There is never a time I attempt to choose my words more carefully than when I am talking about physical appearance. I can name no other scenario in which I fight more intensely against my urge to please people and tell them exactly what they want to hear. And oh, I know what they want to hear. I know when I watch wives call out their husbands’ weight loss, their faces lighting up as they gesture toward their spouse and say, “Doesn’t he look great?” like they’re not even in the room. I know when someone says, “Man, I look old,” or “I feel fat,” or “Do I need Botox?” or “Does this filler look weird?” I know, like all of us do, that there are expectations here for how to respond to all of this and pretty much none of those include the phrase, “How you look isn’t really important,” even if most of us would say that that’s something we believe, too.
I also know exactly what it’s like to so desperately need someone to confirm that you do, indeed, look different — but not too different, not …