My dad always used to tell me that I was good-looking. He would tell me almost every day, and I genuinely believed him, right up until the time when everyone at school started becoming aware of what being attractive was, and it became plain that the force was not strong in me. I wondered why my dad kept telling me that; most likely he wanted to build up my confidence – but it meant I had a skewed view of myself, which lead to embarrassment. I remember taking this confidence and approaching a girl I liked, and she laughed as if the very idea of us going out was a joke.
There is a strong argument that my comedy was forged in the white heat of dealing with being overweight and lazy-eyed at school – and this is not a sob story about what it’s like to be unattractive. My issue is more to do with the pretence that we have moved beyond judging people on their looks, or even that this could be a possibility. Every relationship I have had has been with somebody I got to know, or worked with. I have had to overcome the initial barrier of not being particularly good-looking; they get to know me a bit, and we form a relationship, then they get to me know me really well, and we split up. It’s an arc I’ve grown to accept.
Social media is full of memes and slogans about how you should love yourself and exude sexiness; how we shouldn’t judge people on their looks, and it’s about the attitude you carry, etc. “It’s not about the way others look at you – it’s about the way you look when you look at others the way they look at you!”, and so on. It’s also filled with attractive people in model-like poses telling you not to worry about the way you look while looking incredible.
The fact is, if you are not seen as conventionally attractive, you are treated differently. Your experiences of socialising are different, and your relationships are different, though not necessarily for the worse. Looking beyond physical attraction is definitely helpful in finding someone with whom you might be happy – something I am not only typing here, but remember repeating to my wife more than 150 times during our first date. I do standup about being less attractive, and friends tell me I shouldn’t do that; that I should be more positive. But that is bullshit. Unless they can change everything about society, it’s going to be hard.
There are, however, definite advantages to being unattractive and funny-shaped. I received a lot of messages about how hilarious it was when I did a ballet rehearsal with the standup Rob Beckett on our show together. The reality of that part of the show was that Rob and I put on training gear and tried our very hardest to do ballet. It was just the sheer unorthodox nature of our appearances that apparently made it funny. The fact that I have an arse flat enough to use as a spirit level added to the scene. My outfit was so tight that I was able to be fully clothed, while also making people think they were looking at a naked man.
The truth is, I am comfortable with being conventionally unattractive and the consequences of that (one of which is using the word “conventionally” before unattractive to try to make myself feel better). I would just absolutely love it if hot people stopped trying to make me feel guilty for acknowledging it .
