My absolute favorite beauty tip has got to be the one given to me by my very good and overly-concerned friend, way back in middle school. One day on the playground, after talking and laughing with a few guys, she pulled me aside and told me, very earnestly and with big eyes, that if I kept laughing so much I'd get nasty lines around my mouth, and then I would be ugly. Hideously ugly. No boy would ever want to speak to me, and I'd be in a state of perpetual loneliness. FOREVER.
Horrified, I stopped laughing and smiling for the rest of the day, before getting on the bus that afternoon and realizing what a completely retarded concept it was. Show absolutely no joy or personality, and people will love you. Didn't make much sense. Besides, I looked constipated everytime I tried to hold back a laugh. And a state of perpetual constipation isn't much of a victory over a state of perpetual loneliness.
After that reasoning, I dismissed the idea, and didn't think about it again until...
[GAS STATION, THE MAGAZINE RACK...]
{Alex and I stand in the gas station, chatting. Alex tells a hilarious joke, and I laugh hard at it. We keep talking, drifting over to the magazine rack.}
MOI: "Heh, baby seal walks into a club... that's highbrow stuff, right there." *picks up an issue of Cosmo* "Well, what do we have here...?"
{As I pick it up, the Cosmo Cover Girl turns her head and frowns at me.}
COSMO: "So, I see you were laughing pretty hard at that boy's joke."
MOI: {O_O} "...Alex, the magazine is speaking to me."
ALEX: *flipping through Sports Illustrated* "I don't care about your hip art school jargon, Keeley. If you like it, buy it."
COSMO: "Keeley, do you know what happens when you smile too much?"
MOI: "…People like you?"
COSMO: "You get smile lines, Keeley! Big, ugly parenthesis around your lips and eyes!"
MOI: “Oh… right. I've heard that before."
COSMO: "And it's true! Listen, if you keep going around, laughing and smiling as wide as you are now, you're going to look horrible in a few years! Pitbull cheeks, Keeley! Churchill-esque jowls!"
MOI: "Churchill-ESQUE?"
COSMO: "Damn skippy."
MOI: "...Wow. Yeah, that’s… that’s too bad about that."
COSMO: "Yes, it is. So, the next time Alex tells a funny joke, what’re you going to do?"
MOI: “Mmm…”
True, it seemed like a stupid tip back in middle school. However, now I've heard this little factoid from not one but TWO sources. And really, Cosmo has a pretty straight record of accuracy if you look at the Letters to the Editor page. They seem to have helped many women... why should I be so quick to judge?
[THE NEXT DAY AT SCHOOL...]
ALEX: "...And so then he says, 'I've been through many hardships'!" *grins*
MOI: "…You’re a cunt."
ALEX: "What?"
MOI: "YAY, I’m beautiful!"
And with that, it was decided; from now on, I'm going to smile as scarsely as possible so that people will love me! Best idea EVER.
MOI: "So, wanna go grab a pizza?"
ALEX: "You just called me a cunt!"
MOI: "Great! So I'll see you at seven, then!"
Yep. Loneliness is for happy people.
[PS - Completely unsubtle and unoriginal snipe at beauty industry... check. Buy me a drink.]
