There’s a school of thought among a lot of men – especially those who feel somewhat thwarted in love – that ‘hot girls’ are a species all of their own, and that they’re a hostile species at that.
The hot girl, they think, must have it easy.
She gets to choose from any guy she wants, she gets doors held open for her, gets treated like a princess 100% of the time, and probably even gets all the breaks at work whether she deserves them or not, just because she’s hot. The hot girl must think she’s better than the rest of us, so there’s no point even trying to talk to her. In fact, she’s probably a total bitch anyway.
If that sounds like a train of thought you’ve ever had, I’m here to give you a little bit of insight into something I like to call the hot girl paradox. By the time you’ve read this, I hope you have a little more insight into the life of a hot girl, and can become one of the guys she might meet who actually gets it.
What is the hot girl paradox?
The hot girl paradox is based on the theory that the hot girl is both cursed and blessed by her hotness, that she’s praised and shamed for it, and that she’s encouraged to play it up and hide it away, all at the same time. The result can be one serious headfuck that means she’s probably more messed up than you are.
To explain this better, let’s look at a simple truth that you may or may not know, but almost every woman will admit is true: before people get to know us, we women are often first and foremost judged by how we measure up to the ideal image of a woman. And I don’t mean just by men, but by women too. In fact, often more by other women, because we’re all so aware that the world wants to judge us by how we look, so we’re hyper aware not only of how we look but also how other women look.
Sure, as a man you might have experienced feeling a bit shitty in the presence of a better-looking man, or you might have felt judged by your good looks or your not-good-enough looks, but the bottom line is that you will probably never know what it feels like to have the whole world want to judge you that way above – and despite – everything else you’ve got going on.
There might be some male equivalent – like if you feel the world judges you by how important you are at work or how much money you earn, and that’s shitty too – but it’s not about your personal physical being. That will mess with your head.
Hot girl, cold shoulders
The hot girl knows she’s being judged by other women because of how she looks, and she knows she’s often resented for it. Not because all women are bitchy assholes, but because we’re all so incredibly attuned to how we’re ‘supposed’ to look, and a part of that is working out how we’re doing in comparison with other women.
It’s not intentional, it’s not even conscious most of the time, it’s just there, buried in our brains and instincts by a lifetime of daily reinforced messages from all around us.
This means that the hot girl knows she’s probably making some other ‘less hot’ girls feel shitty about themselves, and that on some level they might not like her for it, even if they don’t really know why. If they’re particularly insecure or not very nice, they might make it her problem by giving her a hard time.
This can make being the hot girl quite a lonely existence when it comes to making friends. It takes a very big person to be totally immune to these feelings on every level. To add another layer of complexity, the hot girl might feel this way about hotter girls too, so she’ll feel like she’s not hot enough a lot of the time.
The older women get, the less likely they are to buy into this bullshit, but until then it’s a constant game of compare, contrast, and feel a bit shitty about it all, whether you win or lose. This is part one of the hot girl paradox.
Hot but never good enough
The second aspect of the hot girl paradox is that, because people think she’s hot, she shouldn’t have any flaws. She knows that, because she’s hot, there will be plenty of people looking for her flaws so they can tear her down for them.
For evidence of this, look at any celebrity magazine. The celebrities who are considered hot are the celebrities whose body parts are being magnified to show their imperfections, which are loudly proclaimed across the page: “LOOK, SHE’S NOT SO HOT AFTER ALL, SEE?”
That’s what the hot girl knows is happening to her, all day, every day. It makes her super, hyper aware of how she looks at all times. It makes her paranoid and scared to look anything other than as good as she can, just to try and avoid the criticism, which she can feel, even if she can’t always hear. She sees flaws before anyone else does, and in her mind they become huge and all-encompassing. After all, she’s supposed to be the hot girl, that’s what the world keeps telling her, but she knows she’s not really hot, because she has these flaws. She feels like an impostor, always about to be found out. The bigger the flaws get, the stranger it seems that she’s considered hot, and she feels totally disconnected from it.
Always available
The big downside of looking hot, as you’d expect, getting hit on by guys constantly. And that’s not as fun as you think it is. These are not necessarily guys she likes, or nice guys, and she’s not necessarily even looking for a guy, but that doesn’t matter because she has no choice.
This horrible power to attract men is the hot girl paradox part three. It’s going to happen, and she’s going to have to find a way to deal with it that doesn’t get her physically hurt or verbally abused, because some of these guys are going to be terrible people who can’t understand why there’s a hot girl right there and they can’t get some.
One of the worst kinds of guys to hit on her are the ones she knows, because that means she has to carry on seeing them even if she’s not into them. No matter how polite she is about not being into them, there might still be repercussions. Maybe it’s her boss, or a co-worker who has the power to make her life really difficult. They’re pissed off with her now, and she’s done nothing wrong – although apparently she has, because she’s hot, but not available.
So, there you have it, suddenly being a hot girl doesn’t look like the easy ride you expected. Next time you’re attracted to the hot girl, and you want to talk to her, remember all of this and don’t be scared to approach her. Just try to avoid making it obvious that it’s her looks you’re into.
