A former co-worker and I used to call a mutual acquaintance "Double Face Lady." From a distance, and under certain lighting, she looked hot. Sexy, in fact. But when you faced her head-on, it was like you were looking a heifer in the eyes.
Not pretty.
While a face's composition seems straightforward -- eyes, nose, ears and mouth -- the meet market often subtly encourages its participants to intricately dissect those elements. The result isn't always pretty.
Enter the butterface (aka: but-her-face), a term Urban Dictionary defines as a "chick with a hell of a nice body, but the face is ugly." While it's associated primarily with women, I'll be the first to attest to the fact that men are hardly exempt from the butterface curse.
Call me superficial, but I say this is one of the toughest obstacles in the dating arena. Especially since the majority of hookups are initiated in poorly lit rooms. There are few things harsher than waking up to realize that the guy you thought was a dead-on Brad Pitt lookalike actually bears a closer resemblance to Shrek.
This article gives a list of the top 10 female celebrity butterfaces, including Tori Spelling, Lisa Rinna, Christina Ricci and Haylie Duff. At No. 1? Fergie. Let's just say there's likely little disagreement on that one.
A term like "butterface" may be a bit extreme, but I think everyone has an angle of their body that they think is best seen in the dark.
Which is fine. In fact, that fact alone might be enough to challenge the images of perfection that we so often attach from a distance.
Maybe instead of promoting insecurities, butterfaces remind us to accept nothing at face value. Even a face itself.
Happy Wednesday, everybody. Sorry for the lack of posts yesterday. I was suffering from "Star Wars" withdrawal.
