The Sad Triumph of Ugly Men
COED MAGAZINE
JANUARY 2005
BY JULIA ALLISON
Watching football – involuntarily – with The Boyfriend last week, I found myself bombarded by beer commercials during the breaks. Now, given that I don’t much drink beer (real women drink straight tequila), I wasn’t interested in the actual brands. Still, I found myself transfixed by the appearance of the women. No, scratch that. The couples.
It’s almost a cliché to have model types hawk alcohol to the average guy – but the men pictured weren’t gazing at what they couldn’t have – they were married to them. All I could think was “yeah f--king right.” What kind of world do these beer companies think we’re living in anyway – one without leagues, as in “she’s so out of his”?
Satisfied the advertisements were an exercise in wishful thinking, I put the Disproportionately Attractive Beer Couple out of my mind.
And then I looked around. At reality – not reality tv – or as much reality as you can find in Southern California. Everywhere I went I saw hot women parading around with less attractive men.
Frantically, I searched through my mental-rolodex of celebrity couples. Dammit! If they weren’t both genetically perfect, the guy was always – always – less hot than the woman. Kate Hudson and Chris Robinson. Heidi Klum and Seal. Britney Spears and all the sketchy guys she’s married. Kid Rock and anybody.
The celebrity world, just like the real world, actually seems to emulate the Beer Commercial, filled with Couples Who Don’t Make Sense.
Of course, saying as much isn’t done. Physical attractiveness is a touchy subject at best. Speak of it and you seem shallow; ignore it and you’re sidestepping biology. Obviously there are plenty of other reasons people date which have nothing to do with the looks of our partner. But far and away the most apparent feature – the feature by which we can judge most easily – we wear on the outside.
But isn’t it good that couples don’t always “match”? Maybe they’re looking beyond the façade of superficiality! Maybe … but why is it that so many of these couples let the attractiveness – physically at least – fall to the job of the woman? Is it just my imagination that every guy in a disproportionate relationship is dating two to three points higher than himself? Are women just less superficial than men?
My friend Sarah, a first year Harvard law student, thinks women rate their man’s arm-candy quotient lower on their priority list, instead going for charisma, personality, and a certain worldliness. But beware, warns Sarah, “the guy who’s 3 is obviously with you in part for your looks, and your sway in the relationship is generally about your sex appeal and about the guy's feelings of inadequacy.” God, that’s depressing.
I wanted to reject Sarah’s pessimism – real men don’t think like that … do they?? Oh yes, yes they do. Sad to say, I had no trouble finding Shallow Hal types when I searched amongst the Y-chromosomes.
“Would you ever date a woman less attractive than you?” I asked three USC seniors. “Date? No. Fuck? Hells, yeah.” (Hells yeah? Who says that??) It turns out that they reserve dating “down” for sex, blow jobs, and, well, that’s about it.
One of them even referred to a term I must admit I’d never heard in polite conversation – or any conversation, for that matter: “When you want to get with an ugly chick who has a good body, you just brown bag her.”
Jigga wha? “You know,” they explained, “pretend in your mind the girl has a brown bag over her head.” I wanted to commit suicide for my entire gender right then and there.
“Not to mention,” one added scornfully, “the problem with ugly girls is that they fall in love with you.” This from a fellow who didn’t hit above a “5” on my Hotness Richter Scale, not to mention he hadn’t had a girlfriend since high school. Any woman I know in the same dry spell would assume she needed to do some self-improvement. Instead, this guy sat around and smoked pot in blissful ignorance.
So maybe pedestrian men date smokin’ women because they simply don’t realize they’re not hot stuff. If straight men felt the pressure that women (and gay guys) do to look fabulous, we might not have so many lopsided couples.
Still, it seems like men – attractive or not – get all the good luck in the dating department. . “You would know,” I asked a favorite ex-boyfriend of mine, currently a senior at Berkeley (who, although whip-lash brilliant, won’t be in PlayGirl anytime soon) “are there any disadvantages for a guy bordering on F-ugly to date an extremely attractive woman?” After threatening to hang up on me, he explained. “The downside of such relationships is that you’re constantly trying to convince your significant other to stay with you while battling with your inadequacy in a department you have no control over. No matter how great the relationship is, in the back of your mind you’re always wondering.”
I guess in the back of our minds we’re always wondering, no matter what. Maybe even the Beer Couple guy.
Well … maybe not him. But everyone else.
JANUARY 2005
BY JULIA ALLISON
Watching football – involuntarily – with The Boyfriend last week, I found myself bombarded by beer commercials during the breaks. Now, given that I don’t much drink beer (real women drink straight tequila), I wasn’t interested in the actual brands. Still, I found myself transfixed by the appearance of the women. No, scratch that. The couples.
It’s almost a cliché to have model types hawk alcohol to the average guy – but the men pictured weren’t gazing at what they couldn’t have – they were married to them. All I could think was “yeah f--king right.” What kind of world do these beer companies think we’re living in anyway – one without leagues, as in “she’s so out of his”?
Satisfied the advertisements were an exercise in wishful thinking, I put the Disproportionately Attractive Beer Couple out of my mind.
And then I looked around. At reality – not reality tv – or as much reality as you can find in Southern California. Everywhere I went I saw hot women parading around with less attractive men.
Frantically, I searched through my mental-rolodex of celebrity couples. Dammit! If they weren’t both genetically perfect, the guy was always – always – less hot than the woman. Kate Hudson and Chris Robinson. Heidi Klum and Seal. Britney Spears and all the sketchy guys she’s married. Kid Rock and anybody.
The celebrity world, just like the real world, actually seems to emulate the Beer Commercial, filled with Couples Who Don’t Make Sense.
Of course, saying as much isn’t done. Physical attractiveness is a touchy subject at best. Speak of it and you seem shallow; ignore it and you’re sidestepping biology. Obviously there are plenty of other reasons people date which have nothing to do with the looks of our partner. But far and away the most apparent feature – the feature by which we can judge most easily – we wear on the outside.
But isn’t it good that couples don’t always “match”? Maybe they’re looking beyond the façade of superficiality! Maybe … but why is it that so many of these couples let the attractiveness – physically at least – fall to the job of the woman? Is it just my imagination that every guy in a disproportionate relationship is dating two to three points higher than himself? Are women just less superficial than men?
My friend Sarah, a first year Harvard law student, thinks women rate their man’s arm-candy quotient lower on their priority list, instead going for charisma, personality, and a certain worldliness. But beware, warns Sarah, “the guy who’s 3 is obviously with you in part for your looks, and your sway in the relationship is generally about your sex appeal and about the guy's feelings of inadequacy.” God, that’s depressing.
I wanted to reject Sarah’s pessimism – real men don’t think like that … do they?? Oh yes, yes they do. Sad to say, I had no trouble finding Shallow Hal types when I searched amongst the Y-chromosomes.
“Would you ever date a woman less attractive than you?” I asked three USC seniors. “Date? No. Fuck? Hells, yeah.” (Hells yeah? Who says that??) It turns out that they reserve dating “down” for sex, blow jobs, and, well, that’s about it.
One of them even referred to a term I must admit I’d never heard in polite conversation – or any conversation, for that matter: “When you want to get with an ugly chick who has a good body, you just brown bag her.”
Jigga wha? “You know,” they explained, “pretend in your mind the girl has a brown bag over her head.” I wanted to commit suicide for my entire gender right then and there.
“Not to mention,” one added scornfully, “the problem with ugly girls is that they fall in love with you.” This from a fellow who didn’t hit above a “5” on my Hotness Richter Scale, not to mention he hadn’t had a girlfriend since high school. Any woman I know in the same dry spell would assume she needed to do some self-improvement. Instead, this guy sat around and smoked pot in blissful ignorance.
So maybe pedestrian men date smokin’ women because they simply don’t realize they’re not hot stuff. If straight men felt the pressure that women (and gay guys) do to look fabulous, we might not have so many lopsided couples.
Still, it seems like men – attractive or not – get all the good luck in the dating department. . “You would know,” I asked a favorite ex-boyfriend of mine, currently a senior at Berkeley (who, although whip-lash brilliant, won’t be in PlayGirl anytime soon) “are there any disadvantages for a guy bordering on F-ugly to date an extremely attractive woman?” After threatening to hang up on me, he explained. “The downside of such relationships is that you’re constantly trying to convince your significant other to stay with you while battling with your inadequacy in a department you have no control over. No matter how great the relationship is, in the back of your mind you’re always wondering.”
I guess in the back of our minds we’re always wondering, no matter what. Maybe even the Beer Couple guy.
Well … maybe not him. But everyone else.