Thursday, November 11, 2004

Sometimes beauty isn't even skin deep

A friend once said to me that it becomes impossible to determine whether someone is empirically attractive, once you get to know them. True to some extent I would say, although "ugly" can really shine through on occasion.

I worked with a gentleman many years ago who could easily be judged as being very attractive. He was so good-looking that I found it difficult to talk to him without being reduced to coy giggling and furtive glances in his direction. Very off-putting when you are really trying to discuss some important medical issue. There is no way that he was ignorant of the effect that he had on many of the women (and some of the men) of our workplace.

As part of a team-building exercise, our workplace decided to participate in "Dragon Boat Racing". This necessitated several early morning training sessions to at least establish which end of the oar went in the water - and perhaps even get us moving. So it was, that for several weeks, I was confronted with his bare torso, rippling in the early morning sunshine. My conversational skills with him were at an all time low. I felt giddy with expectation at the thought of the coming training session. Something had to give!

So one Saturday morning, after another tiring session on the river, I stood trying to rehydrate and watching the sun hitting his golden tresses, and finally realised something. His feet! His feet were the ugliest, flattest, most mis-shapen appendages I have had the misfortune to look upon.

From then on, whenever I was alone with him and felt the butterflies and palpitations begin, I only had to imagine those feet and any sexual thought I had ever had went swiftly out the door. Fixating on an obvious physical defect is an old trick to quell any erotic thoughts, but thank goodness, for my professional future, it worked.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ouch! Tough crowd...
Like Eddie Murphy says in Boomerang: "It was Hammertime in her shoes, man!"