Cute Enough

‘Tell me, dear, why is it that such a bright, young woman like yourself is still single?  I mean, you‘ve got the brains and the looks and everything!’

Ah, well, that‘s a good question, actually, and I promise to get back to you on that as soon as I‘ve found out. In the meantime, why don‘t you try and ask the many gentlemen who have, rather selflessly, attributed to that condition of mine? I can provide you with their phone numbers, e-mail addresses, MSN or Skype nicks, no bother at all.

The reason why I’m single is just as much a mystery to me as it is to all of those oh-so concerned people who don’t seem to fathom that ‘ordinary’ people can still be single after thirty. Women seem to wonder more about this than men, I have to say. Or they’re more prone to say something out loud, interrogating me to try to find out where I stand in society, and why.

‘So, how long since you divorced?’ – ‘I’ve never been married actually.’ – ‘Oh, well...lived with someone, then?’ – ‘Never lived with anyone either, I’m afraid.’ –‘Really? So...you’ve just always been...single?’ – ‘Yup, always single.’ –‘What? Such a cute girl?’

Yeah, I’m single despite being cute. Amazing. Must have an awful personality then, thank you very much! You just managed to turn a simple compliment into quite the opposite. That tends to happen when people try to use my looks to comfort me in my apparently pathetic situation. As if it has anything to do with looks anyway? Perhaps everybody except me knows that all the ugly people are single and all the pretty people are not. If so, I must get a prescription for those glasses I’ve been meaning to get for so long.

But I’d go as far as stating that looks have absolutely nothing to do with people being drawn to one another. Which is a paradox, of course, because there has to be something that attracts - and at first glance it’s usually related to appearances. But what one person might find attractive, someone else finds rather ordinary or even repulsive. The great non-mystery - that most people discover when they’ve reached the minimum maturity to be considered adults - is that the personality, vibes and various, invisible little character traits have much more effect when it comes to attraction than any fake tan, hairdo, make-up or plastic surgery.

Yes, there seems to be some cosmic rumour that certain physical traits are more sought after than others and might even ensure popularity with the other sex, or whichever sex you’re trying to attract. However, at the end of the day it’s just an inexplicable, mysterious personal taste that is the defining factor.

Let’s face it, if it were only down to looks, wouldn’t Hollywood relationships last longer?