The Barbie Fixation

I’ll admit it. I probably wasn’t an attractive adolescent. Tall, lanky, flat chested. Pubescent skin, bad haircut, big German nose. During high school, I grew into my body. I was no longer the tallest girl in our group. I grew boobs! I grew out my hair and let it go wild. I discovered boys. But the question is, did they discover me? My high school was a large one- 510 kids in my graduating class alone. It was easy to disappear. Of course, I was always involved in theatre, which probably made me even more of a geek than I already was.

It wasn’t until college that I really learned to look in the mirror and like what I saw. I straightened my hair, learned how to dress myself: what was I thinking during the early 90’s. Seriously, grunge? Thankfully I grew out of my combat boots and flannel stage. I blame Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots. I got my first college boyfriend, who seemed to like the way I looked. My senior year, I realized that I had no one to impress, so stopped straightening my hair once again and started to really like myself. Me. Just as I was. I felt beautiful, for the first time in my life. Maybe it was because I was becoming a woman. I was knowing myself in a way I had never fathomed before. I was honest with myself. I told myself truths about the way I wanted to live my life.

I still hate my nose. I understand that I’ll probably always look this way. But I love a lot about myself. I have great hair, now that it’s cut by my genius stylist Nikki (thanks Nik). I have pretty great skin. I have long legs that all my short girlfriends hate me for. I’ve been told I smell pretty good. I’m comfortable with myself. I accept my age lines, my butt fat that will never go away. I own everything about me, bad or good. I’m honest with myself. But there is always that burning question... how do people perceive me to look? It shouldn’t matter, but let’s be honest, we all think it. Otherwise we’d all walk out of the house in our sweatpants with no make-up on every single day. And sorry gang, I’m not about to leave the house in my giant red baggy flannels.

Brian said something on Friday that has been rolling around my head for nearly a week. He said something to the effect that he was over his “Barbie-doll fixation” that he once had as a young man. It really struck me, hearing him say that. In a good way. Because, lets face it, most men never get over their own Barbie fixations. He also said something like he’d rather be with a woman who was a “4” in looks, but really had her shit together. As a woman, it was so nice to hear that. In a world where Barbie look-a-likes are plastered across checkout lanes and we see women in movies who don’t look “real”, it’s so great to hear that come from the mouth of a man. Do men actually find women like Paris Hilton or Jessica Simpson attractive? Honestly? Nose-job and Boob-job, respectively? Women who carry around dogs as accessories and throw in “like” after every third word should be canonized. They give women in history such a bad name. Women have worked too hard to get where we are in society for girls like that just tear down everything we’ve done, making women look petty, uninteresting and just plain ignorant.

It’s interesting, this Barbie fixation. What woman looks like that? Definitely not me. I would probably never be able to have a career in New York because I’m not “type”. In New York, there would be a line of 5’5, 110 pound, blonde, blue-eyed girls and all the casting director would have to do is just pick one. They all look the same! If they were casting for a 5’9, (I’m not telling you my weight) redhead with green eyes, the part would be mine! (Kudos to Mark for letting me keep the red for Chess- thank you!)

The question is this- do all men grow out of their Barbie fixation? It scares me to think that if I’m ever in the dating realm again, the Barbie syndrome will haunt me. Hopefully I wouldn’t be meeting/dating guys who thought that way in the first place. Hopefully there would be more Brian’s in the world than Barbie lovers.

*Thank you, B.