Note from Heather Gray: Last week, I wrote an advice post: She’s Hot. I’m Not and Tired of Hearing It. A man had written in asking for ways of responding to leering and sexist comments about his wife’s appearance. He and his wife were forever being questioned about how they got together because his wife is perceived as being out of his league. After I offered my take, a reader of the piece asked for his wife’s respective. I reached out and here’s what she said. She prefers to stay anonymous, telling me she wants the focus to be on her words, not her appearance, an opportunity she has never had before.
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I remember the first time I apologized for my looks.
I was in the 7th grade and I was in the mall with my girlfriend. She was shopping for her mother’s birthday gift and asked a store clerk for help. The employee, probably college-age, would only talk to me.
He asked me if I was shopping for my mom, too. If I needed anything. Meanwhile, my friend was still waiting for help getting something off a shelf that was too high for us to reach.
I don’t know why but that’s when I began apologizing for the way I looked and I don’t think I’ve stopped.
I have lost track of how many uncomfortable and awkward situations I have been in because of my appearance. Still, though, it stuns me that I am now writing about it.
To answer your reader’s question, my husband and I have been dealing this with since we began dating. I’ve always thought of this as something we managed together, even though we are usually alone when this crap happens.
No one ever really says anything when we are together.
It’s when they catch us alone that the inquisitions begin.
I’ll be cornered in the restroom of a restaurant. He’ll be questioned standing in line at the bar getting us drinks. When guys and girls go off in their separate corners to talk and catch up, that’s when the inquiries begin.
We’ve both heard hateful, mean-spirited things. At a neighborhood party, after arriving in our new car, someone asked me if my husband sent me in to do the negotiating and distract the salesperson. A co-worker once questioned whether I’d been sexually assaulted, if I “was just playing it safe” by choosing my husband.
My husband and I are childless by choice and more than one person has “joked” and said “Oh, I am sure. If I looked like that, I wouldn’t want to lose my looks to childbirth either.”
At least once a month, we find ourselves in some awkward, hateful, jealous moment like this.
It makes me cry. It hurts. He comforts me a lot through it, even though he, himself, is the target of insult. I always get hurt that our relationship is insulted.
I reply to the comments by saying that I love and am attracted to my husband. I share how he won me over with his intelligence, humor, and kindness but no one wants to hear it.
They prefer The Beauty and the Beast story.
They don’t believe me. They have already made up their minds before saying a word to me.
We felt so much relief when you told us we didn’t have to go to the parties or places where we get treated like that. I used to think that by not going, the hate, jealousy, and judgment were winning and we are losing out. We did skip his work party and instead went out and had a beautiful evening, just to ourselves, doing our favorite early winter activities.
I don’t think never going and just staying silent is always the answer, though. That doesn’t feel right and it would feel isolating. The “bad guys” would win.
I do think people need to hear that their words have impact and that their comments are insulting. However, this situation has always felt so out of our control. Deciding when to say something, when not to, when to show up, or when to pass does give us some control back.
Let me tell you something about my husband.
We met in college when we were working on a group project. My computer froze and I couldn’t get it to do anything. In a panic, I called him. He tried to help me fix it and when all else failed, he had me dictate what I’d written to him over the phone while he typed it on his computer. Remember when we only had desktops?
That’s who I fell in love with. That’s who I married. I don’t always want to respond to hate with “Oh but you don’t know how great he is…” That only seems to validate their error in thinking…that he has to be great in some other way to make up for his appearance.
We live in an image obsessed society and I am not sure we have any new answers here but I appreciate knowing that we can decide how and when we participate in the conversation and when we just go out on our own.
Photo: Pexels
These stories really reveal just how much impact media images and social expectations have had on us. I remember a similar story on GMP years ago about the things people would say to an interracial couple and their children, and then another story about how people would say that an adopted child wasn’t a “real” child. It’s head scratching. But I enjoyed reading this story and the love the couple here has for each other. For me, natural chemistry and attraction is much more interesting and exciting then just a physical attraction to looks. I have been very attracted to… Read more »
Heather,
Thank you for taking the time to reach out, and thank you to the wife for offering her perspective.
Well, all I can say is she seems to love and appreciate her husband. That’s isn’t something most husbands in America can attest for sure.
Yep, it’s a rare case when a straight American male is attractive enough and deserving of passionate appreciation.
Many American women still settle for basically nothing, though, and will date them, marry them and try to make them happy, while receiving much less in return.
I think women MUST demand more of and from men. Now having said that, you ( I don’t mean you personally) as a woman must be quality yourself. I can make an equally compelling case that what a lot of men are also getting is also basically nothing today in a lot of women. The problem I see today is that too many women feel that all they need to do is simply show up. There is this attitude with many women that we men should just be grateful (and thrilled) about the fact that said woman has “chosen” us… Read more »
Unfortunately everyone judges each other largely and surely initially by their looks. I’m sure you close friends don’t behave like this. The reverse can be the case also, why does an attractive fit male hang with a less so woman, is there something wrong with him. People’s questions need to be rebuffed especially if they are hurtful. If you do not rebuff them then they conclude they are correct because you did not counter their claim. People often say things they have no business saying, you’ve lost weight, I like your hair, yada yada.
Do attractive fit men hang out and date less fit or attractive women? I am not so sure that really happens.
In general, I would say no.
No. Even the most unattractive and unfit males believe they are entitled to “hot women” and will choose (well, at least chase) a hot woman with a so-so personality over an slightly cute woman who is an amazing person.
Yes, this is true..I have heard very unattractive men make unpleasant comments about average looking women who were well educated and very personable. I have a girlfriend who is as you describe: she is cute, amazing, intelligent, and is ALIVE. Nor does she possess an attitude of entitlement. Often times men who are high status feel they are attractive because of their $$$$. While they might be physically unattractive and unfit, lots of women find them “attractive.”. This validates for these men that they are indeed attractive. On the flip side, men get similar treatment from women…I don’t want to… Read more »
I don’t know. I have several friends of “average” attractivety (interests, fit, regular jobs, no alcohol, drug or violence related problems) who get turned down by any woman they try to approach, regardless of her own attractivety and fitness level. I think that at one point you just give up and go for whatever the “hottest” woman you lay eyes upon, because you tell yourself that “I’m going to get turned down anyway, so why not be turned down by a good-looking woman for a change?” Of course there are many more who just internalize the critique and turn-downs, continue… Read more »
It does happen. Look at super-hunk Pierce Brosnan and his overweight wife. But it is rare. It’s more common to see the beautiful woman with the unattractive man. Several examples that come to mind: Henry Kissinger, Ric O’Casic (of the Cars), Woody Allen and his various girlfriends. There are reasons for this that aren’t hard to figure out. When froggy looking Henry Kissinger was dating glamorous Hollywood actress Jill St John (many years ago), people asked him how he got such hot women. He replied, “Power is the greatest aphrodisiac”. Trump has taken advantage of the same principle throughout his… Read more »