The Hot Friend

“Is she the hot friend?” The what? “My theory is that women become friends with girls that are either super hot to increase their access to good drinks and hot guys or they choose a less attractive friend to make them always the hot girl. So, this girl you want to introduce me to, is she the hot friend?” This question was posed by a co-worker I was trying to set up. How can I answer that? The question anticipates that I know if I am in fact, the hot friend or the less attractive friend. Talk about the pandora’s box.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Right. Right? Right?!? Well in some ways – yes. But there are societal norms that tell us, nay, confirm to us, whether we or our friends are in fact, attractive. Weight, skin tone, whether we really don’t want to take a picture next to our buddy because it would take three of her power-aerobics teaching vegan-eating self to make up our mass – those things all seem to answer the basic question of whether we are in fact, worth the time of a man to pursue.

Hot by Comparison: One theory suggests that women choose friends or other single women to go out with in order to be “hot by comparison.” So if you’ve got bad hair and a small chest, you hang out with girls with no hair and saggy massive tits the size of a small metropolitan area to make you look hot by comparison. A variation of this is moving from a big city to a small town to get at the remaining men. Sure, there are few single guys to choose from, but their current choices are girls they turned down in junior high or their friends’ newly divorced mothers, and you, by comparison, are hot for Billings, Montana. You go girl.

If you’re the less attractive one: Look, practically every woman has her “frenemy.” The girl who you love for who she is, but who puts you in shadow every time she’s around by her beauty. She may be tall and modelesque, while you’re only tall enough for the tilt-a-whirl because of your three-inch-heels. She may have published two books on tantric sex and have posed in the classy suggestive pictures to show exactly how to bring couples to blissful ecstasy. Or maybe your prom date fell in deep, unrequited love with her and you just can’t let it go – yes still. It doesn’t matter- she makes you feel bad about yourself- and worse yet- you KNOW it’s NOT her fault- it’s yours for being jealous of her beauty when all she ever did was love you and tell you you’re great.

Ultimately, I think all these theories are wrong. Most women choose friends on the basis of common interests, shared experiences and a deep need to make sure no one ever knows about weekend freshman year in Tijuana. Friends worth having are ones who make you feel beautiful for who you are, not how you look. It’s our challenge to find our beauty in ourselves, despite the conversation that begins, “My jeans got wet!” and finishes with, “I’ll buy new ones,” with the subtext being, yours, eight sizes larger than mine, wouldn’t stay up on my skinny little hips. But that’s not her fault. It’s mine for not believing that love can find us both- straight or curly hair, ten or twenty pounds different, size 0 or 10, and always, when the time is right.