Do Yourself A Favour And Look Like Shit Every Once In A While

I have this weird paranoia at all times that the back of my head (where my hair grows out of) is a mess.  And sometimes, on a lazy weekend afternoon, I will be comforted by the reminder that a messy back of the head will match perfectly with the front of my head (where my face is) which is also a mess.

It is in this state of deep gremlinhood that I find I am most happy.  Not just because it is very likely that I will not be wearing pants at this time, but also because I know that if I encounter another person while completely devoid of aesthetic effort, any kindness they show me will be completely of their own volition and not because I’ve coaxed it from them by highlighting my best biological markers with eyeliner.  And of course other people are capable of being kind in the face of ugliness.

I mean, people are obsessed with bulldogs and pugs, and both those dogs consistently look like absolute shit.  Why are we not communally extending that sentiment to the dog-faced people of this world?

Everyone knows that the cutest kid in kindergarten got the most attention from the teacher, that biased bitch.  But that’s because we are compelled to treat good looking people better, and the fact is, Tyler was the hottest five-year-old in the class so of course Mrs. Bellshaw couldn’t keep her eyes off him…that biased bitch.

But now that we’re full grown, the bar has been set way too high.  It’s no longer enough to shower and wear clean clothes to work.  We have to do our hair, and set our eyebrows, and tie our shoelaces.  Otherwise, people start asking if we’re okay, if we’re sick, if we’re lost because we don’t work here.

And we’ve done this to ourselves – you spent 20 minutes preparing your eyebrows before your first day of work, and now you’ll have to spend 20 minutes every day until you die.  You’ll probably even have to get up briefly at your own funeral to fix up the shoddy job the mortician will do on them, before going back to sleep forever.  Guess that’s why they call it a wake, lol.

Here’s the thing though, if you’d have shown up to the first day of work with fucked up eyebrows, no one would have ever doubted the legitimacy of them.  But then, day two comes around and you hit them with that perfectly fleeked brow?  My god, everyone would’ve been left gobsmacked.

That’s the trick, I reckon – we need to start giving ourselves a bit of range in terms of the image we project.  If people give preferential treatment to pretty people, then definitely, give yourself the chance to showcase your beauty within that conventional framework.  But it’s also important to give other people the chance to see you at your aesthetic low points too.

Not only will it make your highs that much higher, but it will also give everyone a chance to practice being nice to people that they’re not busting to root.

But more than all that, occasionally dressing down will serve to reinforce the truth of the situation, which is that your value as a human is independent of your looks.  Forget Casual Fridays, what we really need is This Is My Face Thursdays.

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