The Price of Not Being the Prettiest Girl at the Party

When you live in a small town, the highlight event of the week is trivia night at the local family restaurant. So now, of course, being twenty-two, I was excited to finally be able to go clubbing more often in a city. I’ve only been to one club in Jacksonville, Florida, before moving to Tampa, Florida. I had enjoyed dressing up and dancing till midnight with my friends before my big move. When I was invited by some girls to go clubbing here, I was ready to dance the night away with them. Flash forward, my friends and the group of boys they invited made it into the club. The music was good enough to enjoy, and I felt confident in my outfit. I was sure I’d have a relatively good night, I thought. I decided to immediately get drinks from the bar since they were free till a certain time. 

After finally getting my drinks, I looked back to see my group had wandered off. I finally found them and started handing them drinks. They expressed their gratitude, then immediately started talking to other men.  At first, I didn’t mind because meeting new people could be fun. Also, I could just hang out with the guys they invited to come with us. I turned to talk to the other guys, but they were flirting with girls from another university as well. 

Unfortunately, there was no handsome butch lesbian to pop up out of nowhere to talk to me. So, I awkwardly stood in the back, and that was what I basically did the whole night. After a while, I started to feel the urge to cry. It was the first time I had ever felt so insignificant in a space before. All I could think of was how dumb I was. “Of course, this would happen to me as someone who didn’t fit the beauty standard!” “How could I forget my place in society?” 

Safe to say, I decided to take a break from clubs. But after a while, I started to examine the role attractiveness plays in students’ ability to connect in college. I hear students all the time calling themselves or others “ chopped”. I’m shown Ozempic ads on YouTube with every video I watch. When I go to the dining hall, I overhear conversations about relationships, situationships, and talking stages. I haven’t been forced to be this mindful of my appearance since middle school. I would be lying if I didn’t say this has affected my ability to connect to students around campus. 

Whenever I’m too lazy to do my makeup or wear a cute outfit, I notice that I’m a lot more hesitant to talk to others than I would be otherwise. When I am dressed up, I spend a lot more time outside my dorm, raise my hand in class to talk more, and even attend events around campus spontaneously. What happened to me? Where’s the daughter my parents once called courageous and headstrong? At 20, I finally started to take up space and prided myself on my intelligence, kindness, and creativity. Now at 22, my ability to simply compliment a girl’s outfit depends on whether I’m wearing false lashes or not. 

It makes sense that moving to a stage of life when you’re mainly interacting with peers in your age range creates a sense of comparison. Especially when social media can increase our need to conform to certain beauty standards. We crave to be beautiful; there’s nothing wrong with that. However, we forget to question who gets to call the shots on beauty — ourselves. Many current beauty standards are based on white-centric features.

They can range from straight hair to light skin tones. A lot of “flaws” that women have, I never even noticed until they were pointed out. The existence of insecurities like small thigh gaps and textured skin seems ridiculous to me the more I think about them. Who pays attention to others that much? These insecurities are force-fed to us by our peers, families, screens, and grocery stores. It never stops, so how can we cope in a world that tells us our existence needs to be curated and fixed every second? 

I am not a genius sociologist with knowledge as vast as the seven seas. However, I am currently integrating body neutrality into my life and finding confidence in the parts of myself that are not fickle. However, I am currently integrating body neutrality in my life and finding my confidence in the characteristics of myself that are not fickle. My mind creates think- pieces and stories for other women to feel seen and heard. My love is personified in the warmth of a hug with my arms that people have told me to shave. 

My body is not eternal; it gets old, it gets hurt, it gets sick, but it still shows up for me every day. Its resilience could never fit into the boxes of beauty standards. What a relief! 

• college
• confidence
• self worth