Kristoffer's thoughts on beauty.
(Written on 2001-01-06. Last updated 2002-02-25)
This one was triggered when I read about a british 16 year young girl who got a breast enlargment as a sweet-16 gift from her parents. And she wasn't at all bad looking so I have no idea why. But even so, the girl was just 16 !!!!!

Time to talk about something that affects everybody, but what most people won't admit or downright lie about - beauty! I just saw an episode of one of the greatest shows ever - "Cupid". Trevor/Q-pid said something that is, as always, very true in my experience - hot chicks end up with hot guys. There are exceptions ofcourse, but I only know of two. Two! (Per and Sandor you lucky studs!)
One thing I'm great at is observing. I love just laying back observing everything from the beauties of nature to the (on the verge of pathetic) meat-market at singlebars. (I'm not saying it's pathetic wanting to meet anyone, why else would I be there :) )
And it's surprisingly true - extremely rarely do you see great looking women with... well, guys like me.

I think the problem is twofold : people that know they are hot are probably not that interested in non-good looking people like me, and it's also our fault that we never even try getting an attractive woman with the reasoning "she's out of my league". In my case it's definitely not the second one, because I've asked so many great looking women out on dates and the response has been pretty negative. But I'll die trying. Or of embarassment. Another great reference to this phenomena is in the movie "High Fidelity" in which the average guy ends up with megababe Charlie (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones (Douglas?) and can never really get comfortable because she's way out of his league. And ofcourse, she dumps him for a hunky looking stud.

So why do I even try instead of just accepting it and lower my standards? First of all, I believe in settling down with the right one, not the only one that'll have you.
And now I need to explain my take on beauty, both physical and personality-wise:
A physically beautiful women might get me interested enough to ask her out on a date. After that, her physcial beauty may only give her a plus-point. But if she's totally incompatible with me it's not worth it.
BUT, and there's always a but, when it comes to falling in love physical beauty is irrelevant to me. None of the women I've fallen for has struck me right off the bat as beautiful the first time I met them, but afterwards they are some of the most beautiful women I know!
Two examples:
1) In 9th grade I became interested in a nice looking girl, and my buddy (Johan) became very interested in her friend. I tried convincing him "mine" was hotter, and the other way around. But after having exchanged a lot of (what I though was) nice looks and flirts with the other girl I fell for her (come on, I was 15 at the time!), and I even worked up the courage to write her a nice letter.
(If Maria K. is reading this - thanx for returning my call, the nicest shootdown yet!)
2) We got two girls at work from a school to work with us for a couple of weeks to get some experience. One worked for us, the other for another department. Then they'd switch after a couple of weeks. And we got the hot one, really nice! Made it more fun to go to work for those few weeks. Anyway, then they'd switch and I was kinda sorry to see her go. Then the other one came and at first she didn't strike me as anything, but after a couple of weeks I really, REALLY liked her. And I was really, REALLY sorry to see her go and after not getting her out of my head I finally asked her out. Still waiting for an answer on that, like a year later!.. she was also called Maria...

So looking at my history of women I've fallen for, they are usually petite, dark hair, nice, intelligent, fun and a have tough attitude. (so if you fit that description and are single, call me :) )

But this wasn't suppose to be a singles-ad for me, back to the subject - why is looks so important?
Take such a thing as working at McDonalds. I bet you $50 that if you'd go into any McDonalds and look at the difference between the people working in the cashier-line and the people in the kitchen you'd see my point! I worked at Clock (swedish version of McDonalds) for 4 years, and after 2 1/5 years I got bumped up to the registers because they were desperate. (I liked the kitchen better, because there only the boss yelled at us, not the customers!)
But can you blame them? I don't, ofcourse one would want the attractive people upfront to make a good impression in the customers. So no matter what anyone says, looks are very important - even in everyday life things. Some people dress in a certain way to disguise slight overweight (there I go again, talking about myself) and other comb their hair over to cover the fact they are bald (hope I don't start doing that when I go bald!)

I really hope we get out of this beauty-obsession thing. A good start would to stop being that way myself.
But I can't. Call me a hypocrite if you will, but I have a tendancy to be shallow, make an effort to be nice to women I find attractive, dress in loose clothing and asking way too nice looking women out.
Another thing I've heard is "how cool would it be to go out with your friends and introduce this megababe as your girlfriend". It's objectifying, shallow and if I was a hot woman I'd be offended. But would I do it, suppose I had one?.... don't know, probably. Again, hypocrite, I know, but alteast I'm being honest which is more than most other people I've heard on this subject.

/ Kristoffer Strom