I used to be very hot.
Now, I’m 61. I’m not hot. I’ve had two babies. I’ve been sleep-deprived for most of my life. My hair is a mess—maybe an unspoken symptom of something I never got diagnosed. I’ve never been legally married, which feels ironic, because back when I was young and beautiful, I used to wonder how those girls were ever going to find husbands, looking like that.
In high school, someone started a rumor I was on the cover of Seventeen magazine. Freshman girls followed me around, giggling, wide-eyed with admiration, as if I carried some secret they desperately needed to learn. It lasted for months. One girl finally worked up the nerve to ask about it, and I let her down easy: I was a model, but not in Seventeen. It wasn’t technically a lie. But even if my parents hadn’t been too dysfunctional to help me chase that kind of success, I don’t know if I could’ve survived the weight of being seen that way for real.
I was raised to believe my beauty was my value—the value, the singular currency that mattered. And even as someone shy, uncomfortable in my own skin, I learned quickly what it meant to own a room without even trying. Walk into a restaurant, and conversations stop. People look. Eyes stick to you like humidity in summer. You don’t ask for it, but you learn to expect it.
Until one day, it stops.
I couldn’t compete anymore—because the competition was over, and I had aged out of it. But the hunger for validation? That’s a harder thing to let go of. I remember shrinking inside myself when another woman walked into the room and outshone me. I’d feel hollow, like my worth had been siphoned out of me by her presence alone. When you’re taught your beauty is your identity, the fading of that beauty feels like dying in slow motion.
Men used to fall in love with me without knowing me. They wrote me poems, mailed me letters from across the country, made declarations like I was an object they needed to possess. It wasn’t love—it was projection. I was a canvas they painted their fantasies on. Every conversation with a man became a negotiation. Please don’t ask me out. Please don’t hate me when I turn you down. And when I did? They did hate me. Their entitlement curdled into anger, like I owed them something I never agreed to give.
And that’s how you end up in situations where your beauty becomes the reason for harassment. I got fired from a magazine job by a man I wouldn’t date. I didn’t even say no directly—just tried to be polite, suggested a group lunch instead of a date. That was enough to shatter his ego. He made sure I paid for it.
I remember one summer in Park Slope, wearing shorts, just walking down the street. A truck screeched to a halt in reverse, tires whining, and a voice from the window screamed, “OH! MY! GOD!” Like I was a spectacle, not a person. That kind of attention is exhausting in a way no one warns you about.
But when it stopped? I was relieved.
No more pressure to be anything. No more obsessive stares or impossible expectations. No more games of proving myself the most beautiful woman in the room. I stopped wearing makeup. Why bother? At 61, there’s freedom in invisibility.
There’s also loneliness.
The young men I used to effortlessly command attention from? Now they’re embarrassed to even talk to me. I eat lunch alone, not because I’m unfriendly but because age makes you disappear in a culture obsessed with youth.
I remember the power I had, though. I could charm my way out of anything—speeding tickets, awkward situations, uncomfortable conversations. Once, I blew through a red light without a license, registration, or proof of insurance, and I still walked away without a ticket. All I had was my charm and a New York Times article with my byline as makeshift ID. The cop couldn’t help but laugh.
Today? I wouldn’t stand a chance. And honestly, maybe that’s fair.
People assume beautiful women are stupid. It’s a lazy, vicious stereotype. But I wasn’t stupid. I was educated, capable, deeply uncomfortable with how beauty erased everything else about me. The worst part wasn’t the attention—it was that I could never be taken seriously while I had it. Now that I’m older, I finally get respect. But it comes at the cost of being seen at all.
Sometimes I miss the perks of being hot—doors held open, strangers competing for my attention, the way a room seemed to brighten when I walked into it. But those perks came with a price: the assumption that I owed something to the people who gave me that attention.
Now, I watch beautiful women with compassion, not envy. I know what they’re going through. The way other women tear them down. The entitlement from men who think beauty means accessibility. The assumption that kindness equals an invitation.
I tell my daughter: Be grateful you’re not beautiful in that way. Be pretty. Be smart. Be free of the weight you don’t even realize beauty brings.
I’ve lived both lives. There was an upside. There was a downside. And I think I’m lucky to have survived both.