Outward beauty is not all that counts

Ever heard the naughty expression ‘good from afar; far from good’? Well, I have experienced it. 

I was walking down a road in my home township when I saw this truly adorable beauty come up the road. She wore a long dress with pretty floral designs and quite a notable crown of long, dark hair.

Being already sorted, you do not give such sights much thought, but you go like, if a guy was searching and he saw this, he would probably be tempted to change his itinerary… 

The thought was barely out of my mind, when she came within earshot. She was talking on the phone, y’know. Then I heard what she was saying.

Being very different from her, I will not repeat what issued from her very fine lips, but it made me think: What a waste! What a damnable waste! And I thought: If a guy was (still) searching and he heard such words, he would run so fast, nothing would stop him.

That story should be illustration enough that physical beauty is not all that counts for a girl to ‘sell’, yet man, you don’t know how much certain women will struggle to be mistaken for beauties. Let us forget for a while those who paint the beauty image with make-up and crown it up with false hair.

Let us spare a moment for those who, believing their looks are a menace sent to snare them to their chaste graves, choose to hang around truly pretty women, so that if the beauty will not rub off onto them, at least society can say, we normally see her in Pretty Sue’s company.

I knew one like that. She is not that terribly unsightly and she has this bubbly character that makes her a joy to be around, but she does not think much of that. She wants to be like the beauty in whose shadow she hangs; trailing her; indeed blocking other people — male and female alike — from the beauty’s presence.

If she will not push you off any other way, she will literally stand between you and her idol. If that does not communicate eloquently enough, she will drag the beauty away. It’s clear it nags the beauty so (she is a most sociable, pretty young woman, while her admirer is a most antisocial, pretty offensive one).

When they do not hang around someone pretty, such lasses will hang around the popular, ‘classy’ type. The rich girl who dresses like a hybrid of Blake Lively and J-Lo; the talented girl who sings like her whole body is just two powerful lungs and an unbreakable vocal cord; the sharp-brained daughter to the sociology of education lecturer, and so on. 

I will tell you about two women I have known at different spells in my life. One was a woman with a near-hideous face and not-so-great body, but with a soul to die for. Even people who at first averted their eyes when they first met her, gazed unashamedly by the time she was done with them.

She was not kind, no, that is an understatement. She bore the heart of Christ in her breast. She was a great conversationalist, holding your attention like a gem in the palm of her spirit. When we talked to people about good people, it was inevitable that we used her name as an example.

The other one was the shortest woman who ever stood at her height, ever. I think. But she was brilliant, intelligent, knowledgeable and deep to astounding levels. In fact someone said of her: She is the tallest woman I have ever seen. 

No, you do not need the physical beauty, if you don’t have it; nor the class and money. And you cannot get it off the one who has it. And no, you need not block others from your idol, because hey, they are a public good.