Nimium ne crede colori

I'm no more skilled at avoiding the deception of good looks than anyone else. Yet even as I've beheld thousands of people who appear physically attractive to me, I've come to feel sorry for them if they also seem equally attractive to everyone else. We've all heard how people who are perceived as good-looking get better jobs, faster promotions, more unsolicited offers of assistance, etc. No good-looking woman in search of a drink ever has to pay for it. No good-looking guy has to do more than say "hi" to pique the interest of someone he's interested in.

It's all unearned -- and that's the problem. They learn nothing from alleged successes that have required no work, no sacrifices, and no mistakes along the way. Think of the supermodel who claims that modeling is "hard work." How would she know? How would she fare if her looks vanished for some reason?

Bette Davis explored this dilemma in one of her lesser known films, "Mr. Skeffington." She obtained all she thought she wanted, and got away with mistreating everyone around her, because she was seen as ravishing. She hadn't understood her husband, a man she'd married only for his money, when he'd told her "A woman is beautiful when she's loved, and only then."

An illness destroys her good looks overnight, just as she's entering middle age, and she's abandoned by everyone who had sought her out solely to enjoy the aesthetic pleasure she radiated. I won't spoil the movie any further. I think it should be required viewing in high school: it gives a warning to the good-looking, and hope to the rest.

It's only natural to want to stare at something you perceive as beautiful. There must be a chemical signal in the brain rewarding us intensely, telling us that we want to mate with that (or at least benefit from being close to it). So I've begun to deliberately look away on some occasions, just for practice. I also want to do them a favor in any interaction by being a little more demanding than usual, so that they experience what it's like to have to use reason and empathy to guide their relations with the less aesthetically advantaged.

I know they must be terrified inside to consider what life will be like once the good looks fade and ultimately vanish. By not looking or by being a little brusque and businesslike, I'm giving them a foretaste so that they can realize it won't be all that bad to have to earn, minute by minute and success by success, everything they achieve.