(no subject)

[feotakahari]

I’m starting to legitimately believe that pretty people don’t exist. Pretty photos of people, sure. Pretty videos of people, sometimes. And if your idea of “pretty” means looking like a Barbie doll, I once met someone who could get there with enough makeup and hair products. But by nature, we’re each kinda fugly in our own unique and special way. 

(Beefy people do exist, but a lot of them use steroids.)

Comments

[discoursedrome]

I wonder if we disagree about terminology. I've definitely got a few pretty coworkers -- more generally, my coworkers span a pretty broad spectrum from "very unnattractive" to "very attractive" -- and while I haven't seen that many pretty people on subways, I'm reasonably sure I have seen a few who weren't very done-up otherwise? It's harder to judge when there's a wide mix of grooming, dress and makeup levels going on and you're supposed to be averting your eyes from people to begin with, admittedly.

In my experience, pretty people are drastically overrepresented in customer-facing retail, because it's actively sought-after. Like, I'd say that between half and three-quarters of front-facing retail workers are pretty.

[feotakahari]

I’ll be honest; what I was originally thinking of was all those novels about English professors who just can’t help cheating on their wives because their students are so incredibly pretty. “I’m helplessly wrapped around the finger of this manipulative pretty person” isn’t a thing I’ve really seen, even in high school.

[discoursedrome]

Ohhh, I see what you mean. Hmm.
My feeling is that the "wrapped around someone's finger" experience is about being infatuated -- what some people might call "in love" or "having a crush" -- and this is fairly correlated with prettiness, but not directly caused by it, because there are also elements of mannerisms and other visible qualities and what they think of you and so on and so forth. I think people can be good-looking enough to get more positive treatment from people in general, but that kind of dramatic effect isn't something you can activate reliably, I don't think. That said, being really good-looking definitely helps.