Blattgolda

I once overheard a conversation between a teenage guy and girl. She was making a (admittedly, mediocre) joke, he didn’t laugh, she immediately apologised for it not being that funny and he replied “Don’t worry, you’re so pretty, you don’t have to be funny.”

Well. This statement, although maybe meant as a riff on that old cliché, is so wrong on so many levels, it’s hard to gather all of them. First of all, if you are a teenage girl (or a full-grown woman, for that matter), you don’t HAVE to be anything. If anything, be nice to people and don’t tell them what they have or don’t have to be, especially, if you – as was quite obvious from the guy’s further input to this conversation – want to make out with them. But then again, I know that preaching “you don’t have to be anything, be yourself, blablabla” is just not realistic. As a matter of fact, thinking back to being a teenager and not being pretty, being moderately funny (or rather somewhat witty, really) did help me with slowly crawling out of the teenage hellhole that is being bullied. It is amazing how much being of “the other sex” still haunted me and, I am sure, jabillions of other girls as well: value always seemed to have to be applied by others, it wasn’t something lying within me, just by being a person. And the assumption that you have to balance out not being pretty by being funny is just searching for some attributes that will make you lovable, in some way. Maybe it could also have been some other desirable attribute, like being very skilled at something interesting, but I am not sure.
Humour is a fantastic defense mechanism that really can help you getting people off your back (unfortunately, it also keeps people away that never meant to do you any harm, but meeh, collateral damage, I guess). Especially if you are not great at defending yourself or attacking others, which, face it, you are not, because if you were, you would be the bully. It also doesn’t work vice versa – “you don’t have to be pretty, you’re funny”, because, well, “pretty” beats all in teenage world and that message sticks in a lot of heads for a long time.

Don’t be anything, if you don’t want to

I know that guy meant it as a compliment, but really it was just reassuring the girl that she has value – and, as a sideline, told her she wasn’t funny. Rude! It is this reassurance that many dear people I know always look out for, even in their 20s and 30s. Men also, by the way – some of the very smart, kind, self-reflective and self-critical men I know, have long reflected on that gender thing, of course, and really, if you are that kind of man, face it: you are basically a woman, har-har. Sorry, now you also get the shit end of the stick. So, while I am not saying that being funny isn’t a very endearing quality or that a nice face is harming anyone, I am trying to tell myself – and I know how awfully mushy that is – that I do not have to be anything to be of value. Not being an ass, that is what one should probably aim for, although, mind you, I have met my fair share of very successful ones, so maybe that is a socially somehow accepted possibility after all. Just stay away from me then, please. Be pretty and not funny, or be funny and not pretty, or be both, or – what a scandal – be neither. By the way, who says what is funny or pretty anyway, those bullies I remember? I ran into one of them a few years after graduation, and man, did he hate himself, in general. Not that I like him now, just for that, I still pretty much despise his guts for messing with my brain for years. But I got to feel kind of sorry for him and I told him “Hey, so you don’t like yourself, but maybe someday you will be pretty? Or funny, maybe?” Naah, of course I didn’t.

I hope that teenage girl decides to give a **** about being judged for her appearance or the occasional mediocre joke or any other one character trait or action. By the way, I am not trying to protect her, that would be a crooked notion I sometimes have, assuming the girl is a victim here. Maybe she is one of those kick-ass girls that I knew some of at school and, thankfully, I have met many more now, just in grown-up form; the ones that know how cool, smart, nice, and lovable they are. Or maybe she is one of the female bullies I have also met a couple of. But that doesn’t change the fact that she would not have told him that he did not have to be funny because he was handsome. Although if you do say that to a man as a woman, it is usually hilarious in some way, try it out!
I know you have got to be something. Not having any “qualities” probably leaves you not being that exciting to talk to, but not being or having something that is generally considered to be desirable or even to be a mandatory trait – screw it or at least try to screw it. It’s a process.