Lynette Quinn wrote:
> I think everyone wants to feel desirable. Girls at the age of 12 or so have
> a lot to sort out about their own sexuality etc. It is helpful for both men
> and women to portray smart women as attractive and desirable.
Smart guys too :)
The sad fact is that the culture we live in promotes the following stereotypes:
1) Ultimate woman = pretty, big busted, blonde socialite. Braincells optional.
2) Ultimate man = handsome, square jawed, well muscled athelete. Braincells
optional.
Later in life, a lack of some or all of the above can be made up for with money
:)
Yes, I think everyone wants to feel desirable. At 18 years old, that seemed
like something I was never going to be.
Strangely, I became a volunteer fireman and still felt like an undesirable
weed. Now (12 years later) I'm no longer a fireman, I'm getting tubby and
*really* unfit, but I feel more desirable. I put that down to a better
understanding of how the world really works. I don't think I'm Cassanova by
any stretch, I just no longer feel like a complete reject.
When I was about 23, I learned something very important: People follow their
own mental model of what they are. A good example of this was my ex-wife.
She'd complain to me regularly that she looked "frumpy". When I asked why she
said "Because all my clothes are frumpy". So I said "Who buys your clothes"
and she said "I do". So I said :
DON'T DO THAT THEN - with apologies to Tommy Cooper
This really hit home when (a few years later) I had almost exactly the same
conversation with a female associate from the ambulance service and I realised
that this is endemic. Guys do this too. They've got some mental script that
says "I am ..." and so they go out and be whatever that is. The real kicker is
that it's *very* hard to change that direction from the outside.
I think the best thing to teach people is how to detect and change their mental
scripts.
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