Beauty is skin deep

When I was at the gym the other day, I was running on a treadmill watching the bank of TVs in front of me. I didn't have my headphones plugged into the thing so I could hear it, so I was just reading the closed captioning. The show Beautiful People was on. I've seen this a couple of times before, so I could follow along. Bascially it's a reality-type show about the two guys who founded the website Beautiful People.

It's a dating website where only the attractive are allowed and you have to be voted on by other members. It's totally shallow and trite and the two guys who run the site are complete asses, but I can't help but be drawn to watching the show. They follow these two tanned, buffed and plucked men around, who talk about women in terms less flattering than pieces of meat and read the hate mail they receive from hundreds of people (this is my favourite part).

They also profile someone who is trying to get on the site, and that's just really pathetic. Sometimes they get on and sometimes they don't, but they always vow to try again. I'm not sure what would draw people to this kind of thing, and I was running away on my treadmill trying to lose some weight and thereby enhance my own Beautiful Quotient, when a commercial for eHarmony came on and I realized that everyone on that commercial would have made it on Beautiful People. So maybe the website really is just being really honest about the world. Maybe we are all just shallow.

I know when I used to go on those sites, I would immediately discount a guy if I didn't like his picture. I still feel bad about the guy that sent me a few emails and seemed nice and like we had a lot in common, but I then dropped him completely when I saw his photo (it really wasn't good). If you go on Beautiful People, you'll see that the voting is pretty harsh. Anyone with a few extra pounds or a few extra years (namely anyone over the age of 35), get lots of no votes--blonde women in skimpy clothing get lots of yes votes. You know how it goes.

(Is it totally sad that even though I'm happily married, a small part of me wants to see if I'd get voted on? It turns out I'm in need of validation from a group of complete strangers who likely have the emotional range of teaspoons... damn.)

Food yesterday:
oatmeal 3 pts
salmon 8 pts
plantain dessert 5 points
hot and sour soup 4 pts

Total 20 pts