The Cursed Life of a Beautiful Woman
Being pretty is so, so hard. We know this because the the world's largest news site Daily Mail has a feature on it! Keep in mind, the Daily Mail has been very good at keeping us on our angry Internet toes lately, what with their groundbreaking pieces on successful, attractive, popular virgins and whatnot, so grains of salt (or whatever sort of thing a gorgeous person eats to keep her grounded) should be taken with this latest piece, which, along with horrified reactions and anger, is getting a gazillion page views. There are handily lots of pictures, which is the key thing with a baiting piece like this, which inherently wants people to say, "No, she's not that pretty!"
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But on to the content, which is, of course, the important part! Woe is Samantha Brick, the 41-year-old woman with nice-enough-no-model looks who has taken it upon herself to reveal the trials of her beauty upon the pages of a daily newspaper. Some of the terrible things she's bravely faced (smilingly, attractively, of course) include the following:
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Being given free bottles of champagne on airlines after she boards (what, no chartering for Ms. Gorgeous?).
Getting a free train ticket, and her cab fare paid for.
Being presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers from a stranger.
Getting tons of free drinks.
All this just for smiling and being generally OK-looking and blonde! What do you know? Brick goes on to say that if you're a woman reading this, you hate her. Because while doors have opened because she's pretty, even though she's not smug about it, no way, no how, the doors have closed, too. Women are shallow and despise her because they're jealous! She's been denied promotions. Women have dumped her as a friend. A woman ignored her street-wave recently! Men are threatened, even though, of course, she's happily married to a kind, generous soul who appreciates her, beauty and all. But worst of all:
"Not one girlfriend has ever asked me to be her bridesmaid."
Oh, the horror of life as a beautiful woman. Imagine an entire life spent without ever having the chance to wear some off-the-rack frilly concoction (that you paid for) that makes you look fat next to your bestest female friend as you stand surrounded by other bestest female friends all wearing the same fatifying frilly outfit. Imagine a long, lonely life of saying "Always a bride, never a bridesmaid!" A person so cursed cannot possibly die happy. It's all so terribly brutal and horrifying. Beauty, you are a cruel mistress.
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Brick goes on and on and on, telling women to support each other for taking care of our appearances instead of cutting each other down, and, in conclusion, optimistically looking forward to the happy decline of her cursed good looks: "So now I’m 41 and probably one of very few women entering her fifth decade welcoming the decline of my looks. I can’t wait for the wrinkles and the grey hair that will help me blend into the background. Perhaps then the sisterhood will finally stop judging me so harshly on what I look like, and instead accept me for who I am."
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Who is she, though, really, beyond a woman who's complaining about being too pretty? Because the truth is, most women don't actually hate beautiful women. Most people, in fact, enjoy being around pretty people; science even says it's so! Most women, however, do sort of hate women who rant on and on about how hard it is being beautiful—particularly when those women claim they're not smug, even though they work out "even when they don't feel like it," "don't drink," "don't smoke," and "rarely succumb to chocolate."
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It's not that those women are hated because they're beautiful. It's that they're hated because they're a freaking drag. More than 4,000 commenters seem to agree.
Image via Shutterstock by Yuri Arcurs.
