The Dark Furie

Now I’m forty one and probably one of very few women entering her fifth decade welcoming the decline of my looks. I can’t wait for the wrinkles and the grey hair that will help me blend into the background.

A sad story, I'm sure you'll agree. For those of you who've been living under a rock or outside of the UK for the past week or so, that's a quote from Samantha Brick, a journalist in the UK. In a recent article she put forth the trials and tribulations she has had to face as an attractive woman in this world. Her conceit has caused a backlash against her of a magnitude usually reserved for dictators and mass murderers. Can it possibly be true that the world really does hate attractive women? Let's investigate.

As evidence that she's as attractive as she claims, Brick puts forth the following few tidbits as examples;

Throughout my adult life, I’ve regularly had bottles of bubbly or wine sent to my restaurant table by men I don’t know.

Even bartenders frequently shoo my credit card away when I try to settle my bill.

Whenever I’ve asked what I’ve done to deserve such treatment, the donors of these gifts have always said the same thing: my pleasing appearance and pretty smile made their day.

It sounds convincing on the surface. She simply must be attractive to get that sort of attention, and it has obviously happened at least enough for it to have convinced her so. When asked on a talk show how often these things have happened, Brick admits that she's calling on "maybe half a dozen incidents" throughout her forty-one years of life. If that's the case then I must be absolutely gorgeous as I can think of over half a dozen incidents just this year where both male and female servers have given me more than I paid for or gone above and beyond the call of duty for me, and there have been hundreds of similar incidents in my life. At no point have I attributed this to my good looks, but rather the fact that serving can be a hard job and simply being pleasant and respectful to a cashier can influence them into treating you better than they do others.

The world is hard when you're really really good looking.

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I don't know. Maybe I'm, crazy for coming up with such bland reasons for this sort of treatment. Perhaps Mrs Brick and I really are just really really good looking and the world has been bending to our whims for that reason alone? Here's a few other quotes from the article Brick posted and the furore that is surrounding it at the moment, this time showing some of the harder effects of being a walking Zoolander.

Women hate me for no other reason than my lovely looks.

Over the years I’ve been dropped by countless friends who felt threatened if I was merely in the presence of their other halves.

Unfortunately women find nothing more annoying than someone else being the most attractive girl in a room.

I find that older women are the most hostile to beautiful women — perhaps because they feel their own bloom fading.

Jesus H Furie, can you believe the conceit of the woman? Of course you're going to lose female friends if you constantly feel you're the most attractive of them all. It's impossible to always feel that way without showing others in your mannerisms, and I'm sure that those mannerisms have a damn sight more to do with why people don't like you around their husbands.

Let me put it this way; when you've turned six encounters over forty-one years into constantly being treated a certain way then you're obviously deluded about yourself to a degree even if you are good looking. When you no doubt talk to your friends about these encounters as if they happen all the time, then they'll start to get sick of you. When you put out the attitude that you're more attractive than someone's wife to their husband, the husband himself will have many conversations with his wife about how ridiculous you are (and I think all of the men reading this page have met at least one woman like that so we know what you're like) and will usually come to a consensus with their wives that you have no respect for their relationship and would be better off as far removed from that relationship as possible.

I knew this was sensitive territory at which women would take umbrage — but I thought it was a taboo that needed shattering.

While I've been shocked and hurt by the global condemnation, I have just this to say: my detractors have simply proved my point. Their level of anger only underlines that no one in this world is more reviled than a pretty woman.

Both of these statements have a major problem in that they assume that the writer is indeed as attractive as she claims to be. The fact of the matter is that much of the backlash has had nothing to do with the actual level of physical attractiveness that Brick shows, but the conceit and arrogance with which she asserts herself as beautiful. Had she written an article saying that she feels beautiful then many people would have patted her on the back and probably agreed. The fact is that, in a world where traditions in the media determines what is found attractive, so many women feel unattractive and need more self-confidence so an article like that could have done some good. But Brick didn't write an article like that, she wrote an arrogant denial of reality and an attack against anyone who doesn't treat her like the goddess she feels like. Her empowerment is at the expense of other women and all the time she claims they are trying to take away from her due to an imagined jealousy.

If Brad Pitt were to say: 'Yes, I'm a good-looking fella,' then the world would nod sagely in agreement. But if Angelina Jolie uttered something along those lines, she'd be subject to the same foaming-at-the-mouth onslaught hurled at me yesterday.

Actually, no she wouldn't. Jolie has made a proven living from her looks for quite a while. Long enough in fact for her to learn how to actually act as she matures and those looks inevitably fade. If she were to come out and say she was a good-looking woman then people would agree with her as she truly is. Should anyone ask her to prove it she could call on a variety of sources, from the magazine articles that advise women how to copy her style to her twelve years in a row placing in FHM's top 100 Sexiest Women in the world. No-one, perhaps excluding Brick herself, would turn their nose up at that evidence.

Even the woman's leg has become world famous...

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Ten out of ten men at a dinner party would find me attractive.

And here we have the latest spewing from Brick. If you're male you'll find her attractive. No questions asked. You could be straight or gay and you'll want her. You could be blind and the sound of her voice would give you back your sight and make you fall in love. There is no room for error; if you're male you'll want her (presumably this hypothetical dinner party serves a lot of booze).

It's statements like that which have caused such vitriol over her article and the statements she has made since to support her claims. The fact of the matter is that, even if she were as physically attractive as she claimed, the ugliness inside shines through. All you'd have to do is spend a little time in a room with her and you'd be clawing at the walls to escape. Some women, whether honestly or not, have something on the inside that shines through and makes them attractive. Drew Barrymore is one such example and Zooey Deschanel another, more recent one. These are both good looking girls normally but there's something inside that can make them incredible, an indescribable approachability that makes men and women alike want to love them. They never seem to come off as aloof at all. Brick has the opposite of that and exudes her inner ugliness.

Oh, if anyone has any dinner parties planned this weekend and is unsure whether to risk their happy relationships by going, this is the woman who claims that all men would want her.

And that's with an obvious ton of make-up on to make her presentable to the cameras.

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I want to reiterate that this is not a condemnation of the way Brick looks, although I myself am obviously the eleventh man at that dinner party. Rather this is a look at the way one presents oneself to the world and how one views others. Beauty may well be in the eye of the beholder, but when you're the beholder of your own beauty to such a degree the word takes on a new meaning. It is nothing short of arrogance and delusion, an average looking woman transferring blame for the bad things in her life to others rather than taking responsibility for her own actions and the part she has played in people not liking her.

In short, ugliness all around.