Vanity, Marriage, And A Hall Pass Trap

Plus I give my physique a generous strike zone

The before and after image below has been splashed across Twitter and has made its way onto Substack where I’ve read general takes on it by some of my favorite Substack writers including

Cartoons Hate Her

,

Lirpa Strike

, and

Phoebe Maltz Bovy

.

Someone took a poll asking people which version they preferred. Most women say they prefer the before picture on the left and most men the after picture on the right.

But like the Wicked Child in the Passover Seder liturgy, my reaction to the images was “how does this concern me?”

I agreed with the majority of women who preferred the “before-guy” on the left. Because he seemed perfectly fit by the standards of my own current fitness, which are the dispositive standards, because I’m vain.

I could relate to before-guy; he seems well-adjusted, normal, approachable, not full of himself. The sort of person I’d set up on a date with a friend.

On the other hand, “after-guy” looks abnormal and obsessive. Why would my friend, before-guy, do that to himself?

Obviously, one of them looks more like a serial killer.

Comparison

I took the images displayed on my computer into my bathroom, removed my shirt, and compared my own body to the body of before-guy. At certain angles, I saw a similarity. He’s a bit more toned, but at 63 I’m twenty-three years older than he is. So I gave myself permission to believe he and I were “in the same general ballpark.” If I were an umpire and you were a baseball fan, you might say that I was giving myself a generous strike zone.

Next came my “acid test.” Still shirtless, I approached my wife Debbie and asked her to pass judgment. Specifically, I asked her “which body do you prefer?”

It was a three-body question.

She gave the before and after images on the screen a glance, gave me a glance, and said, “I only like you.” Then added, “And Ethan Hawke.”

A certain sprezzatura

We had watched a rom-com the night before, “Juliet, Naked” with a great cast of Rose Byrne, Chris O’Dowd, and of course Ethan Hawke. Below, as he appeared in the movie.

Apparently, Debbie has always “liked” Ethan Hawke and the characters he plays. I pointed out in real life he might be very different. No, she said, I think he’d be pretty much like his characters. A certain nonchalance, an unstudied cool, what the Italians call sprezzatura.

So, my vanity about my physique at age 63 had led me into a one-sided game of “Hall Pass,” with Debbie granting herself permission that in the unlikely event she ever met Ethan…

“No,” she said, “I wouldn’t ever. Probably not.”

She said it with a smile. Was she teasing me? Yes. I’m positive. Almost.

Celebrity comparisons

I asked what about me? What about my Hall Pass? Debbie said I would undoubtedly ask for a brunette. As a blonde, Debbie takes personal offense at any positive comment I make about the attractiveness of a brunette.

I struggled to think of a Hall Pass for myself that would be Ethan Hawke-adjacent. I suggested Winona Ryder or Natalie Portman. Debbie said no, they wouldn’t be right for you. You wouldn’t like them.

Then Debbie suggested Elisabeth Shue. Debbie has been mistaken for her over the years. Here they both are at around twenty years of age, circa early 1980s. Elisabeth Shue in her Karate Kid era and Debbie just before I met her. ¹

Basically, Debbie was suggesting that my Hall Pass was herself!

If Debbie had Elisabeth Shue in her pocket, what did I have? Some forty years ago on a night I‘ll never forget, a woman named Melinda said I looked like Daniel Day-Lewis. Melinda was the office manager at the firm I toiled for. She was the first and last person to ever “DDL” me. I didn’t see the resemblance but, still, I’ve held onto Melinda’s comment with an iron grip.

Obviously, one of us is a movie star.

Marriage and mutual attraction

I’ve been married for forty years, so what use is it to be vain about my appearance and to harbor aspirational celebrity comparisons? After all, natural selection is all about the ability to attract a mate, and long ago I was granted merciful victory in the mating game. Nature has had its way with me and now I’m of no further use to it.

If my vanity has any underlying utility, it must be to keep my mate.

There’s not a doubt in my mind that mutual attraction has been a key factor in my forty-year marriage. When I look at Debbie, I feel fortunate that I’m married to her. And she says she feels the same way when she looks at me.

But what does attraction mean? There’s conventional attractiveness set by our culture and there’s attraction set by our individual tastes. And of course there’s attraction based on all the qualities that stand apart from physical attributes.

In a relationship of any length, maybe our aesthetic preferences become fine-tuned by what we see every day. Debbie tells me she’s not attracted to conventional “pretty-boys” like George Clooney and Tom Cruise. She prefers some scruff and imperfections. I’ve been happy to oblige.

As for me, when I’m walking on the street or in the Park I see a lot of attractive women. There’s no shortage on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I find myself giving special attention to women in jeans with blonde hair and a downtown vibe. A few times a year, I’ll admire a blonde woman from afar or from an oblique angle. When I come closer, I’ll discover that the woman I’ve been admiring is Debbie.

And when I look at Debbie I see both the girl I first met and the woman she’s become. That combination makes me feel an affection that runs so deep I would have thought it impossible if I didn’t feel it so often.

It’s also impossible to untangle what’s familiarly pleasing from pure aesthetic preference. Or from everything your mate has done for you and meant to you. For attraction to persist for a long time you must fundamentally like and respect your mate and you must find their physical presence pleasing.

If it’s true that in a successful marriage, both spouses must age well both in personality and appearance, then that’s four independent variables, any one of which could pose a test for a marriage.

But even the most successful marriages are tested. The virtue of resilience may mean that the harder and more numerous the tests, the more a marriage becomes deeper and stronger. More antifragile. ²

The grey flag of surrender

Maybe it’s okay to declare defeat in the battle to maintain physical attraction as long as the defeat is declared by both spouses at the same time. Maybe all is fine if over time there’s a consistent symmetry in mutual attractiveness.

Debbie, in editing this essay, told me about her “pact of grey.” She will continue to color her hair blonde until my own hair turns grey of its own volition. We’re the same age, and she refuses to look older than I do.

For all of us, age will make a mockery of our vanity. It’s inevitable. One day it will happen.

My vanity, having just returned from a haircut, speaks and says “One day. But not today!”

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Question for the comments: Are we hard-wired to be vain or is vanity a function of our appearance-obsessed culture?

1. I wrote about the night Debbie and I met in “You Had Me At A Glance.”

Leaving Las Vegas is a dark movie. Elisabeth Shue plays a prostitute who links up with Nicolas Cage playing a screenwriter determined to drink himself to death. Below are comparative photographs from that era.

Debbie’s is from my post “A Fight Reveals The Fault Lines From My Marriage”

2. “My Best Relationships Are Antifragile”