Miss Hilarious
“You look like you could be Miss Delaware,” a strange man said as he gestured just to the right of me. “Actually, you’re even prettier.” The man was pointing to Chelsea, my cousin’s new girlfriend, who looked like she had stepped right off the stage of the Miss Universe contest. I should have been relieved that he wasn’t pointing at me. After all, I have always despised beauty pageants. Why would I want to look like a queen? Didn’t that also mean that she looked like a ditz? But, I must admit, the feeling that came over me was not one of relief.
All I know personally of beauty pageants is limited to one experience when I was just five years old. When they called my name, instead of the walk I had perfected, I marched across the stage like a toy soldier. With arms and legs straight out in front of me, I clomped down the runway. And while the audience laughed and clapped, my mother turned various shades of red, furious that I was treating the pageant like a joke after I had practiced so hard.
I didn’t win that night; I didn’t even place. But I must have really enjoyed the attention because I have been working hard ever since to make people laugh. I am the funny one in my family. My cousin was the pretty one, my sister was the singer, and I have always been the comic. I love cracking jokes, talking in different accents and making sound effects. I’m no Lucille Ball but my family does seem to get a rise out of me so I keep playing the part.
Although I have never been incredibly obsessed with my looks, I also know I’m not hideous. But I am realistic enough to accept that I’m not beauty pageant material. There is no bathing suit in North America capable of flattering my body; I despise high heels (I’m already five foot eleven), and I am not at all graceful. I think I might be able to handle the interview portion, but that is the part that turned me off from pageants long ago.
Some girls’ responses to interview questions are so ridiculous that I feel embarrassed for them. Then I just get angry because these women are the ones who prevent a lot of men from taking us seriously. I believe pageants are a demeaning step backwards from all the progress women have made in the past fifty years. And like beauty queens, professional cheerleaders and Hooter’s girls equally offend me.
My position on beauty pageants has not wavered for years. So why did I suddenly find myself feeling insecure when the girl standing next to me at a hotel in Dover, Delaware, was complimented on her beauty? Was I having an identity crisis? Is this what happens when women approach the age of 30? Or, even more frightening, did I have a secret desire to be the next Miss America or Miss Hawaiian Tropic?
I think, like many women, I just want to know how it feels to have people stare at me because I am attractive. I would like to turn heads, but not in a perverted cat-call-from-a-construction-worker-kind-of-way; I have experienced that. I don’t think it feels quite the same.
Many of the behaviors we engage in stem from an innate longing to receive attention. Some people fish for compliments, others use self-handicapping, and many people get attention because they act rude and obnoxious. So maybe, just once, I would like attention for being pretty instead of being funny. Is that terrible to admit? And does it go against my entire belief system?
Perhaps I could get a French manicure and highlights in my hair. That would look nice. And I would look a lot better if I lost ten or twelve pounds; it would benefit my health too. I could also have my makeup applied professionally and buy a brand new, flattering outfit with matching heels. I would just have to wear them to a place where I could sit the majority of the time.
These things would make me look prettier. They might even make me feel a little better, temporarily anyway. But until judges are searching for clumsy, joke-telling contestants, I think it is safe for me to hang up my secret wish for a sparkling tiara. I’m just not cut out for beauty pageants. And that is okay. I am who I am and for the most part (excluding cellulite and stretch marks), I like me.
So from now on, I will try to look through my husband’s eyes when I gaze into the mirror. And maybe, just maybe, I will see what he sees…a queen.