October 6, 2007

How entitled are very pretty girls?

Roissy posted a chart on prettiness and sense of entitlement which says that as females go from 0 to 10 in looks, their entitledness increases. I disagree with what's going on above 8, so here is my graph:



In words, entitledness increases weakly as you go from 0 to 3 in looks, increases more noticeably as you go to 6, takes off from 6 to 8, and the 9s and 10s feel as entitled as the 6s. That's my rough impression. The only real disagreement, again, is what's going on with 9s and 10s. Most people never meet such beauties, or if they do, it's only a passing encounter. I had the privilege to go to college with a lot of these girls, so I got to see how they carried themselves throughout the day, whether in class, in the dining hall, in the library, or at work. Yes, they actually worked! And many of them were international students whose families likely owned half of the country that they came from, so they had no need to work. Boring jobs too, like checking out books in the library.

They behave very differently from the 7s and 8s, on average.* At the top, they are more likely to be poised, confident, secure, nonchalant, agreeable, charming, elegant, and they smile and laugh sincerely -- whereas those just below them tend to be insecure, haughty, uptight, meanspirited, coarse, gaudy, and they frequently deploy fake smiles and laughter to help achieve their silly "life goals."

There is a distinction that must be made between sense of entitlement and the type of guy she ends up dating or marrying. The graph above claims that 6s and 9s have about the same entitledness, but clearly the 9 is in a much better position to get what she wants in a guy, and so probably will. But because she is so beautiful, she does not need to prove it to anyone -- suitors will follow her naturally enough, and many will be very marriageable, so she has little to worry about, as far as being taken care of is concerned.

So, she has the same attitude about what men should do for her as a barely above-average girl does -- men should go through certain motions, but she doesn't remove two stone tablets from her oversized bag on which are inscribed commandments such as, "Thou shalt buy me Christian Dior sunglasses," "Thou shalt pay half of my rent, plus yours," and so on. If they hadn't married by age 30, the 9s and 10s might feel a bit down but would still find plenty to enjoy in the other areas of life. The 7s and 8s, by contrast, would make sure the world heard how grave an injustice it was that they had not snagged their trophy husband.

The 9s and 10s are the ones who say things like, "I wish more guys would approach me, but I think most of them are too afraid I'll say no, so I don't get many dates." The 7 or 8 would spin her lack of dating as the result of men being deluded, stupid, clueless, or threatened by women like her ("threatened by a go-getter" if a lawyer, "threatened by tall women" if tall, "threatened by a woman with brains" if a grad student, etc.). In general, the difference in demeanor couldn't be greater.

And why not give a good example of what I'm talking about. Here's Mia Rose playing the guitar and singing in Portuguese-Portuguese.** Ahhhh.



* Please don't make me say it out loud that I'm only talking about tendencies -- it's an insult to the reader's intelligence.

** If her casual speech sounds like some Slavic language or Moroccan Arabic, that's because the Portuguese don't pronounce a lot of the vowels in a word, so it ends up being mostly consonants: prtgesh. Thankfully, singing requires her to pronounce them.

9 comments:

  1. You, sir, have excellent taste.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wonder if some 10s aren't so sweet softened by how well people treat them on account of their beauty, than many bever learn the kind of shrewd discernment of men's motives that the more insecure 8's do. Michel Houellebecq writes about this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. brilliant post. strangely, my thoughts went to the beauty in houellebecq's atomized as well, the absolute stunner in love with the sexless nerd. it was quite realistic. she was just easygoing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. absolute stunner in love with the sexless nerd. it was quite realistic.

    I wouldn't take it quite that far, as real-life counterparts are few and far between.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That makes sense actually:

    - out of competition (1-3)

    - in competition (4-6)

    - in extreme competition (7-8)

    - beyond competition (9-10)

    And also explains how I ended up dating Miss M (if briefly), though she was obviously way out of my league.

    i.p.

    ReplyDelete
  6. there is something to be said for your analysis. anecdotally i agree with it. but i think we're confounding overt with covert entitledness. the 7s and 8s may demand more conspicuous displays of princess treament than the 9s and 10s but the latter are sure to expect the red carpet treatment in due course. 9s and 10s are so used to getting the cream of the alpha crop that they come to take their entitledness for granted and, as you wrote, don't have anything to prove by "shit testing" the guys they date since those guys are un-shit-testable.

    btw, maybe i'm picky, but mia is an 8.5. her eyes are a little too small and her jawline a little too pronouced to be a true 9 or 10.

    ReplyDelete
  7. My daughter is pretty, and feels pretty entitled, herself. I was homely, I am currently homely, married to homeliness, and foisted upon us was beauty. We held out hopes that she would follow in our steps and become no better than plain, but at thirteen, she became tall, and her eyes uncrossed, with the help of contact lenses, she lost her lisp, and well, she became this cruel flirtatious drama queen. We are currently looking for ways to exploit this for filthy lucre, but the modeling gigs are just not out there.
    Your taste in Portuguese singstresses is loverly. I can understand Brazilian Portuguese okay, but you are right...she drops syllables more than any Cuban I know of.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Just to clarify - the Portuguese from Portugal, which is what this girl speaks, has a "special sound"...but the Portuguese from other countries is different. The one from Brazil is quite different with the syllables being more clearly discerned. As with Spanish, it is important to distinguish which (or whose) Spanish/Portuguese it is.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Although we always found our now 18 yr old to be beautiful, the world didn't necessarily agree with us until she was 17. Her teachers told us that her beauty was an obstacle to normal teen relationships. An added aspect to her beauty was an academic determination that let her to graduate with a 4.58 GPA. Smart and pretty. Luckily, she was never ashamed of her intelligence. Instead, we have a college freshman, on full scholarship, who oozes confidence. Our fear? She is treated by her peers as though she is royalty. Now that she lives away from home 8 months out of the year, we are unable to buffer her sense of entitlement. She has people in each class waiting to be offered a tidbit of attention from her. She has former classmates hoping for a small audience with her. All we can do is remind her of her priorities: God, family, school and then everything else. Numerous studies have confirmed that attractive people have an easier life. We're lucky that our daughter is a compassionate person who, thus far, has not taken advantage of those people who feel beauty is the end all, be all. However, as parents, it's an extra chapter in the book on How to Raise a Well Adjusted Child!!

    ReplyDelete

You MUST enter a nickname with the "Name/URL" option if you're not signed in. We can't follow who is saying what if everyone is "Anonymous."