Some girls are born pretty.
Some girls become pretty.
Some girls lose their prettiness.
Others are just confused.
Perhaps being "pretty," though, has nothing to do with it, and perhaps I should not have used that word at all.
Maybe the correct word is Pretty.
I'm tempted to say that attractiveness is not a state of being, but a state of being in the right place at the right time. Humans, in this respect, are akin to items sold in stores.
The doll, loose brown curls and faded blue eyes, found in the antique store is ignored by the curly haired, ribbon-wearing four-year-old because it is old. It is not shiny. It is not what everyone else has or wants.
The most recent Barbie or Bratz doll, however, is feverishly stripped from the Toys R Us shelving unit because the little girl with the curly blond hair and tiny, pink-polished fingers knows that this is what she should find attractive. This is what she should find pretty.
Qualification: She does not know this is what is going on in her head. It's a subconscious processes, one we've all succumbed to without our consent at least once in our lives. Becoming programmed to think a certain way because of image overload. Why else do we shop at popular stores? Listen to Top40 radio? See box office hits at movie theaters?
External influence, that's why.
Likewise, the big Something that influences each person's tastes also has an influence in Pretty, just as it did on the little girl with the dolls.
A girl is mingling at a party with her girlfriends and sees a boy she finds attractive. She devises a way to start a conversation.
A boy is walking around campus and sees a girl who he finds to be attractive across the quad. He oh so naturally makes he way toward her to get her name and phone number.
Why do this boy and this girl find their respective targets attractive?
Experience has taught me that the answer is usually this: They fit today's definition of "hot."
Whatever that is.
I think it has something to do with wearing lots of making and looking kind of rude, or wearing an outfit that suggests, "I'm a jerk/easy," and having a personality to go along with your style.
But I could be wrong.
The fact of the matter is that I am not a girl who guys flock to. I am not a girl who is "hot." I am not a girl who gets hit on and flirted with on a regular basis by guys she hardly knows. Scratch that, I am never hit on or flirted with by guys I hardly know.
I am the old doll with the loose brown curls and the faded blue eyes sitting in the antique shop.
Until last week.
I had come to terms with not being pretty.
I had come to terms with always being the friend, not the girl.
Then, in a matter of four days, I've had a guy ask me to dinner the day after we met, and another allude to a movie date, two days after meeting each other.
Suddenly, my entire view of attractiveness and prettiness has altered, and I'm faced with the question, "What is Pretty? What is Attractive?"
Thus my conclusion that attractive is less a state of being and more a state of being in the right place at the right time.
I do not believe that cutting 9 inches off of my hair spurred this sudden interest in me,
nor do I believe that I suddenly woke up a more physically appealing person.
Especially not the latter. Oh dear, no.
I just happened to be at the movies and at the theater (respectively) when two certain guys (one at the former, the other at the latter) happened to be there at the same time as myself, and the timing was just right so as to open the door to just the right conversation that would then lead to further communication and ultimately result in talk of going somewhere.
The "going somewhere" topic brought up by him.
Not by me.
That's a first!
Now, I'm not saying I'm planning on getting involved in a relationship with either of these young men (because I'm not). I'm not saying I'm particularly interested in either of them, either (because I don't believe I am).
But perhaps I was at the right place at the right time
to restore hope in the search for a person to love.
The "pretty" factor turned into the Pretty factor. The external influence that drove the boy to the girl across the quad, and the girl to the boy at the party, and the little girl to the Barbie doll... it suddenly disappeared.
The boy suddenly switched his attention to the girl sitting alone on the floor in the bookstore. And a tottering child noticed the beauty of the faded doll.
Suddenly, Maturity awoke and punched "attractive," that sucker of an essence, in the face.
Some girls are born pretty.
Some girls become pretty.
Some girls lose their prettiness.
I am just confused.
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