My best friend has the most unique “beauty”: she has a unibrow. When I first met her, I was surprised. It was not something I had seen before.
My friend had always had a unibrow, but it wasn’t until she hit poly that she started to get teased for it. She was made fun of and her peers would call her names. This made her self-conscious and she started to consider waxing or shaving it off.
But then, she had an epiphany. She realized that she didn’t need to change her appearance in order to fit in. She realized that it was her inner beauty that mattered, not her physical appearance.
My friend decided that she was going to embrace her unibrow and she began to walk around like a Wookie, proud of her uniqueness. She even started to tell people that they “must believe in inner beauty” in order to truly be beautiful. I admired her strength and confidence.
At first, I thought my friend was being noble and admirable, but then I started to think that maybe she was just being ignorant. She was telling everyone that inner beauty is more important than physical appearance, but then she was also telling them that they shouldn’t change their appearance to fit in. It seemed like she was telling people to accept themselves, but then also telling them not to conform.
I was torn. I wanted to be supportive of my friend, but I also felt like maybe she was being a bit naive.
I wanted her to be happy, but I also wanted her to understand that sometimes it is necessary to make changes in order to fit in. I wanted her to know that there was nothing wrong with changing her appearance if she wanted to.
My friend and I had lots of long conversations about this topic. I tried to make her see that sometimes it is necessary to change certain aspects of ourselves in order to fit in. I told her that she didn’t have to change her appearance, but if she wanted to, she shouldn’t be ashamed of it.
She eventually agreed that it was ok to make changes if she wanted to, but she still insisted that inner beauty was what mattered most.
She finally gave in after her other friends started to have boyfriends and she could not find any.