Why People Expect You to Look Bad

If you are in certain situations, people expect you to look in a certain way. This is an awfully vague sentence, but I know for a fact that it made each and every one of you feel something. You might remember a comment of someone you know or a feeling you have experienced. 

When you reach a certain age, for most of us this means when you start college, your responsibilities start to increase exponentially. Maybe not always but at some point in time your schedule gets so messy that you stop making a schedule. You just flow into life. When people look at your eye bags and ask whether you sleep badly, you start answering them like: ‘‘what do you mean by sleep’’ in a sarcastic way. 

In a world where fast consumption rules, this is no surprise, I don’t think this is the part where things get weird. At least we got used to this. Most of us think that being busy,  getting things done in a way that we barely eat lunch in time, is the new normal. Until you get a steady job and things like that. As I said, this is not the story I’m interested in. 

I want to direct your attention to the idea that if you keep putting effort into yourself, look your best, wear nice clothes, create extra time to go to the gym, you aren’t actually that busy. The idea is that if you are working hard and getting little sleep you should look like a mess. Why exactly? Can’t someone have the right to protect her/his well-being if they are also doing good in a job or academia? I’m not saying that everyone should look like a model 24/7. However, everyone has their own standards of living/looking, and I’m saying that once your schedule gets busy, people think you should immediately look accordingly and lower these standards.

If you look healthy and energetic, you can’t say that you are too overwhelmed to have a new assignment. Or if you are a woman and you wear makeup, then you are too comfortable. Because you can obviously stop doing makeup and your 57 steps skincare routine and get one more thing done instead. 

I know that you know, you can protect yourself from these ''beside the point expectations'' with the right reactions. However, the point is, it is so sad when people are not able to see, it is those little moments that give them the time to breathe and the strength to continue. Or it might just be a priority or a hobby or something else. Whatever it might be, a persons’ good healthy look doesn’t necessarily need to be related to how busy it is. If you have faced a comment such as this, I hope that you immediately stop caring because this is pure nonsense. And if you are one of those ‘‘I know the best and you can’t possibly look like this if you were to be busy as you say’’ people, consciously or unconsciously, I hope you start minding your own business.

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