What Are You Going Through

by Sigrid Nunez

In our culture, what you look like is such an important part of who you are and how people treat you. Especially if you’re female. So if you’re good-looking, if you’re a good-looking girl or woman, you get used to a certain level of attention. You get used to admiration—not just from people you know but from strangers, from almost everyone. You get used to compliments, you get used to people wanting you around, wanting to give you things and to do things for you. You get used to inspiring love. If you’re really good-looking and you aren’t mentally ill or obnoxiously conceited or a total dimwit, you get so used to being popular, you get so used to love and admiration that you take it for granted, you don’t even know how privileged you are. Then one day it all disappears. Actually, it happens gradually. You begin to notice certain things. Heads no longer turn when you pass by, people you meet don’t always later remember your face. And this becomes your new life, your strange new life: an ordinary, undesirable person with a common, forgettable face.