Confessions of a Handsome Man

It might not look like it, but Jean hadn't always had it so easy.

Let me explain.

Ever since he was a child, people would treat Jean differently. As a toddler, he was always the star of any social gathering, even if there were other, more playful children around. Later on in his life when he started going to school, if he ever forgot to do his homework, his teachers always seemed to accept his excuses, and even hug him or fondly ruffle his hair. Somehow he always found himself in the front row in school pictures. The special attention his teachers gave him always kept him motivated and eager to learn and develop himself, which gave him an unfair advantage over his classmates... coupled with the attention his parents gave him as their first-born and eldest son, it also helped make him entitled and gave him unrealistic expectations in life.

Not that he knew any of that, of course. All he knew was that he was always his teachers' favourite for some reason he didn't understand, and for better or worse, it shaped his personality growing up. The constant positive feedback made him pursue hobbies he was interested in and develop his personality rather than just play videogames and football- and in the latter years of middle school when puberty hit- talk about girls.

However, always being singled out also put him under the spotlight, and all kinds of bad things happen to school children under the spotlight. You see, the extra attention he received also won him the unwanted attention of the neglected kids in class... You know the ones I mean; the "cool" kids who sit in the back and take pride in their trouble-making behaviour and unkempt appearance. It would be unfair to blame it completely on them; Jean would have likely been aggressive as well towards that one kid who got most of the attention in class.

Regardless, being bullied for the best part of his childhood kept him grounded and down to earth. It developed his sense of humour and taught him to use it as a defence mechanism. If the other kids wanted to make fun of him, he would damn well do it himself to take the sting off... their jokes wouldn't be funny if he made them first, and he figured it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to be the funny kid instead of the class punching bag.

Long story short, on one hand he always received praise and encouragement and assurances that he had the potential to be anything he wanted in life, but on the other hand being constantly on the defensive gave him thick skin and taught him to armor himself in humor. It would be a long time until he realised he didn't have to do that anymore, and that wouldn't be until highschool; where he realised self-confidence was a much sturdier choice of armor.

When Jean went to highschool, he came to a startling realisation: people seemed to actually enjoy his company now! Life wasn't a constant battle for survival anymore, where only the laws of the jungle applied. He didn't have to conform to the other kids' idea of "cool" anymore... he could actually practice his hobbies and do whatever he enjoyed, with people who genuinely enjoyed spending time with him.

With that came another realisation; he was getting some unprecedented attention from girls. Being an awkward teenager who hadn't really grown into himself, he didn't quite understand the hints girls were giving him at first. Sometimes they would ask him lame questions just as an excuse to talk to him, but being so fresh from the daily torment that was middle school, he was always suspicious of any such attempts and would deflect them without a second thought... He'd had at least 6 years of practice, after all.

But still they kept coming... and as any pubescent teenager is wont to do, he was starting to notice girls too, but he couldn't understand why they were giving him that seemingly unwarranted attention... He was sure he had nothing to offer them since he was just that awkward kid with a bad posture and dorky glasses. Too often, he would catch a girl stealing looks at him, and by force of habit he would turn around and look behind him to see who she was really checking out. When it turned out to be him, he'd turn back around to find her giggling with her friends.

Until one day he went home after school and stared at himself in a mirror. He didn't get it; he looked exactly the same as he always had, and the blonde peach fuzz on his upper lip sure as hell wasn't doing him any favors. He started pondering the unthinkable; could it be that he was actually... attractive? His every instinct warned him that it was a trap. The class nerd-turned-clown can't be attractive, it went against all the laws of teenage social structure. He took off his glasses, smoothed his hair back, stood a little straighter. Could he play the part? But what if one of the kids called him out on it? It would be middle school all over again and he'd spend months trying to correct his image. Could he really afford that now that he was finally starting to have a life and a personality and friends of his own?

He decided to take the risk and be confident for a day, and his life changed forever.

It was an incredible feeling, being on the other side. He was suddenly "the guy". Again, you know who I mean... that one guy every other guy either picks a fight with or tries to befriend. And girls? He would sometimes find himself hanging out with groups of 5 girls who laughed at his lame jokes and twirled their hair around while giving him moon eyes and batting their eyelashes.

In fact, eventually it even got to the point where he would wish he was unattractive so that girls would be more interested in who he was and what he had to say rather than what he looked like. Also, sometimes people got very wrong first impressions of him; always making the uninformed assumption that he was just another unintelligent, arrogant "douche" who didn't have any skills in life because he didn't really need them... and other times they would be too intimidated to talk to him, not knowing how approachable he actually was.

At any rate, from then on -through college and his later life- it was smooth sailing. The confidence he'd had to fake in the beginning now came to him naturally. Wherever he was, he was always acutely aware of at least one or two girls trying to catch his eye. There was never one point in his life when a girl wasn't trying to be with him... and if he wanted a girl, he generally didn't have to try hard. If he wanted a favour from a friend or even an acquaintance, all he had to do was ask. If he wanted a job, he was automatically on the short list; since he soon found out that all good looking people needed were a smile, self-confidence and eye-contact, and people would generally just give them what they wanted. He would even pass through passport control at airports without being hassled too much, even as people he travelled with got interviewed for hours. It was like being a celebrity.

It was very difficult to resist abusing this effect he had on people but he always stayed true to his roots. He never forgot the awkward teen he used to be, and that kept him from being an arrogant, manipulative person who toyed with people's emotions. Having been on the receiving end of emotional abuse for most of his young life, he vowed to never be the kind of person who would inflict it upon someone else.

And the moral of the story? For better or worse, his life would have been radically different if his looks were not a factor. His entire personality was shaped by who he had to be to survive his prepubescent years, and that was a direct result of always being favoured by his teachers at school because they found him "cute".

Only the very specific circumstances of his life kept him from becoming the monster society seemingly wanted to turn him into. For example, if instead of bullying him, his classmates had worshiped every word he said, he would have grown up to be a self-assured narcissist with a God complex who got ahead in life only by manipulating other people and might have likely even been a bully himself.

It's an unfair world... because if on the other hand his teachers had divided their attention equally amongst everyone in his classroom and actually tried to make everyone feel supported and encouraged, Jean wouldn't have had to live through his rough early childhood and work so hard to grow up to be a well-adjusted adult, and his classmates would likely have had much fonder memories of primary and middle school.

Jean turned out to be a good person, but it could have too easily gone the other way. In an ideal world, he shouldn't have been treated differently for any reason, be it appearance or social class or religion or race or riches, but that is the harsh reality of the world we live in. All we can do is make a conscious effort to treat everyone as we would want to be treated... and hopefully enjoy the good karma.