here.

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  6. Laika, every man that I've ever talked about it has explained (when I've asked them to elucidate) that they don't like it when they can tell that a woman is wearing make-up, but but most of the time they can't tell unless it is excessive. Hence, why a man might think that he likes women best without make-up, but really, in many cases, doesn't.

    A light coat of mascara or lipstick/lipgloss, concealer and powder, etc. is not going to cause a man to comment that he likes women without make-up, because he probably won't even realize she has any on. Heavy eyeliner/eyeshadow, etc. probably will.

    I'm not saying men don't think that women are pretty without make-up, or that we should be obsessed with it and never step foot out of the house without it on, but for many of us, it is a useful beauty aid, and we can look even prettier with a little of it.

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  7. Yeah, that's what I think, too. Make-up so skillfully applied that men don't think you're wearing make-up is the way to go, really. Make-up is one of the very few subjects I really don't take men seriously about. Especially as B.A. says he likes me better without make-up and then thought I looked amazing with fake tan, fake eyelashes, etc.

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  8. But fake tan is sooooo gross. Seriously. At least on naturally very fair women like me. Perhaps darker-skinned women can look okay with it. By darker-skinned I mean "not transparent", which is essentially what my skin colour is. I confound make up salesgirls when I challenge them to find me a foundation that's pale enough.

    I think Booklover and Seraphic are generally correct about the make up thing. Laika, perhaps your fiancé is genuinely one of the men who prefers the no make up look, but I don't know how many men there are like that.

    Although! The guy I mentioned on yesterday's post? His new girlfriend seems to wear no make up on a day-to-day basis, so obviously he either prefers that look or he doesn't care. She also wears calf-length skirts with t-shirts and runners, so maybe he likes the low-maintenance look.

    As for the dyeing-hair-blonde thing? I have natural blonde hair, and I don't get why women do it either. I haven't noticed that men prefer blonde women. People are like, "Oh, you're so lucky that you're tall and blonde." It's not a bad thing, but it's not doing me any favours with men, as the preference certainly seems to be for short, dark-haired women (this is the category that New GF fits into as well.)

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  9. By the way, that thing about "all your male friends want to sleep with you"? What garbage.

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  10. The make up thing is spot on. I always get more compliments with make up, sometimes by guys who really don't think I ever wear any.

    Male friends do not always want a relationship. In my experience they usually didn't, not with me anyway. Often I wished they did!

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    1. To clarify, in the past I wished that! Not now. Worked out better that way!

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    2. I have recently learned some stuff about a male friend that makes me soooo glad he never asked me out. Hmmm....it's almost as if God knows what He's doing, hey?

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  11. Also, what I've noticed is that guys can't tell if you're wearing subtle false eyelashes. You get looks from them, you can see they can tell something's different but they can't quite decide what it is.

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  12. I think when men say, "I don't like makeup on women," they are not saying, "I enjoy seeing rosacea, acne scars, dark circles under the eyes and long lashes that are so blonde they are invisible." If men could, with accuracy, point out which women aren't wearing makeup and which are, I might be more inclined to believe them. I've noticed when I wear makeup, I hear lots of compliments from men, and also things like, "You look so great! You looked really tired yesterday," (when yesterday I was not wearing makeup). I usually go without it, anyway.

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  13. Long time reader, first time comment-er. I'm with you on the makeup thing, and I think this video will make you laugh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyeTJVU4wVo

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  14. I'm of a generation where guys generally expressed preference for girls in natural-looking, not overdone makeup. Seems like college age and young adult men now are the ones who insist on "no makeup."

    But a funny story: a year or so after graduating, I returned to my college town to visit some friends. A guy friend and I were planning when to meet up, and one thing we were working around was a haircut appointment I had. When we did meet up, he said, "Did you get your haircut? It looks great!" And I said, "My appointment is tomorrow." He said "I was trying to notice!" We got a laugh out of it...guys really don't pick up on these kinds of details, and he was trying hard to do so, and actually remembered that a haircut was even in the mix. Kudos to him! (Is it significant that he is now a priest?)

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  15. What fascinated me most about this post is your friend who lost a girl over laundry... Was everything else in their relationship perfect? If so, I find it hard to believe that this one issue could be the dealbreaker. Although if he was just generally slovenly, wore dirty clothes, smelled bad etc. I can understand why she wouldn't be attracted to him.

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  16. Generally slovenly, dirty clothes, smelled bad. I think first year college men may often be offenders in this regard. No mother to wash everything for them.

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  17. Generally slovenly, dirty clothes, smelled bad. I think first year college men may often be offenders in this regard. No mother to wash everything for them.

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  18. I know guys that think heavy makeup is a sign of a very high-maintenance woman. I've also had them tell me that they worry about what she would look like without it. In this guy's words,"I'd like to know what she really looks like."

    As for the guitar thing, LOL! I knew a guy once that decided to play the guitar to attract women. It actually did work.

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