New year, new face, new attitude?
It’s better to be assumed sweet in the visual era of so-called “bitchy resting face” affliction
You know you live under a rock when you read an end of the year list — this one being “sayings we’re sick of” — and you realize you are not familiar with, as in have never heard of, any of the entries.
One that hit the populace that is dear to my heart and I wish I had had the language to express it in 2013 is “Bitchy Resting Face.”
Research tells me this BRF thing began last May (where was I when this new opportunity for selfabsorption and neurosis hit? Too obsessed with my fat thighs to notice I guess) as a kind of gag-slashpublic service announcement went viral, where women protested that they might actually be really nice people but have a crabby looking face.
Well, you weren’t hiding under a rock. So you know there was a spawning of websites and stories about stars and others who have this affliction for real, and then the pile-on of helpful surgeons who can fix that frown, at a cost in pain, suffering and money.
Laugh at the folly if you will, but I actually do have a bitchy resting face. I don’t mind this most of the time — I have no desire to speak to strangers, offer directions, tell you I’m fine. Being unapproachable works for me. I see that my dog has the opposite problem — she looks like a sweet little thing but has the heart of a viper and no manner of convincing actually convinces people not to go near her. She will make you sorry you tried to say hi.
However, looking tired and haggard, which is how BRF is now settling in, is not a good thing especially in a world of work populated by youngsters still able to stay out all night and look great in the morning. We live in a visual era my friends. Without having the proper language to describe it I have been addressing my haggard problem over the years regardless of the fact that the time and money it takes is huge and escalating. However I took time off the effort in 2012 and 2013 and now am rethinking whether this was a false economy.
Normally speaking I am a large believer in fighting the fight rather than growing old gracefully — Botox is our friend, ladies, and I once had a major revelation at the altar of filler. A kind dermatologist suggested I do something about the marionette lines around my mouth and voila, I looked in the mirror and thought “wow, I was quite pretty at 20.” Doesn’t that moment make it worth it? To realize at least retroactively and retrospectively that you were an OK-looking kid?
The trick is to do a barely perceptible minimum and not get caught up in the lure of the plastic face, that Goldie Hawn face so many women have these days.
A few years ago when I was more aggressively attacking haggard, I was in London and at the offices of a dermatologist. A bit of Bo for the frowny bit was all I thought I needed until the amazing looking Parisian doctor I’d been assigned to suggested, with a pen that marked out all the parts of my face that weren’t quite right, that more effort might be in order. And that would be several more hundreds of pounds sterling than anticipated. At just this moment the ex, who was then the current, called from the lunch he was having with our great friend Roz. I ran the investment in a prettier future by him.
“Oh blimey I don’t know, ask Roz,” he said and threw the phone at her. I explained the situation.
“It’s maintenance darling,” she breathed and that was that. That was that when said gentleman didn’t rush to say, “I think you’re gorgeous what is that insane doctor talking about,” quite frankly.
So I underwent needles and filler in places I didn’t know needed it as the Parisian whispered “ah, oui,” in my ear.
Afterward I looked in the mirror and saw . . . well, not much change frankly. It would take a while to take apparently. “You look more sweet” reassured the derm, in her French accent. I walked around for the rest of that era in a cloud of being a kinder, gentler person. It’s not a bad thing as it turns out.
So this year, the BRF will be addressed once again. It’s maintenance, darling. And perhaps most especially worth it now that the populace is alive to it.
Though my dog violently disagrees, and call me shallow, but I think it might be better to be assumed sweet than a bitch any day. Tracy Nesdoly’s column usually appears the first Saturday of each month.