A Study in Attractiveness

Edit 10/06/11: Based on reader response, I should say something...If you don't know me and how much I love and accept all people "to a fault," if you don't read the whole post, if you don't know that I wrote this without realizing it was "funny"...You will not understand what is written here.

It is terribly embarrassing, but I confess my weakness. It is not coming from judgment or fueled by mean thoughts: this I promise you, sincerely. I just simply seem to lose consciousness momentarily when faced with…some human beings.

Please…Read on…I have an educational explanation.

I had heard about him many times, even spoken with him over the telephone, but when I actually saw him, I impaled myself on a cupboard door, after I ran into a wall and missed a doorknob all while saying, “Why, hello!”  Now you have to understand, this is not normal for me. I strive to walk the talk of real etiquette in every way I know how from studying deportment...and teaching it. I don’t trip over heaters and fall across countertops—well, unless I am startled. (Yes, I did that when I met a nice, well-nourished lady, once.)

It must be a certain level of unconscious disturbed equilibrium that only returns once I regain reality; I am only able to assume this proper normalcy by actual exertion of thought, “Johanna, it is going to be OK. Calm yourself.” Perhaps I get this trait from my Father? Just last week, I roomed a new patient and stepped back to the lab to tell my Dad he had an “initial eval in room three.”

Wiping the plaster from his hands he asked me, “The name?”

Scanning the paperwork, “Oh yes, it’s Shannon. But, he’s a man.”

My dad tossed the rag on his workbench and muttered to himself, “He’s going to be an Ugly, then. I just know it.”

I was quite surprised…to admit he was right. (My apologies if you’re a man named “Shannon.” It didn’t have to be that way, but it just is.) I also began to hope people don’t see my name on a list and say, “A ‘Johanna’? Are you kidding me? She’ll be a fat one!” Or, something like that. (Also, note that my dad has an unusual sense of humor, which is also a genetic trait.)

My sister explained my trouble to me. I hadn’t connected my moments of reeling shock with the presence of specific human beings, until she pointed out one evening while I was holding an ice pack to my shin again, “Did you ever notice how you act like a complete idiot if a very different-looking person is presented to you?” You see, I sincerely believe that there is something beautiful about every single person. I know I know without a doubt that value rests inside of each one. Thus I didn’t realize that attractiveness is near completely subconscious.

So I studied the science of attraction. I learned useless things like a celestial nose is tops, and certain jaw structures are more magnetic. And yes, of course, part of it is when even a butterfly flaps too fast and looks brown, people see a moth.  We all know that there are other features that signal subconsciously signs of health and productivity that can cause some attraction, as well. But this last part was amazing. The rest of "attraction" is in how...normal you are. People are attracted to what they have seen in their past. A person who is a combination of familiar features to your memory, all melded into one person is naturally more attractive. Believe it or not, "exceptional" is not the primary note of attraction, its actually "commonness." 

When confronted with features I have not seen before, like a pendulous abdomen brushing against one’s feet, or a bristling, bulbous nose covering an entire face, it is not that it is “ugly” necessarily, it is that I am not familiar with it as a healthful or universal aspect in humanity.  This not only explains why a culture ends up with a standard for “pretty,” but also why it changes in what is “beautiful” with time. Gradual adjustments are made while still reminding us of the past, while still seeming slightly novel, and we eventually eliminate the commonalities of our forefathers. Where rounded limbs and bellies of plump-cheeked innocents were vogue for Venus in archaic artwork, she now resembles more a shapely skeleton in eye shadow, sometimes in a meat dress.

Thusly, no one is ugly. They just have to get out more. Be seen. Be experienced. Make a standard. And, please, be confident in who you are. Otherwise, I might hurt myself. And if you trip when you meet me, it is OK: you won’t be the first.

P.S. Sometimes I’m clumsy without anybody around. I know. The implications of that are dreadful.