Hahaha, the narcissism of this post. Personally, it’s much easier to write this as someone whose level of attraction varies greatly depending on the exact group of people they’re with. Let me explain.
I’m black (African/Rwandan/Canadian), short for a guy (5′6″), and I’m a lot more pretty than I am handsome. Life has dealt me a weird set of cards appearance-wise. If someone doesn’t like or doesn’t see themselves in a relationship with a black guy then I’m not attractive to them, if they don’t like or see themselves in a relationship with a short guy then I’m not attractive to them, and if they like their guys testosterone-filled then, again, I’m not attractive to them. Outside of that, I guess I’m attractive by society’s standards.
Going on and on essay-form about myself gives me a grotesque I-need-to-shower-now feeling so I’ll just list everything (long-winded though I be).
1. I have very attractive guy friends.
Friends who I deem more attractive than me, and who care more about these things so they actually put in the effort to look good most of the time. My guy friends are usually taller than me so when I’m with them women flock to them rather than me. But there’s always the odd woman here and there who doesn’t feel that height is a necessary prerequisite in a black guy – they’re great, but also very hard to get rid of. My friends think I’m absolutely insane for rejecting so many blatant offers for sex and the like.
2. I have very attractive girl friends.
A lot of them are dancers and models (I used to be a dancer and work in fashion), and I guess good genes run in the family because my sister gets hit on a lot (she’s pretty cool so she’s a friend). We had a lot of those awkward moments where a lot of her friends found me attractive and a lot of my friends found her attractive.
If I had to explain why I have so many gorgeous girl friends it would be that I’m the sort of guy to invite a girl over on a Friday night to discuss poetry rather than to have sex (that’s fun too though). And because guys don’t really see me as competition (height matters people) until their insecurities are stepped-on when they see me having a great time with my friends who happen to be women.
But at the same time, I kind of understand their way overblown insecurities; a lot of girlfriends hit on me when they’re drunk or away from their boyfriends. I’ve lost count of the number of times my ass has been grabbed from out of nowhere or of how many times I’ve been hit on via women bringing up certain, uhmm, porn categories as topics of conversation. I’m just trying to have fun in life so this whole thing is just a hilarious mystery to me.
3. I realized I was attractive early-ish, in eight-grade.
Mind you that I’m probably somewhere on the spectrum (in a good way) so normal human interaction has always been sort of foreign to me. I could have been hit on earlier and not even know it.
Anyways, I learnt I was attractive in eight-grade because gay guys started hitting on me when I walked downtown, because girls started catcalling me from their windows when I walked in suburbs, and because I figured out that when a girl asks me to walk her home she’ll brag about it to all her girlfriends and then I’m forced to come back to a classroom of angry girls asking why I didn’t walk them home instead, &c., &c.. I’m very glad I wasn’t the only attractive guy in my classrooms.
(I do have to note that I had a “forced encounter” with an older woman when I was a very small child, but that’s better left not expounded on and it probably had a lot more to do with power over me than physical appearance.)
4. I realized I was a lot more pretty for a guy than handsome in high-school.
I’m a lot more socially-outgoing/happy than most straight guys so a lot of people thought/think I’m gay (doesn’t help that when a girl friend puts black nail-polish on me I don’t really care about how it comes across socially), I have long eyelashes and feminine eyes so people think I enhance them unnaturally, and although I get acne like everyone else, my skin is unnaturally clear and smooth so people feel it up all the time. I am the envy of a lot of women for this. I usually only drink water and I don’t really consume sugar, but honestly, thank the melanin for that one, not my own daily habits.
My life consists of things like my gay friends remarking on how great I’d look in drag, male strippers saying they really need a black guy in their company, and my optometrists telling me I have the most beautiful eyelashes they’ve ever seen and that I can put my makeup back on after eye surgery. LOL, life is weird but you’ve got to love it for the unexpected laughs it brings your way.
Funnily enough, I’m also afraid of ever going to jail – if you can laugh about that. For the usual reasons I suppose, but also because when I used to dance our company had a youth outreach program that saw the other dancers and I bringing our show to a boys and girls juvenile detention centre for a day. While packing up and going home the other dancers said, “The way they were looking at you, never come back here.” Yeah, I won’t.
5. I get hit on by women a lot.
The point you’ve all been waiting for. But it’s not really what you think. As I said, I’m not the common definition of attractive so my interactions with women are all over the place.
I used to work in retail as a side-job so I’ll use that as an example to sum life up. To put it simply retail was a headache, but it also had its advantages when it came to lining my pockets with money (I have the occasional thought of going back to it for this reason).
If I shave, teenage girls hit on me a lot and I’m forced to explain to their parents that I’m really too old and illegal for them. Very rich teenage girls would continuously come into the store I worked at to see me, and sometimes even their married moms that are tagging along would be interested in me. I used it all to my advantage to just sell them a whole lot of material things. Speaking of married women, I’ve had women call me their muse and I’ve had wives stalk me. Mind you, these are wives with sons as old as me and husbands who are known for less than reputable things so their attraction greatly increased the odds of me having a very very bad day. Their age and promiscuity didn’t bother me, it’s the 3 AM texts when I never gave them my number that did.
Outside of that, I’ve had coworkers hit on me. The two most extreme cases have been one literally pulling her pants down in front of me and bending over, and one going on and on about how I’m the most beautiful guy she’s ever met; rejecting them after they had done this made them deeply question their very self-worth and beauty as women so rejection is an obstacle course sometimes. A great perk to all of this though is that a lot of women ask me for my opinion on how they look in different wardrobes while I wait outside their changing rooms.
And lastly, some customers would huddle together, whisper about me, and do things like break their new very expensive belts I just sold them a day prior just to come back into our store for the opportunity of me asking them out. I tell ya, people are strange. But on this point, I’m glad I’m not a woman because while I had to deal with these issues sporadically (very sporadically), my attractive female coworkers had to deal with these issues from men almost daily.
6. Depending on who I’m with, guys think I have all the answers to getting laid.
The only times I really ever think, “Woah, I guess I am attractive,” is when I’m amongst fellow Africans as a collective. Those are the only time I’ve ever really felt that I was at the centre of a lot of attention because of my looks. Women get very quiet and shy in my presence, and some guys start seriously copying me as if the very items I interact with are a magical potion for getting women (they buy the strange alcohol I buy no questions asked, they go where I go no questions asked, &c., &c.). It’s all a strange game.
I do have to note that I hear “you’re attractive for a black guy” on a somewhat weekly/monthly basis from peoples whose cultures make even saying that somewhat taboo (Russian, Korean, Chinese women, &c.). I’ve never really taken that sentence as an insult (just more of as a reminder of how the cultures we’re raised in shape and corrupt our minds).
7. I’ve gone on a lot of dates where I was the one being taken for a night out.
This point is awkward for both me and the waiters/waitresses that are serving us. Sometimes women ask me out and they won’t let me pay for anything, at all. They literally slap my hand away as servers tilt their heads and look at me like I’m doing something right. I’m really not.
I’m really not good at picking up women either because, although it’s quite fun, I’ve never really seen sex as one of life’s ultimate goals. And because I’ve never really needed to jump through all the necessary social and sexual hoops to have a relationship (keeping me away from the training and fortitude that comes along with all that jumping).
Plus, again, I’m probably happily on the spectrum somewhere. Clueless, women have literally drove me miles to my favourite spots to eat just because I said they were my favourite spots. And others have pulled their numbers out from between their breasts with me only later realizing that, just for me, they took the time to find paper and pen in this day and age.
On many occasions, I’ve been an asshole.
That’s basically the gist of it. And although I really hate posting photos of myself online and I can’t find that many to begin with, since this post necessitates them I’m posting them below. The narcissism! Leave in disgust people, leave in disgust.
