So the thing I hate the most about being middle aged is not the lines, wrinkles, sagging, age spots, grey hair and cellulite—even though they are demoralizing. It’s the incessant talking about them. Lately, it seems all my women friends over the age of 45 are obsessing about all the cosmetic work they’d like to have done and embarking on in-depth and monotonous conversations about it. And these not-so little chats never turn out well.
Here’s the thing, when one woman starts talking about getting her eyes done, she will most likely be miffed if her friends don’t say something like, “But you have beautiful eyes and you look great.” But at least half of the room is thinking, “Well, if she thinks she needs to get her eyes done, I really need to get mine done. I look way worse than she does.” So there will certainly be no reassurances from that group that eye girl is just swell sans surgery. And now those girls think they need it too.
And another friend may be thinking, “If she really wants to get her eyes done, I should support her in this decision.” So she doesn’t reassure her friend wanting the eye surgery that she looks great the way she is, either.
And let’s just say, one friend does have the presence of mind to try and tell her friend she looks totally fabulous and to please not mess with her beautiful face since plastic surgery can be iffy. There’s no way in hell eye-girl will believe her.
To be honest with you, these conversations leave me feeling insecure, angry, and well… bored. And I can’t see how they make anyone else feel any better. They remind me of the ones I had with this exact same group when we were teenagers about acne, greasy hair, developing hips and non-existent or too-full boobs. We are all approaching 50 and it seems we haven’t grown up one single bit.
Now I know how my husband must feel when I ask him that horrible of all horrible questions: “Do these jeans make me look fat?” He is pretty much screwed no matter what he says. If he replies in the negative, no matter how resounding it is, I will mostly likely fly off to the bedroom in tears to change, because I can’t imagine that he is possibly telling me the truth. And if, heaven forbid, he says, “yes,” he will suffer unspeakable tortures.
And what kills me about these types of tète-a-tètes with my friends is that the women obsessing about their appearances are all accomplished, beautiful, brilliant, well-educated, kind, funny, loving, interesting and in solid relationships with good jobs. And why can’t we (myself included) just be content with all that we’ve achieved and experienced thus far and hopefully will continue to achieve and experience? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all just say, “So I don’t look like I did at 32 but I’m not 32 anymore.”
I wish I could. So I’m working on it. Having had surgery for breast cancer, I’m not all that keen about going under the knife again electively. But it doesn’t help that my social circle and apparently every last person on earth talks about getting cosmetic work done all the time. And what if my friends do get all of these surgeries and I don’t? They’ll be young and gorgeous looking and I’ll look, well, my age(?!!) And that feels terrible, though it really shouldn’t.
I am hoping one day (and make it soon, please) we will stop peering in the mirror and pulling our faces taut and grabbing handfuls of flesh at the backs of our thighs (real or imagined) and mentally calculating the costs of lipo and a facelift and start thinking and talking about things that are more interesting, productive and positive. Aren’t there people to help? Families to nurture? Friends to enjoy? Books to read? Films to see? Trails to traverse? Art to view? Music to hear? A whole world to travel and explore?
I am not against plastic surgery in principle. I know people who have gotten work done who look and feel great. The difference is that they don’t talk about it.
And if we can’t all stop this tedious moaning about Botox, facelifts, blepharoplasties and lipo, it would be really wonderful if those people who do that hovering squatty thing over a public toilet seat (and you know who you are) sat down so it’s clean and dry for the next person who uses it. Don’t you think it’s the very least we can do for one another? Ciao for now my friends. Stay happy and healthy.