Looks Are Important

Looks are important. You’ll have to forgive me, but I’m too lazy to research and cite all of the evidence supporting this assertion. Just search the internet for Looks Are Important and you’ll find enough proof and dialogue on the subject to convince even the most skeptical.

Looks matter. We could ask “Should they or shouldn’t they?” We could even ask “Why do they matter, and if they matter, what can we do about it?” But, let’s leave all of these pertinent questions for future discussion. Right now, let’s just kick around the simple truth that looks do matter.


At the most obvious level, our appearance matters when we go to a job interview or when we try to impress a first date, an old colleague, an old schoolmate, an old flame, an old ex, you name it. Our looks are the first message we deliver. Before we open our mouths, our faces and bodies have already teamed up like a vaudeville act with top hat and cane to announce “HELLO!! THIS IS ME!! HOW DO YOU DO??!!”


Have you ever been startled to hear someone speak after you’ve been introduced? It’s because you already know this person based on their looks. You already formed judgments, opinions and expectations. When the looks don’t match the vocals, however, you find yourself momentarily off-balance and, during that second or two, you might even be a little perturbed that you’re now required to quickly make this perception shift. We don’t like being thrown for a loop, even if it is a brief little loop we concocted ourselves.


On immediate impact, looks will trump voice, personality and effort every time. And, they matter in less obvious ways as well. They matter every time we meet someone either for the first time or the fiftieth time. I’ve changed my opinion about people I thought I knew simply because they changed their looks. An old friend who for years sported nothing but jeans and tees arrived in a suit one day. Before he said a word, I thought “Who are you?” (Obviously not the slug I always knew you to be.)


Conversely, when I saw colleagues from work in jeans and tees, I knew I had been completely, if not deliberately, misled by them. They fooled me. The people I knew were suit people. They were suit people in dress, mind, speech, and as far as I could tell, religion to boot. These people, on the other hand, were jeans and tee people. These were fun people. How could I have gotten this so wrong? Again, time for that kick-in-the-head readjustment.


And, it’s not just a change in attire that can alter our preconceived notions about people. A relative who had rhinoplasty was an uneducated, unequivocal frump before the nose job, and a college-graduate beauty queen afterwards. How’s that possible, right? I mean, how could she have squeezed in 4 years of school, bought a new wardrobe and styled her hair while splayed out on an operating table for probably less than three hours?


She couldn’t. But to the rest of the family, it seemed she had. One day, self-conscious about her looks, she never mentions her college degree, and the next day, exhibiting her noticeably smaller snout, she can’t squeeze in enough excuses to blab to everyone about it.


So…if looks matter, is it simply a matter of self-confidence? Maybe, but maybe not. It isn’t until we receive feedback about our own looks – very often as early as childhood – that we form opinions about our looks. These early-developed opinions are hard to overcome. Ask anyone who was bullied as a kid about his or her looks. We may choose to ignore negative feedback and to defiantly present a façade of self-confidence, but any doubt or self-consciousness will always surface. B y its nature, self-confidence is not defiant. Instead, it’s quiet, assured and at peace.


Have you ever met someone who could only be described as “not comfortable in his/her own skin?” These are people who project self-confidence, but it’s a self-confidence mired in self-consciousness. This particular blend creates a powerful contradiction -- one that is, if you’ll pardon the expression, as plain as the nose on your face.


As a result, it almost goes without saying that looks matter most when we look in the mirror. We don’t have to be beautiful to see beauty, nor flawed to see areas of needed improvement. Before we got anywhere near the mirror, we already saw that. In fact, blindly, we knew it. We go to the mirror for confirmation only.


What’s most important about looks being important is that we have to learn to step up to the mirror with a developed sense of comfort, if not downright pleasure, about our looks. If we can do that, we can project a naturally pleasing and convincing image both to ourselves and to the world. Our features and bodies will combine to broadcast the message we want conveyed - well before our voices and communications round out the whole picture. The operative word here is, of course, “naturally.” Because, if we can do that, we needn’t be concerned that, as a matter of fact, looks are important.


My Looks Online.com will be launched soon. Visit our site and see how we are trying to help all of us project that natural good-looking image – to ourselves and to the rest of the world. Will keep you posted on launch date.