We all know those girls. Those girls who guys seem to gaze upon endlessly. Those girls who guys are afraid to talk to. The pretty girls.
Even if this doesn’t ring a bell and you don’t think that you know one of these girls, I am sure that you have at least seen one of them hanging around. There seems to be a fair amount of speculation and rumour surrounding these girls, many questions that have gone unanswered.
So I have decided to make this easy for all of you. I have gone out and talked to a few these girls and am, if only for a brief moment, going to give you a small bit of insight into their mindset.
As the saying goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” I believe that this statement is very true, but our Western culture has defined “beauty” in its own narrow way, thus I have selected a few women who fit the typical Western standard of beauty at random to interview.
First off, I approached Cat Jordan, an aspiring teacher who was preparing for an interview. I asked Jordan whether she felt like she was physically intimidating to others. She said, “I don’t think so, but I’ve had other people say that I am intimidating. Honestly, I don’t really think that much about looks. I would consider myself to be oblivious to a lot of those things.”
Jordan’s responses seemed out of the ordinary for me. My misconception, as influenced by pop culture, was that the majority of girls are very concerned about their looks. While I am sure that Jordan cares about her looks, she made it evident that there is more to life than how you look.
Jordan, who works as a bartender, also shed some serious light on what it is like to serve alcohol — guys who frequent the bar/lounge, listen up. When asked if strangers complimented her, Jordan replied by saying:
“I work at a bar. I have guys hitting on me all the time, people just coming up to me because I am always there. When I am bartending, a guy will come up thinking, ‘Okay, I can get with this girl’ or ‘I can get a date.’ But for me, I am at work. I am annoyed more than anything. Not in a ‘I am better than you way,’ but I am trying to do my job.”
My final question for Jordan revolved around whether she thought her looks opened doors for her. “For some things, [looking pretty] is easier,” she said.
“You are more remembered by [your looks],” she added, saying that it’s not always a positive.
“[In] my profession, though, I’m trying to be a high school teacher. I feel that people don’t take me seriously. I want to work in the inner city with troubled youth. I have come across that a few times where someone may say a comment like, ‘Well don’t just stand around thinking that you can look pretty.’ It strikes a cord with me. But in most cases, if you are more attractive you can get more ahead.”
Megan Doerksen and Madisson Siemens were two other individuals who I also had a chance to sit down with. Both girls made it clear that they did not care what strangers thought of them, but they will both admit that they have had random people come up to them and compliment them on physical features.
Throughout all my conversations of the day, there was one theme that repeated throughout: most people believe that if you are pretty you get ahead in some way. Siemens explained it perfectly: “It is their initial bias about you; it is based on how you look.”
So there is a tad of insight into the minds of some of the pretty ladies around campus. Do with it what you wish. I don’t recommend using this article as a handbook for dating, but it might be a place to start.
