Late night musings of a girl that really needs to go to sleep sometime soon

So I was once arguing with a girl when she decided to call me fat.

It didn’t faze me at all. I mean, mostly because I know I’m not fat; I currently weigh 6 stone and 7 pounds, and that’s after a rather hefty meal. I’m quite honestly a skinny little dork. So when she called me fat, I simply ignored it and passed it off as a rather pathetic insult. Only when I recalled the encounter later on did I realise that it was, in fact, a truly pathetic insult.

Now, as a member of the female sex, I’d say I quite understand how a girl’s mind works. And as the ‘fairer’ sex, as we’ve been called, girls have a natural fascination and/or obsession with appearances, most commonly their own. Girls are, in general, quite insecure with their appearance – they’ve just a few too many spots, or a few pounds overweight, or their nose is just a bit too big – it goes with the girly territory for us to be fussy and finicky about the way we look. Heck, I consider myself quite butch as far as femininity is concerned, and I still take pride in styling my hair every day, wearing make-up, dressing up and having people look at me and compliment me on the way I look. It’s a natural shallowness that everyone has in themselves, hidden somewhere.

Which is why I think girls are so much more affected than boys when someone insults their appearance – that concern for their exterior is far closer to the surface than for most men. Pretty much every girl has been unhappy with the way they look at some point in their life, if not constantly, and so when we get called ‘fat’ or ‘ugly’, it really hits home, sometimes even when it’s not true.

It’s this kind of thing that saddens me. When people look for insults, they more often than not go for insults about a person’s outer appearance, rather than their character. Personally, I’d be much more offended if someone slung out insults about my personality than about my looks. I think it’s much easier to look past someone’s outer flaws and see into the goodness inside them rather than ignoring their vile personality and instead concentrating on a beautiful façade. I’m not saying that the two go hand in hand and that all ugly people are saints and all beautiful people are rotten inside. In fact, I’ve often met a few blessed people who are stunningly beautiful and also cultivate sweet, charming and intelligent personalities; also, on the other end of the spectrum, I’ve met one or two people who were not the best of lookers and acted as grossly as they looked.

I think the points I’m trying to make here, in amongst all these quasi-philosophical musings, can really be condensed into a few bullet points:

·         Girls get hurt by remarks on their appearance because they’re naturally quite insecure.

·         Content of character is more important than looking good 24/7.

·         I really need to go to sleep sometime.

Anyway, if any of you bothered reading this – thank you!