e-mail to a friend in needWhen Mole Boy met Sunkissed
The “looks” theme generated quite a few responses, including one from an earnest Swedish boy — “Are Americans that obsessed with looks?”– who somehow thought that all my columns, every week, and all my letters, were all about this theme. I took a moment away from “House of Style” to gently set him straight.
Next, here’s a pic of the Bride of Wildenstein (thanks, Kathleen and Linda). Breakup Girl is unable to write a joke about it at this time because she is hiding under her chair.
And speaking of plastic surgery, remember Mole Boy (as in, one of last week’s letter writers, not as in, “Mulder, do you mean to tell me that this young man with no eyes has learned to survive by burrowing underground and eating only insects?”)? He evidently felt some sort of cosmic/cosmetological link to Sunkissed, the young woman wondering if a face lift would boost her prospects with boys, and here is what he wrote about it. Everyone who’s ever wondered “what’s missing?” (from your face, your weekend, your soul) should read carefully; everyone else (like, both of you), should enjoy the lovely ride.
Dear Breakup Girl,
It’s Writer Boy / Nothing Like The Sun again. We can stick with Writer Boy. [This repeat-writer is a man of many aliases. — BG] I was so pleased that you did several questions on the looks issue. I actually was a little worried about asking the mole question because I knew it raised some serious self-image issues, but the answer in one case is not necessarily the same in another. A haircut that makes you feel fabulous is a healthy self-image adjustment, but not so much for massive plastic surgery in most cases. Anyway, seeing everything in a larger context was very cool.
Oddly enough, I was more struck by Sunkissed’s issue than your admittedly spot-on advice about my own (If you had advised the other way, I guess it would have been “spot-off”, hehe.) Suddenly I remembered what it was like to be me at 15 and discovered that in the past decade I’ve already made the most important self-adjustment I could make–transforming from shy, neurotic Antisocial Boy into Very-Much-OK-With-Himself Boy. [More aliases! — BG]
So, I have a shout-out snippet of advice of my own, for Sunkissed (and anyone else who’s recently been Dumped or Slumped for that matter). Dancing is my personal prescription panacea for relationship woes.) I’m cribbing a little from your notes to her, but consider my plagiarism a mildly devious form of flattery.
Dear Sunkissed,
Take heart. At 15, you have had more boyfriends than I had had girlfriends by age 21. In fact, Writer Boy remained un-kissed until he had notched off two decades on his belt and just begun his third. But that same Writer Boy is now mostly happy, well-adjusted, and can find no bigger relationship problem in his life than a silly mole (which I am pleased to say I am keeping!).
