Agony of being as handsome as me
Sounds insufferably arrogant? In fact, JAMES INNES-SMITH says men are jealous of him and women think he must be a cad
actor-turned-writer living in a flat in Paddington. Others, such as my now-wife, assumed I must be a card-carrying cad and avoided me altogether.
A middle-aged woman I met at a dinner party recently confessed she had always made a point of turning down attractive men: ‘Because they can have any woman they want, they end up treating them like objects or prizes. Handsome men are often the most toxic.’
But I have encountered more hostility as a result of my looks from men. Studies from the UCL School of Management found that handsome men are often seen as more competent, so managers tend to hire attractive men over less good-looking ones.
No wonder, then, that those working in highly competitive jobs such as sales may be seen as a threat to other male colleagues.
During a brief period of working in an office, I remember being struck by how competitive men were. There appeared to be a pecking order of attractiveness, with the handsomest making all the noise and the least attractive desperate to impress with their bantering skills.
After I joined, there was a definite shift in the hierarchy. Some men later admitted they had been intimidated by my height, assuming I would be arrogant and over-confident.
And if colleagues were threatened, so were some of my male friends. It’s well-known that beautiful women often make other women feel jealous, but the same can also be true for men.
But where women often use their subtle feminine wiles to undermine each other, I’ve found men tend to go for the jugular.
I had one drinking buddy who used to become incandescent with rage whenever he saw me talking to an attractive woman at a party, thinking nothing of interrupting our conversation in order to undermine me.
He’d then berate the woman for having the audacity to engage with me. ‘What do you see in him?’ he’d ask incredulously. ‘Is it the hair? I just don’t get it.’
For years he saw me as a direct rival, occasionally even blaming me for his lack of success with women. His overreaction felt so petty and spiteful, it very nearly destroyed our friendship.
Despite the stereotype that only women cattily compete for the attentions of the opposite sex, I’ve learned that rivalry over attracting female attention can sometimes make it hard for men to bond with each other.
As I grew older, I found that those of us men still single into our late 30s and 40s would often be left out of the dinner party circuit, the assumption being that we were all predatory lotharios.
Here, I admit, that on the few occasions I did get invited to allcouples parties, I enjoyed the flirty frisson that used to hang over the dinner table.
(Because these tended to be hosted by old friends, who knew I would never run off with their wives, they actually seemed to enjoy the added spice a single man could bring to what could be quite dreary occasions.) Indeed, the reason many men of my generation remain unmarried for so long is because we are having such a riot.
After all, for ageing men who can still attract younger women, the pool of possibilities just keeps getting bigger. Until time catches up with you, of course. For even handsome men must lose their looks eventually.
As someone who has settled down with a woman 17 years younger, I worry about losing my looks before she does. I’m on a strict health regime — plenty of exercise and fresh vegetables. I’ve even started moisturising and using hair products again.
You see, I’m not ready to give up my pretty privilege quite yet.