Out Of My League

The D.U.F.F. — Designated Ugly Fat Friend. “Every group of friends has one...and if you don’t know who it is chances are, it’s probably you,” the beloved Robbie Amell said through his furrowed eyebrows in 2015, as I flipped off the TV, heaving a sigh heavier than a 13-year-old should be capable of. I determined that I was the D.U.F.F. I thought I was the ugliest person in my friend group. Call off the search parties! It’s ok, we’ve found her! She was here all along!

At the end of the movie, Bianca, the mid-sized girl (gasp!) ends up with Robbie Amell, the hottie jock with a waistline so accentuated you could replace his slutty little waist with the first letter of “victim-blaming.” The credits roll like a bulldozer, with silly bloopers playing on the sides like grainy childhood home videos. If you haven’t watched the movie, here’s all you need to know: at some point, Bella Thorne shows up and says “Hey fatso, get away from my boyfriend!” The rest is a blur. Oh, Bella Thorne, you’re so relatable! Once you were singing about how you needed Adderall and now you show your biddies to old men online. Sending love.

Moral of the D.U.F.F.: just because you’re ugly, doesn’t mean you can’t have a good personality. About a week ago, this movie popped up on my radar again when I had a date planned for the weekend. I was at my brother’s house over in Allston bringing him some zero-sugar banana bars my mother had shipped to Boston, and he asked to see what the girl looked like. “Oh shit, nice work!” he gawked and raised his hand to high-five me like we were baseball players. In the second photo on her feed, she glanced sheepishly at the camera over her shoulder, her long straight hair whipping around in the wind, her outfit revealing her midriff, and the beautiful city of Boston, blurred behind her. She is very attractive— conventionally attractive. I thought back to the end of the D.U.F.F. when Robbie and Bianca swap saliva atop some kind of boulder in the middle of the forest. How wrong it felt to watch. He’s so hot! She’s just not as hot as him!

My brother and I kept chatting but our high five kept echoing in my ears. Nice work. Nice work, me, you’ve won a date with someone attractive! Success! This doesn’t happen often so take this when you can get it! I felt gross and wanted to wash my hands off. This poor girl didn’t deserve to win a prize, one, and two, why was I some kind of schlumpy bidder, trying to get a date with the prettiest girl in town? I’m a size 16, my boobs do not swoop up, my jawline is like the part of the baking process when the dough hasn’t been put in the oven and I have the best kind of nose: a Jewish one. It’s got a sick nasty curve, and I’ve taken the time to learn to love it. I’ve taken time to learn to love myself. What if people who are conventionally attractive don’t understand how I’ve had to learn to accept myself in the eyes of others in addition to myself?

I don’t aim to minimize anyone’s insecurities or struggles. I am also only referring to accepting my bigger body and how someone with a smaller figure may not understand all the ways that I’ve learned to reshape how I see myself through the eyes of the public. I can’t even begin to understand people’s lives and how they’ve learned to embrace themselves, their bodies, bellies, abilities, disabilities, skin color, skin type, height, hair, and noses when there’s a whole industry out there telling them they look the wrong way. I’ve taken what God’s given me (in this case, God is Joseph Gordon Levitt in yoga pants) and seen it in a way I consider worthy of beauty and attraction.

When there’s media being produced like the D.U.F.F., spreading the idea that there is some category for people who are just uglier than the rest who need to work a little harder to achieve the love of the “conventionally attractive.” People have the capacity to learn and love people dissimilar to themselves but I, along with many others, have a hard time opening myself up to that. Impressionable little baby tweens take something like the D.U.F.F., meant to be satirical, to heart. Someone ought to have slapped me on the wrist and stunted that movie from implanting and spreading through my mind. It’s grown roots now and flourished like fungi, spreading around my underground brainforest, traceable and unwieldy, powerful and gilled like a mushroom. These little mushrooms pop up every time I see someone who looks like they’re coupled with somebody out of their league. Some examples in movies: Adam Sandler and Salma Hayek. Adam Sandler and Jennifer Anniston. Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. I could go on. Something innate within me wants to split up these gorgeous people from Adam Sandler. Adam Sandler is beautiful, what’s wrong with me?

Somewhere there is a sweaty man in an office in LA trying desperately to convince everyone that beautiful people should be with beautiful people and ugly people should only dream of attaining that kind of glory. There was never a second date with that girl. We didn’t vibe that well. She laughed at everything and I didn’t think anything was funny. You gotta be funny if I’m gonna like you. You can have a face so symmetrical that Euclid gives up geometry and goes with his backup career, professional cuddler, but a shit sense of humor is a dealbreaker.

Attraction is so much more complex than symmetry. Attractiveness is someone placing their hand on my lower back. Attractiveness is utilizing all love languages. Attractiveness is offering me the booth seat rather than the chair at the restaurant. Thank you. I love sitting on the booth side. I like how it’s cushy and supports my back. I like how it’s across from my date.

Your MagazineMay 9, 2023