The summer before I started college, I vowed to myself that I would become a new me. A better me. That I’d go through the transformation that they’d show on TV, and suddenly my life would be better. I was sick and tired of feeling worthless, of the popular white girls bullying me because I didn’t match the beauty standards set in place. I wanted to be pretty.

So this is what I did: I became a ‘new’ me.

I chopped off the curtain of hair that I had been using to hide my plain face since middle school and immediately felt 10 lbs lighter.

I said goodbye to glasses and saw the world in new (expensive) HD contacts, ones that I could finally afford now that I was going off to college and was working. New clothes, new hair, new everything. A shit ton of makeup went a long way—foundation with additional SPF 42 for the flaws and discoloration, eyeliner to make my eyes big, and a long endless line of lipstick that I would demolish, tube after tube for that glamorous smile. Blush for health, powder for brows, concealer for everything else.

I sanded away my personality and became a blank slate. It was a lobotomy, really. Take out all the core aspects that I hated about myself, file away the edges, fit in new pieces, and then I wasn’t just good as new, I was better. 

Years of trial and failure on learning social cues let me cater my personality to click with people just the right way. I became an experience. Suddenly, I’m funnier, smarter, brighter, happier—it was the happiness of the bewildered, a disbelieving joy one experiences when they’re not sure whether they are dreaming or not. I had strange newfound confidence that had me standing straighter, my chin up, and striding as if I had someplace to be (in actuality, I was late for class because I’d always put on makeup before I went out). 

When I opened my mouth and shat a torrent of words that people found unexpectedly hilarious, disturbing, and composed of everything and anything that you were always thinking in your head. It went from what would’ve been awkward babble to clever dialogue and witty humor. 

And for some reason, people liked that when it came from a ‘pretty girl’.

Out of nowhere, I was somebody. People liked me more than they ever had when I was ugly.

Do you know how great that felt?

Do you know how hated that made me feel?

To know that all I had to do was change something so superficial about myself, that people begin to treat me as if I had a soul? That all I had gone through, could’ve evaporated like a desert dream once I started being conventionally prettier, and with that came a charming personality and enough confidence to make pigs fly–that all I had to do was wake up from the ugly and be ‘beautiful’?

Why do they treat me like I’m worthy now? The same people who sneered and bullied me, who made me feel like trash—they like me now? Because I’m suddenly worth their time?

Here is what I figured when I became ‘pretty’.

People became kinder to me. A ‘pretty’, smiling face makes others smile instead of flinching. It’s easier to make friends, to get invited to parties, get romantic/sexual interest. But they don’t know me. They weren’t there for the painful rebirth into a ‘better’, ‘happier’, more ‘beautiful’ me. They weren’t there for the bullying, the despair, shame, disgust–and now they think they know me?

Here is a lie they will try to sell you: all you have to do is be attractive, and you can be happy.

My self-esteem fluctuates, because so much of my happiness depends on my appearance, of maintaining a certain build, or weight, or face. Because once I start associating my appearance with my self-worth, I can’t help but want to be worth more. More love, more friendship, more happiness.

I can’t get enough.

I never want to go back to the way I was treated, I never want to go back to being that ‘loser’ again. But the truth is–I shouldn’t have had to become ‘pretty’ to be somebody. I shouldn’t have to buckle under western beauty standards to be treated like a human being, how fucked up is that? I can bend people’s perceptions, but it doesn’t change reality–deep down, I’m still the same person I was when I was ‘ugly’, the person I am even now.

Why did I have to be a ‘feminine, pretty girl’ to be treated like somebody?