Beautiful

I saw an old friend today.

She looked like she had been through a natural disaster. Her hair was dishevelled, and a bit damp. Her clothes looked like she was desperately trying anything to stay warm, regardless of what those clothes happened to look like. Her face looked exhausted. She looked like a mess and not very attractive.

Later, I google searched for hot women in dresses on the internet. After a few minutes, I quit, because they didn't look all that hot. I mean, yes, they looked "hot," if "hot" had a specific definition and could be factory-produced. Makeup here, here, and here; this colour with this colour; this certain expression. They just weren't... attractive.

I just kept comparing the models to my friend and the models just couldn't compare, even though she was not at her best. Why was that?

I thought about it some more. The models looked shallow, fake, unreal. Maybe her colours clashed, but she was less than a foot away from me. Her curves were real; her complexion was real; she was three-dimensional, living, breathing, right there.

So there you have it. People are real. Pictures aren't. Real is beautiful. Fake is not. Alive looks dynamic. Inanimate looks... dead.

P.S. And if you're reading this, dear friend, you're supposed to take this as a silent compliment.