I Wanted Love & All I Got Was This Lousy Manicure
"Beauty does not deliver as much as is believed."
This summer, I broke down. I did it. I drove myself and my horrible, ugly hands to a local New Jersey nail salon and paid $45 for someone else to soak, sand, snip, file, polish, and paint my fingernails for me — my first manicure in six (five? seven?) years.
I got a manicure because I loved a man. We’d been dating for many months, and he still hadn’t told me he loved me, and it seemed like too long a time to still not know, you know? I knew. I was sick with the stuff! Love, I mean — and anticipation (would he say it?)1 and anxiety (does he feel it?) and loathing (of the self- variety). I am not going to suddenly become more charming, I thought. I am not going to become more lovable. If he doesn’t love me yet, he won’t. Unless… Maybe if I had gorgeous, gorgeous hands?? (It makes you crazy, etc.)
He was teaching at a college upstate in July and I planned to visit him there. I got my nails done before the trip. The polish smudged within minutes and I scraped the rest of it off with my teeth within days, like a feral animal chewing through a cage, and no, this person did not profess some newfound love for me. (He is not the kind of man who would care about a manicure. This is part of why I love him, you see.) And it gets worse! All that salon-grade sanding and painting made my post-mani fingernails uglier — thin and brittle with a deep, discolored dent at the growing-out mark.
Look:
I was reminded of the whole ordeal while reading “Valuing Beauty” by philosopher Heather Widdows in the Warwick Journal of Philosophy. Widdows says:
“The extent to which beauty is believed to deliver the goods of the good life goes far beyond what beauty actually delivers. That beauty does not deliver as much as is believed does not stop people valuing it and feeling shame if they fail to attain it. Accordingly, beauty is shaping what we value, how we judge ourselves and others, and what we do.”
I wanted love. I went for a manicure. I wound up with lousy-looking nails, and less money. I learned nothing. (Maybe if I were skinnier… ?) And so it goes.
I know what you’re thinking: “Why didn’t you say it to him?” It is not because I value traditional gender roles! It is because I am a coward.
Thanks for sharing this more vulnerable side of yourself. It's always good to be reminded that people we respect and admire -- for their intellect, their integrity, their values -- are sometimes subject to the same insecurities and moments of weakness as we are!
hahaha amazing. i just shaved my legs for the first time in over a year because of the extended family i’d have to see over thanksgiving. was i in pants the whole time? pretty much. was it worth it?? i have no clue!
I got warm on thanksgiving, and changed into a skirt. did i hear an uncle making a comment about me having shaved just quiet enough to plead innocent but just loud enough that he knew i’d hear it? yes. i ignored him but like...i knew my hairy legs bothered you people!! even though they do not bother me okay!
Then there were all the comments about how i “look so good!!” aka I’m smaller than i was last year but ppl i was healthy at both weights! and you haven’t seen me in months why not ask me about something interesting!! i was polite in those sTuPid conversations but have been yelling at them in my head ever since!!! maybe i’ll write an angry letter post of my rant this week 🫠🥲 I still think about that amazing one you wrote to your grandpa and posted😫👏🏼