「故事·听力」I'm Ugly And Proud Of It
I'm Ugly And Proud Of It
This is Doris, and she has a story to tell about her constant frustration. She’ll tell it to you straight: she’s the opposite of good-looking. That is, she’s simply ugly. It’s not that she’s an attention-seeker or anything who wants to hear things like “Oh no, Dory, you’re so pretty, don’t say that!” In her opinion, no one in their right mind would call her pretty.
Your looks are a genetic lottery, as they say. And in Doris’ case, she didn’t get a single correct number called out. Both her parents look fine, and no one knows whom she takes after. She’s also totally healthy, has no impairments or deformations, and it’s only her face that startles people. Her older brother also looks fine, just like her parents.
Doris would be happy to tell you that she’s now accustomed to seeing her reflection, but in actual fact, even now she wants to call the exorcist every time she sees herself in the mirror. However, it feels so nice that she can be humorous about it now instead of telling a dramatic story full of suffering. But she hasn’t always had this relaxed attitude towards herself. As you can imagine, over the years she’s compiled a truly golden compilation of “motivational” phrases and insults that an ugly person might receive throughout their life. When she was little, it was a bit easier to live with her looks. Toddlers normally don’t notice such things. But their parents do. She still remembers some of the comments that were expressed to her parents when they were in a play park: “Oh, it’s much more important for a girl to be nice and pleasant than to have good looks, isn’t it?” And she remembers seeing her mom’s sour expression.
Doris’ parents have always supported her. They’ve never called her a beauty, but they’ve taught her to truly understand what her strong and weak points are. That’s turned out to be very helpful during her life. Her problems with self-acceptance started when she first went to school. You know how cruel kids can be. She heard nasty comments of every kind – mocking, derogatory, and just plain offensive.
She even ended up finding some friends after all. Doris has a kind personality, and people like talking to her. But there’s always another benefit of being friends with a person like her: Doris’ pretty friends looked absolutely stunning in comparison with her. So that was her social role at school – “the ugly friend”, although that definitely sounds better than “outcast” even if it kills your dignity. Obviously, Doris thought, she wasn’t going to find a boyfriend – never ever. Her normally good spirits started to go down, and she was pretty depressed at the time.
And so, Doris was depressed. All of her efforts to improve the situation didn’t work. No one was attracted to her. But she had always done her best to deal with every situation with humor, because it's easier to survive things by laughing than by suffering. Once, someone witty gave her the nickname “Yoda”, because – well you know, from a certain angle they looked like twins. And that’s what they started calling her at school. She thought it was somehow funny, because no one meant to offend her by calling her it, so she decided to take it to an absurd extreme: She started cosplaying Yoda! She spoke like Yoda, she called everyone “young padawan” and was always giving out wise comments. And once for Halloween she went to school dressed as and wearing makeup like master Yoda (not that she needed too much makeup, to be honest). It was an enormous success! Finally, people appreciated her good nature and started laughing with her, not at her!
That’s when she understood that maybe the situation was not so hopeless. She slowly won the hearts of her schoolmates and earned the reputation of school comedian number one. She came to the realization that people are cruel only towards those who are weak and embarrassed, and praise those who are strong and live in peace with their situation. Doris can’t blame them, that’s just how psychology works. And that’s when she thought she could find some benefits in her appearance, even if it seemed impossible. At that time, she’d had several auditions in drama schools, and had received very good feedback about her comic skill and “unusual face”. Imagine for a moment that everyone is tired of cute faces, and good actresses with non-standard looks are really valued.
So now, Doris is finally at peace with herself. After school she wants to go to an acting academy, and she likes to think that her face will be her trademark. She still looks odd, but now she’s actually proud of her looks, rather than ashamed or depressed. And that’s what she wants to tell anyone who feels embarrassed by their own peculiarities – be proud of who you are rather than ashamed, and may the Force be with you, young padawan!