I was a cute kid. Most children are cute when they’re young. In the 1960s and 1970s I grew up to be a cute teenager, and then, a nice-looking young adult, slim, six feet tall (actually 5 feet 11 and ¾ inches, but no one needed to know that), with thick, wavy brown hair that some girls really seemed to like. I was pleased with my good looks and credited them with the fact that girls approached me at times, showing interest, helping me to overcome my fatal shyness.
Over the years I’ve occasionally struggled with my weight. And I’ve done the thing that overweight guys used to do when they were in the presence of a pretty girl: we sucked in our stomachs (consciously at first, then automatically). That was a fairly popular thing years ago, though often parodied in comedy routines.
Now, in my 70s, much of my good looks have been adversely affected by aging. My hair is a little thin, especially at the crown of my head. It’s still wavy (although I think it’s just waving goodbye). It’s still brown, except for the grey bits; more and more grey bits. Some of my face musculature has been weakened with the passage of time, causing my ears to stick out a little more, causing loose skin to droop over the corners of my eyes, and causing my neck to have those unattractive, age-revealing, vertical folds of skin that make me wonder why my body produces skin where I don’t need it but can’t waste an ounce of energy on making the hairs on my head grow closer together.
Note: my 71-year-old ears can be problematic toward unwanted liftoff in high winds.
I have noticed that by flexing facial muscles I can draw back my ears and lift the loose skin from the corners of my eyes. I have also noticed that, if I put my hand on my chest just below my neck and pulled down slightly, it will flatten those vertical folds of loose skin on my neck.
Ten years ago, I used the facial muscle flexing technique to try to get a better photo on my driver’s license. I flexed those muscles as much as I could. With my eyes opened so wide and my eyebrows so high, the result was a photo that made me look like a shocked doofus. My drawn-back ears, on the other hand, looked quite handsome. So at least, there’s that. Still looked like a shocked doofus, just one with handsome ears.
To my disappointment, lately I have noticed that when an attractive young woman is in my presence, I appeared to be invisible. I find that annoying and frustrating and disheartening. Obviously, I would not expect an attractive young woman to have an interest in dating me or even talking to me, but it should not be impossible that they would at least notice that I’m there.
I may have a solution. Let me know what you think. Here is my plan: the next time I’m downtown, at a seminar or other meeting, or just walking in the mall, and see an attractive young woman, I will do these four things:
I will suck in my stomach
I will tighten my facial muscles to lift the sagging skin from my eyes and to pull my ears back in from their liftoff position
I will put my left hand over the thin spot at the back of my head
I will put my right hand at the top of my chest and pull down slightly to remove the wrinkles in my neck
I estimate that, given their age-reducing visual effects, those four steps should make me look devastatingly handsome.
So … picture all of that in your mind … and then tell me … after going to all that trouble, do you think attractive young women will notice me?