I am short, plump, wear glasses, and have shoulder-length hair that is still mostly brown. If I was wearing an orange shirt and red skirt I’d be a dead-ringer for Velma from the Scooby Doo series of TV shows and movies. I am also geeky, smart, talkative and a general know-it-all. And I’m OK that with that.

While I am now OK with being a nerd, geek, or “brain,” it took me years to get here. Growing up, my peers tried to make me believe that being smart was somehow unseemly. I never could quite get my responses right. When I first discovered that I was smarter than most of the other kids I didn’t bother to conceal my intelligence and my natural pride in it. After all, God gave me a fine, sharp mind, why should I hide it? Of course, in school, anyone who falls outside a narrow range of acceptability is punished by his/her peers and even by some teachers.

After being physically and mentally disciplined by a girl bully in my class, I became more circumspect. While I refused to act like a simpering fool, I dreaded the inevitable narrowed eyes and accusatory question, “You’re a brain, aren’t you?” It’s a no-win situation. Say “no” and I’d look like a fool; say “yes” and I’d look arrogant, full of myself, which is what the bully said.

In high school I was put into Gifted classes and honors classes, where I didn’t have to hide or pretend. And I didn’t have to effectively shut down large swathes of myself to interact with my peers. After high school I began to recognize that not everyone finds me mercurial and charming, so I learned to respond to different people in different ways. But never once have I “played dumb” to make friends. And I learned that plenty of boys like smart girls, including Mr. Prairie.

Even though I learned the difference between confident and arrogant, I never became popular. In fact, I don’t really understand the popularity of being popular. One advice columnist counseled a young girl on how not be a know-it-all in class and then sent her a booklet of instructions to become popular. As you well know, I am all me and I am all out there, come what may. Popularity just seems like too much work to me.

We are never acceptable as we really are, we have to change some aspect(s) of ourselves to make friends, find love, succeed in life. How do I know this, TV and movies tell me so. We will never get a date to the prom, stop being a basket case, snag the right guy, or be happy unless we poor, sad, smart wretches endure The Magic Makeover. A whole genre of “reality” shows now exist to shame us with fat asses, crooked teeth, bad hair, sloppy clothes. Movies prove that “ugly” nerd-girls only find true love with lip gloss and the right accessories.

And if we have to deny the existence of our brains to land a man, is he really worth landing? Or are only pretty girls worthy of love?

We all know that Daphne and Freddy have a thing going on, but poor Velma is always alone. She proves The Magic Makeover trope. She never gets a makeover, so she never finds a man. Luckily, real life is absolutely nothing like cartoons. Nearly every nerd-girl I have ever met has been extraordinarily successful in matters of the heart. Probably because love is not really based in the heart, but in the brain.

We are never going to attract the shallow guys, the insecure guys, the dreadfully conventional guys. The guys/men who like us are attracted to our intellects, our outside interests, and yes, even the way we look. And men do make passes at girls who wear glasses.

So to every awkward but brilliant girl out there, I say forget about trying to be popular. Forget about The Magic Makeover. All the lip gloss in the world won’t change who you are on the inside and if someone only likes you after the makeover, they aren’t worth your precious time or brain cells.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.