death of the medium ugly guy

7.19.24

who flirts with you at a party when you are, admittedly, not looking your very sexiest. manic pixie dream boy who knows that he is perceived as hot despite not really being hot. a magnetic pull of sorts; it’s the way he looks at everyone else who isn’t you.

but it’s also the way he did notice you at that moment. 

medium ugly guy notices you at the party when your hair is up, and you’re wearing a turtleneck, and you’ve been running around boston like a headless chicken looking for a water gun and nipple covers that match your skin tone. (ironically, you ended up finding them both at the same place—macy’s.) you’re carrying a cava bag, because you didn’t have time to eat dinner, and you end up toting it from the first party to the second one you end up at with him, and eating it at 3am when you finally get home.

you venture to find the bathroom together, and flirt, and make out against the brick wall of your friend’s apartment. he stops when you ask, because you don’t want your friends to see. later, you’ll do something mildly PDA on a date and he’ll bring it up: what happened to being all shy, at the party.

you share a couple drinks, passing them back and forth. when you ask him to cut you off, he actually does it—laughs and plucks the drink you’ve magically acquired out of your hand, says you told me this would happen. you sneak into the hallway to make out.

you’re twenty-four and it’s the first time you’ve ever met someone at a party. or at least the first time it feels like this. it feels like the first night of your life.

there is a fragile sense of hope about medium ugly guy, because he is attainable, and familiar.

the thing is that medium ugly guy kind of sees you, even when you’re also looking medium ugly. this makes him inherently dateable, as you know he would be attracted to you with your morning hair, or your smeared makeup after a night out, or your gremlin sweatpants outfit. it is his good luck that you happen to be good-looking most of the time, when you’re not dressed like a cartoon character. sometimes you resent him for being medium ugly when you are actually very beautiful. 

but then, as medium ugly guys are, he’s hot in the right lighting. the right context.

he’s not hot until you’re at his friend’s birthday party and you see the looks he gives his friends, who are not you. until you see his world and want desperately to be a part of it. he’s not hot until he’s saying he doesn’t want to go home with you.

death of the medium ugly guy because honestly, no girl should feel this way. here’s the thing, though: once you are with medium ugly guy, who has a tendency to date Hot People, you are catapulted to a new status. you are, suddenly, Hot Girl Who is With Medium Ugly Guy.

once you are Hot Girl Who is With Medium Ugly Guy, other people start to notice you are hot. they did not always notice before, but this is the special superpower of being with medium ugly guy. there is a magical contrast that happens. you were hot before, but you are Officially Hot now.

you are Hot by relativity, and you are Hot by association, and you are Hot because of his reputation.

this may explain why medium ugly guy’s much hotter friend decides to take notice of you. hot friend tells you that you weren’t at your sexy potential at the original party. this may be the case, but you know the real truth: you did not belong to medium ugly guy before, and now you do.

medium ugly guy has not spoken to you in six weeks, and you think about his hands like, all the time. it’s not a great look. death of the medium ugly guy because, really? you are a gorgeous and intelligent woman who probably should not be thinking about hands with your incredible brain. you have other things to do.

death of the medium ugly guy because he doesn’t really try. this is because he thinks he deserves you. this can be good: he sees you as a person (unlike various other hot people). it is also bad: he does not treat you like you are special.

medium ugly guy breaks things off, because you are not as nonchalant as him. you wonder what would happen if the roles were reversed: if you thought you deserved him. you don’t, even while being Officially Hot now. you are hot to the world, but you are not very secure in your position as attractive relative to medium ugly guy, despite his title.

medium ugly guy likes to keep you around now that you have been released into the world, newly born, stumbling on your legs. he is, somehow, aware that he has raised you up a level of hotness by pure association. he watches as you use this new magnetism to reel a couple other hot people in. he invites you to things—it’s a test. will you still make time for him, now that you’re Officially Hot? 

you feel, inexplicably, like you owe him this new life that you are experiencing. and so you also keep him around, just in case.

to use an overused metaphor: you blossom into a beautiful butterfly with medium ugly guy as your foil. you experience relative hotness, thanks to him, and then you fly off into the world with your new fluttery beauty. except he made you, and so he knows exactly how to pin you to his board—and sometimes it’s where you want to be, because his glass case is comfortable. and you know that when he looks at you, he isn’t fooled by the flashy wings. sometimes, it feels like you are lying to everyone else. 

and so he comes back, because he never actually left.

you feel smug that he is not quite immune to you, but you are scared of the power he has over you. medium ugly guy should not be able to make you cry. you go to parties. you kiss. it is magical until he doesn’t text you back. it’s magical until you want more. 

and he’s not hot until he doesn’t want more. he’s not hot until he refuses to spend the night. and maybe it was a test. will you come back? will you come back? are you still blind to the invisible fishing line wrapped around your ankle—will you be tugged back in when your wings start to fray? are you free? are you really?

medium ugly guy has not spoken to you in three months. you’re still shimmering with the hotness he bestowed. you dislike that he seems able to ignore you. you still want his attention. you still miss his world. you still think about that delicious spark of the night you met, and you feel the acute loss of anything like it since.

medium ugly guy does not deserve you, but you’re left feeling like you’re the one who fucked up. it could not have gone differently. it never does.

this is the cycle of medium ugly guy meets girl who did not grow up pretty. this would not have worked months before, and it would not work now, months later. but it worked at that moment—a splinter in time, a soft spot of vulnerability. you needed someone who offered something that looked like hope.

and so yes, you were always hot, and you could have had anyone, but at that moment, you needed medium ugly guy. 

and there he was.