Geeks Guide to Looking Good, Intro

There may be some of you who don’t need posts on looking good--you‘ve already got that part down. Kudos to you for not being that guy who lets his eyebrows grow antennae and wears a trench coat that looks like it stays balled up on the floor when he’s not wearing it and smells like he hasn’t washed it--ever.

Then there are some of you who do care about looking good but don’t have a clue. Kudos to you for realizing the value of a first impression.

And then there are those who don’t have a clue and don’t care. To those who don’t care: you should. And here’s why.

Making a good first impression is not a shallow endeavor reserved for superficial people who have nothing to offer the world other than their good looks and charming smiles. And a good first impression is not about being generic or about not being yourself. It’s precisely the opposite of all that. No one will remember the guy who is dressed like everyone else in the room. And no one will be interested in talking to the slovenly weirdo. You want people (women) to remember you, don’t you? And you want them to want to talk to you, don’t you? The vocabulary you use, the topics you choose to talk about, what you do for a living all tell a little something about who you are. Likewise how you look and how you dress represent who you are.

You might argue: people should love and accept you for who you are as you are. Actually, no. You wear deodorant, don’t you? Don’t you? Besides, most people aren’t lovable just the way they are. That’s why (most) people don’t reveal 95% of what they think about. You’ve thought about it before: if given a choice would you want the superpower of mind reading? Sounds intriguing at first. And maybe it would be for a short while. But reflect on your own day-to-day thoughts. All of them. Do they make you a lovable person? Reality check: you would grow to hate, fear, be suspicious of and/or repulsed by every human being on earth if you could read all their thoughts. Okay, so I can’t prove the non-existence of something that isn’t in and of itself a logical contradiction--still I maintain that actually lovable people are rare--if they exist at all.

Just as you censor out some of what you think, you need to censor out some of the things your body naturally does. You can take a few more minutes to do a couple more grooming tasks without violating your pride in your humility and lack of vanity.

Up on Friday: Grooming