Conventional beauty means nothing. Jackson Bliss explores the importance of “idiosyncratic beauty” and its relationship to love.
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Obviously, physical attraction is an important element for people of all genders and sexual orientations, but physical attraction is just the movie trailer in your relationship: fast and flashy, visually stunning, emotionally intense and musically catchy. Sometimes, previews are the best part of a movie. Other times, the movie stands on its own, connected to but also separate from the trailer’s narrative. Sometimes, movies unwind in precisely the way that the preview suggests they will, but that’s rare and worse, disappointing. Most of the time, though, when we crush hard on a movie, it’s not because it fulfills our expectations and artistic standards but because it subverts and defies them. This is what loves does: making us happy in ways we didn’t ask for and simultaneously ignoring other things we were convinced we couldn’t live without. Love is a peculiar object. A odd piece of cinematography. A strange and beautiful soundtrack inside your head.
Like the movies we fall in love with, true love always has a certain je-ne-sais-quoi to it, something that can’t be reduced to formulae, film directing or attributes. Whatever it is that we find beautiful in the (wo)man we love, our love happens in mysterious and bizarre ways that don’t add up with romantic arithmetic. When we fall in love, we elude our own logic, prediction, control and typology. Love, in that way, is incredibly grounding because it connects us to our immediate life while defying our expectations of reality, every part of us plugged in at once.
When you break it all down, love is often about idiosyncratic beauty (a term I first coined in my first novel, BLANK). IB is behavior unique or peculiar to a specific person as well as a distinctive or particular quality or characteristic of a thing that we grow to love and appreciate. Idiosyncratic beauty is eccentric beauty that hits us in just the right way. It becomes connected somehow to how we feel for that person. When we’re talking about love, we’re talking both about the person and also about the process of loving that person, which is why both definitions are crucial.
Let me give you some examples: a woman who loves the scar on her boyfriend’s cheek more than anything about his body, a man who falls in love when watches his girlfriend paint cartoon fruit in her pajamas, a man who loves his boyfriend in part because he looks like Robert Benigni and tells stories in a quirky, awkward and broken English, a woman who is reminded of her love for her fiancée every time she says certain words, a man who realizes he’s in love all over again when he secretly hears his wife babbling in her sleep or reading E. E. Cummings poems out loud in the bathtub, a woman who watches her husband talking to their kids’ stuffed animals, a man watches his girlfriend dancing at a hipster bar dressed like a Chinese superhero. In every case, there’s something unique and special about that person that we find beautiful. At times, it just overwhelms us.
Sometimes, it could be as simple as noticing that her socks don’t match. Watching him open the door for old women. Seeing her talk to neighborhood children like a pirate. Noticing him messing up his grandmother’s hair at the dinner table. Listening to him sing arias in horrendous fake German. Smelling burnt toast every time she offers to make breakfast. The point is, it doesn’t fucking matter if the whole world thinks you’re insane, if your reasons seem wack, if you’re not even making sense when you try to explain what the hell is going on. The only thing that matters is that there’s something about that person that devastates, touches and irradiates you, that moves, inflames and arouses you, that delights, surprises and confuses you, something you’re not even sure you can isolate or transliterate into language. Something you know is there connecting the two of you together like sticky celestial fibers.
So tell us, what about you? How is your partner idiosyncratically beautiful? What are some of the idiosyncratically beautiful things about your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, partner, lover or secret crush? Tell us about them in the comments below.
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Other articles by Jackson Bliss:
Why Love Doesn’t Have to Make Sense
10 Ways to Love Your Life (First Installment)
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He had me at “indefinable”.
I had said that something was “undefinable”. He corrected me, lightly but confidently: “It’s INdefinable”. I corrected him: “undefined… undefinable”. He corrected me: “undefined… indefinable”. We looked it up; he was right. I liked being wrong in that moment.
He was indefinable. I felt indefinable. We were indefinable.
…as is love.
The way she looks at me when she knows the only reason I am saying what I am saying is to get a rise out of her. The playful smirk, the lowering of the eyes, and a slight tilt of the head down the left.
You are right. Love is totally illogical. While I love my common law partner, we are not sexual, but we have many common interests and mesh well together. Out of the blue I befriended someone on facebook because he was cute. A few messages led to daily chats of up to 4 hours and yet we have never talked aloud due to privacy, family, language barriers. His english is basic and I speak no Urdu. But despite a distance of 11,000 kms, different language and culture, and a 29 year age difference, I have come unglued at the sight of… Read more »
I love my boyfriends profile. (he hates it) I love when I hear him laugh especially when I am not looking at him, whether it is in a group of people and we are in two different places or him sitting on the couch watching random videos while I am in the bedroom. Everytime I find myself smiling and it draws me to him. I fall deeper in love with him.
I really appreciate your writings, Jackson. I have been married to the same woman for 30 years. I have found that as time goes by her idiosyncratic beauty becomes more and more important. I will mention one. My wife does not laugh out loud much so there is something charming and unique in her facial expression when she thinks something is funny. Often when we are sitting and watching one of her favorite comedies on TV, I will not watch the television but rather watch her without her knowing it. I look forward to these moments because she has a… Read more »
JH,
Very touching. I can almost picture her in my head. I hope she read what you wrote + smiled secretly. Be well + thanks for sharing.
Peace, Blessings,
-j1b
I love watching my husband laugh and play with our Son. I love his sharp, witty sense of humor that he shares only with a privileged few. I love watching his thick, jet black hair transform into a distinguished (thinner) salt n pepper. I love it when he pretends to be ticklish for my benefit. I love that he is an excellent chef, builder, fixer of all things and lover. Oh I could just go on all day! Thanks for urging me to focus on this today Jackson. Great article!
Tonya!
So great hearing from you. Thank you for coming here + sharing some of the unique things you love about your husband. I really appreciate it + I really appreciate you. What you wrote is sweet + touching. I’m superhappy for you, for your husband + also really happy that your family is blessed with this love too. Your kids are incredibly blessed to have you as their mom. Be well + thanks again.
Peace, Blessings,
-j1b
Thank you, Jackson, for the chance (and excuse) to share a list like this. I’ll start here: The fact that he reads goodmenproject and shares it with me. The fact that the first time he told me about it, I assumed it was some kind of BS men’s-rights-corrosive-to-women’s-lives thing and went on a rant about organizations like that… while he patiently listened. The fact that he didn’t call me out on my faulty assumptions, but instead waited, with grace, for a chance to show me the site when I was not in front of a big group or on a… Read more »
This is so beautiful, thanks for sharing some of your IB moments with us. Best of luck with everything.
Peace, Blessings,
-j1b
I love the red specks on my husband’s green eyes because they remind me of a Seurat painting. I also love that he makes up songs about our dogs and sings them to them. In all honesty, there’s too many things I love about my husband. When I think of them, my heart swells with love.
LB!
Te amo, mariquita con todo mi corazón. Sabés que sos el amor de mi vida y me siento iqual que vos. Cada vez que me mirás, el corazón se desborda de luz, amor, alegría y agradecimiento. Doy gracias a dios por vos. Para mí, es imposible odiar al universo dado que nos juntó. No hay suficiente papel por todas las novelas que escribo por vos. Te amo, te amo, te amo.
Afectuosamente,
-j1b
Great piece, Jackson. Feeling this one, big time. I’ve been a sucker for a number of atypical qualities in a woman over the years, but the biggest is: I’m a sucker for a woman with a strong, prominent chin. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always felt it a sign of strength and power. And I’ve always loved strong women. Somehow that chin sticking out into the wind, not backing down, not afraid, I’ve always wanted to know where that woman was going. And whether I could be by her side.
Many thanks, Mark. I appreciate your contributions here. Your thing for chins is really interesting. Be well.
Peace, Blessings,
-j1b
Another wonderful piece, Jackson, and truly inspirational. I often wonder if one can have multiple soul mates, or lovers, or whatever phrase you want to attach to that idea of “the one”. Upon analyzing the different men I have loved, I love them all for a variety of different reasons. There is one who knows me better than I know myself. There is the boy who used to drive me crazy, the way he would always shake his hair and fill the air with his favorite fruity shampoo. There is the man who would always do this weird thing with… Read more »
Ahn, Great hearing from you + more importantly, great questions too. I don’t have answers to them, but one thing I’ve noticed over the years for me to be true is this: while the love I’ve felt for other girlfriends was perfect in its own shape + form, the relationship wasn’t. In fact, I’d argue that one of the big reasons why breaking up with people we love hurts so much is because we genuinely love them, we just don’t know how to be with them, which requires a completely different skill set. So, in a way, I completely agree… Read more »
I wonder what you mean “we just don’t know how to be with them”. How do you realize and aknowledge that “incopatibility”? How do you find what feels “off”? Isn’t it a real tragedy to have someone to really love and not being able to figure out how to be with them? Don’t you think that can be mended?
Thanks for the article, I totally love that kind of beauty 😉
I am truly Blessed to have found my ‘soul mate’ – There are actually to many things to mention that I Love about him. Actually MANY of the things in you article apply :0) – I very much enjoyed this article. My wish to people is that they are someday as Blessed as we are and find their true ‘other half’…
Congrats on finding the love of your life. That’s awesome. I wish the same for other people, though some are looking for their other half + others are looking for their missing third or fourth too. To each their own, but I’m with you. I want everyone who wants to find love to find it.
Be well.
Peace, Blessings,
-j1b
Help putting on a bracelet… Or helping out of jewelry you happen to be “stuck” in (I find myself in jewelry conundrums more often than the next person)… Extending a hand to hold in the car, always the same way, palm side up… The way they get dressed in the morning… That little skin bump that I can always find through clothing (weird, I know, but there is something so comforting about it)… The unique ripples on their nails… The way they share their food or ask to taste yours… The way they interact with kids and pets… Or talk… Read more »
Such simple things that are so mindless or inconsequential in the moment are really some of the things that *are* more impacting than we ever could know…
So true.
-j1b
Yup. Sing it, sister.
-j1b
I love my boyfriend’s crooked teeth. He hates them. When I look over and catch him laughing really hard at something, he is beautiful.
This might be because he is self-conscience and doesn’t like to show his teeth so the big giant smiles are rare. Regardless, I love it.
I love it. Keep’em coming!
Peace, Blessings,
-j1b
I have had that notion in my head for most of my life. I resonate strongly with it. Compared to my male acquaintances I have a history of finding the “wrong” kind of women attractive. But then again: Those Hollywood beauties, who all look like created on a computer (or by a scalpel, for that matter), who I mostly have honest trouble telling apart (don’t they all look the same?) — they just don’t do for me. If you want to turn me on, give me a woman with freckles, a hooked nose, glasses, tiny breasts or short hair every… Read more »
Glad to hear it,
With the exception of Nathalie Portman + Scarlett Johansson, I’m not attracted to most Hollywood actors at all. But idiosyncratic beauty will kill me everyt time. So glad to hear you’ve found your own things to fall for.
Peace, Blessings,
-j1b
What a sweet and short piece, I really like reading your pieces Jackson. I completely get your notion of “idiosyncratically beautiful”. I often get told that I “date down” (whatever that means, I don’t believe that anyways), but I think what people fail to see is how beautiful people are when you aren’t wrapped up in their physicality. With that said, as a young woman in her 20s, I find it more and more difficult to find a “good man” who isn’t so wrapped up about physicality. Here is the perfect time for my pitch: can the good men project… Read more »
Carolina,
Thanks so much. That means a lot to me.
Haha, a good men project dating site, huh? I’ll run that by the publisher. In the mean time, just know that there are many men out there who are looking for a woman just like you, as you are. I wish you luck in finding love, wherever it is. Don’t lose faith + good luck.
Peace, Blessings,
-j1b
Jackson! Carolina!
If it would help we could start a petition… I love the idea of the good Men Project starting a dating site, or forum or a way for like minded men and woment to talk and connect. I keep meeting women who share the most disturbing and sad stories of betrayal and disappointment, but I continue to have faith that there are millions of good men- the question is: where are they? Are they here… if so can I see one…write with one…meet one?
Sincerely,
Maureen
I am 100% behind a Good Men Project dating site!
Ha!
Okay, I’ll make that happen *snaps his finger*. It’s an interesting idea, I’ll tell you that.
Peace, Blessings,
-j1b