I was ugly from about sixth grade all the way through high school. The worst was in high school. I had braces, acne, glasses and dark curly hair. I didn‘t play any sports – my only real hobby was playing chess and I read a lot of comic books.

 

　　Basically, no girl was chasing me. I used to pretend my television was a computer that could tell me which girl in my classes was in love with me. The TV knew but it didn‘t know how to output the answer to me, so I just waited.

 

　　I asked out one girl in ninth grade and she walked away as quickly as she could without even responding. I remember another guy came up to her right then and asked her: “Do you need help?” That was the end of my attempts at dating in high school. I didn‘t attend any prom and held my breath until college where things got much better, only to get better still in graduate school and then “the real world”. www.joozone.com

 

　　Everybody wants to look good. It doesn‘t matter how smart you are. It doesn‘t matter how funny – or how rich. Although all of these things compensate to an extent. Not to belittle this compensation. Sometimes you don‘t want to go out with or marry the most beautiful person because they never compensated in these other ways. They might not be funny, for instance, or they might not be kind or sympathetic to others. Sometimes the teasing in the school playground is the best training ground for life. But maybe I‘m just telling myself that.

 

　　In any case, the plight of those who don‘t look good has been hurt by the shrinking work week. In 1900, the average work week was 60 hours as many people worked 12 hours a day, five days a week in factories. Now the average work week is 35 hours.

 

　　And believe me, people don‘t work 35 hours a week. They instant message each other at least 10 hours, take lunch breaks for another 10 hours, and hang out in meetings for another 10 hours a week. The average person who works in an office probably works about five hours a week. That means they have more free time, more social time, more hours per week where they need to look good.