Beautiful People

I was at the Coffee Bean in Delhi, sitting a couple of tables over from a monk in red and orange robes who was being kept warm by a Burberry scarf and entertained via the iPod earbuds he had in his ears as he nursed what looked like a large white chocolate latte. I looked down at my own imitation blue-themed Burberry polyester that is supposed to feel like cashmere scarf  and got back to the busy work of aimlessly browsing around the internets looking for something interesting and worthwhile that would help me pass a few hours and let me think up some ideas to write about… So, there I was, minding my own business, when I discovered the site beautifulpeople.com, where I was greeted with the following text:

Welcome to BeautifulPeople
The sexiest website in the world today

• Do looks matter to you, when it comes to selecting a partner?
• Do you want to guarantee your dates will always be beautiful?
• No more filtering through unattractive people on mainstream sites
• Meet beautiful people locally and from around the world - now
• Attend exclusive events and private parties

I tried to hide my enthusiasm and appear as cool and calm as possible outside while my insides where waving pom-poms, doing the wave and screaming YES to the above questions! I signed up immediately and pasted a picture of myself on the site. The very same picture you see here on the left...
Then the stress began. See, one does not merely sign up and then start meeting people as happens on other sites.

A few seconds after I had registered, I got the following email:


Dear Robert,

Your BeautifulPeople profile has been successfully activated.

During the next 48 hours your profile will be rated by the existing members of the opposite sex. If the majority finds your profile attractive, you will be granted coveted membership.

Please note that you are able to mail members while your profile is being rated.

Monitor your profile rating status:

During the 48 hour rating period you can monitor your running status in the rating section.

I was sure that everyone would agree with my mom and rate me as totally adorable. My blonde hair. Blue eyes. And did you see those teeth? Could they be any whiter? If I was on Grey’s Anatomy, I would be known as McAdorable, causing people to code with just a smile. It was with this level of confidence I decided I would be able to wait out the 48 hours. 48 whole hours. 48 times for the energetic cuckoo to pop out and do his little cuckoo thing. Time does indeed go by so slowly. I kept trying to log in to see how fabulous everyone thought I was, but I was always denied due to the high volume of people accessing the site, people I was sure were voting for me. Picking me. Choosing me. Loving me.

Then this morning, after a whole week, the results were in:

Dear Robert,

Unfortunately, your application to BeautifulPeople Network was not successful. The members of BeautifulPeople did not find your profile attractive enough.

Surely, there must be a mistake. I checked the picture again and yes, I was still looking good, shiny skin and white teeth. I decided to log in and check out the site, see these beautiful people that had rejected me. As I was browsing and clicking on picture after picture, a line from The Color Purple kept going through my head… It was Miss Shug saying “You sho is ugly!” I have not seen a bigger collection of ugly people anywhere since that one time I went to a professional wrestling match in Los Angeles in the late 80’s. I also checked to see who voted. Nobody. I checked to see who visited my profile. Nobody. But somehow, I rated a 4.89 out of a possible 10.

Well, I decided that one rejection was not going to hold me down. Nobody puts McAdorable in the corner! I resubmitted my profile for a re-vote. I am sure that since I have now added witty text and fully intend to post messages everywhere to drive traffic to myself, I will get voted in.

And then I will dump them.