What It Felt Like To Be Beautiful
Part 1: The Perks
If I’m being honest, I’ve never really felt attractive. If you look up “beautiful women” in a search engine, you’ll most likely be flooded with predominantly lovely, white women with light, straight hair. If you lurk through Reddit like I do, you’ll see the r/goddess subreddit, and most of them are also thin, otherworldly, white women.
I don’t exactly fit that mold. In fact, I don’t see a lot of women who look like me being praised for their beauty. As much as I think that shouldn’t matter, it’s had an effect on me. One that I choose not to think about, but an effect nonetheless.
Over the years, I accepted that I’m simply not the traditional sense of beauty. Eventually, I stopped noticing or caring that I wasn’t the majority’s cup of tea. I’ve been with my husband for almost half of my life, so what reason was there really to want or even need male attention? That was, until I became friends with a traditionally, beautiful woman.
She’s not just beautiful on the inside but especially on the outside, and everyone else notices. When we’re out together, people light up when she’s around. I can take her to the same places I frequent, and the employees there will be much more friendly with her than they will be with me. Even if she does nothing to provoke those interactions.
