Pretty Boys Are The Worst

There are three kinds of guys roaming the earth right now: guys who are generally attractive, which includes most people, guys who are really freaking hot, like that dude who lives in my building and got in the elevator the other day after a run, sweaty and wasn’t wearing a shirt (omg). And then there’s the pretty boys. I can deal with hot guys, but pretty boys are the worst.

There’s a big difference between a hot guy and a pretty boy. A hot guy doesn’t try all that hard to be hot because he has hatched from a near-perfect gene pool. He’s just hot. Maybe he knows people pass out at the sight of him, but he’s relatively indifferent about it.

Relatively.

But a pretty boy? A pretty boy always looks airbrushed and sweats cologne and visits the tanning bed or, WORSE, has a spray tan. A pretty boy has that annoying-ass “chin strap” beard and he gets manicures and pedicures and has amazing hair and pays $500 for haircuts and wears all labels and sunglasses at night and he’s the one getting bottle service at the club and he irons his clothes and actually he has more clothes than you do and more shoes and the shoes are organized by color and he’s light skinned and he sometimes wear colored contacts.

Everybody wants to look nice, and of course I’m the last person to chastise somebody for expressing themselves through fashion. But there’s a difference between expressing yourself through fashion because you need to and being a self-involved pretty boy.

Pretty boys aren’t the worst because they care about how they look — we should all care about that — but because that’s all they care about.

I dated a pretty boy very briefly a few years ago who I now only refer to as “Voldemort.” It was the worst, most stressful courtship I’ve ever encountered, but I learned something very important: pretty boys aren’t actually attracted to you. They’re attracted to the fact that you crave them so much.

When you date someone new you get so wrapped up in the social performance of your new relationship. You know — the aggressive PDA, the hand-holding, the studying in cafes together, the moment where “I” becomes “we,” and of course the copious photos of the two of you on Facebook. But when the person you’re dating is really fucking pretty, the social performance is amplified by like 10,000 and you’re kind of like: YEP. Thattttttttt’s right. I got me a CATCH.

I was constantly chasing after Voldemort but not really getting any closer. But at the time I was just so excited that a guy this beautiful was actually “interested” in me. You kind of just want to cling on, you know? The thing is, he wasn’t actually interested in me. He probably enjoyed my company, but I feel like he enjoyed being validated and maybe felt like he was doing, I don’t know, community service or something like that by dating a lowly plebeian with an average genes.

But that’s the thing about pretty boys. They know they’re pretty, so they aren’t too concerned if it doesn’t work out with you because all they have to do is consult their extensive wait list of backlogged dates to get with someone else in 2 seconds.

The other day my friend and I were talking about who was better in bed: “hot” guys or “ugly” guys. My perspective was that you should only sleep with someone you’re really, really attracted because then the chemistry is off the chain. Otherwise you’re just going through the motions. My friend, who is in an open relationship and gives me all the tea on his fabulous sexual adventures, told me that he’s had sex with “ugly” guys, or guys he wasn’t super duper attracted to, but that the sex was absolutely bananas. He said it was great because they were so grateful to get it in with someone as cute and young as my friend.

Pretty boys or not, you deserve to date somebody who is just as into you as they are into themselves. Otherwise, who is dating whom?