That crooked nose. That untamed hair. The enormous appetite. The hottest girl in the room isn’t who you think. Why pretty isn’t (always) sexy. Yeah, it's another Elle story about obsessive-compulsive appearance evaluation syndrome betraying just enough honesty to touch off a flurry of those "must flee this fucking town" synapses that generally prevent me from finishing magazine stories these days. (Also: it's by Walter Kirn.) Luckily, there are men in other cities, like reader Bryce of Knoxville, Tennessee, who read the story on the internet late at night with an anonymous buddy and felt compelled to send us the transcript of their IM conversation. Click the pic to read the mystified musings of two innocent dudes when confronted with the heretical insecurity porn peddled by our nation's women's magazines. [Elle]

Guildenstern: (1:16:18 AM): "This distinguished her from the other girls I’d dated during my first two years at college. They were slimmer than
Maura, their features more symmetrical, but their facial expressions were harder and more anxious, particularly at mealtimes. "
Guildenstern: (1:16:28 AM): How can you tell if a person's features are symmetrical?
Guildenstern: (1:16:31 AM): This guy is a doof.
Rosencrantz: (1:16:48 AM): you could draw them
Guildenstern: (1:17:03 AM): How would you know that your drawing is accurate?
Guildenstern: (1:17:06 AM): Wait wait.
Guildenstern: (1:17:16 AM): I mean, let's not be technical.
Guildenstern: (1:17:23 AM): We're talking at a glance.
Guildenstern: (1:17:27 AM): Or not at a glance.
Guildenstern: (1:17:30 AM): But by the eye.
Guildenstern: (1:17:33 AM): Even a long look.
Rosencrantz: (1:17:48 AM): yeah, i guess it's dificult
Guildenstern: (1:17:49 AM): How can you tell if your girlfriend has less symmetrical features than some girl at the end of the bar?
Guildenstern: (1:17:57 AM):
Here
Guildenstern: (1:18:01 AM): He's saying, what?
Rosencrantz: (1:18:03 AM): maybe your girlfriend has a lazy eye
Rosencrantz: (1:18:09 AM): or a stroke
Guildenstern: (1:18:14 AM): Yeah, with some people it's obvious.
Guildenstern: (1:18:39 AM): But he's saying . . . some guys don't date beautiful women, they date beautiful women.
Guildenstern: (1:18:44 AM): So be confident!
Guildenstern: (1:19:07 AM): And he doesn't seem to have any trouble meeting women, either . . .
Guildenstern: (1:19:11 AM): I don't like him.
Rosencrantz: (1:19:14 AM): why are you reading this?
Guildenstern: (1:19:19 AM): Just 'cause.
Rosencrantz: (1:19:32 AM): but i mean
Rosencrantz: (1:19:33 AM): i guess
Rosencrantz: (1:19:35 AM): how
Rosencrantz: (1:19:38 AM): did you come to be
Rosencrantz: (1:19:42 AM): reading it
Guildenstern: (1:19:43 AM): Haha.
Guildenstern: (1:19:44 AM): Haha.
Guildenstern: (1:19:46 AM): Haha.
Guildenstern: (1:20:07 AM): When I closed out of my mail - and I didn't have any mail, naturally, Yahoo linked to it.
Guildenstern: (1:20:24 AM): "Pretty girl is not always the sexy girl.... find out why!"
Rosencrantz: (1:20:35 AM): haha
Rosencrantz: (1:21:11 AM): did you see when yahoo did this?
Guildenstern: (1:21:12 AM): Page three.
Guildenstern: (1:21:48 AM): No, I didn't.
Guildenstern: (1:22:39 AM): I saw the one about Prince Harry and some mix up with the headline because I am lame and actually load up digg from time to time to give time a slow, heinous death.
Guildenstern: (1:23:00 AM): This guy is just surrounded by women.
Guildenstern: (1:23:16 AM): I wish I was surrounded by so many women that there'd be women enough to ignore!
Guildenstern: (1:23:35 AM): Effing Walter Kirn. If you didn't work at fashion magazines . . .
Rosencrantz: (1:24:03 AM): haha
Guildenstern: (1:24:05 AM): And it seems like he picks up on their flaws.
Guildenstern: (1:24:07 AM): Too easily.
Guildenstern: (1:24:25 AM): He knows exactly what a woman isn't supposed to be, and then says these women were that.
Guildenstern: (1:24:46 AM): He doesn't quite convince me that he just loves women.
Guildenstern: (1:24:53 AM): It's . . .
Guildenstern: (1:24:55 AM): I dunno.
Rosencrantz: (1:25:03 AM): yeah.
Guildenstern: (1:25:15 AM): "Straight hair, straight posture, straight in every way. Flat, too. And wearing glasses. Yet she was provocative as hell, like a stripper who was working under deep cover. She had a disciplined, stealthy sensuality that seemed to whisper to me as she slipped by: 'What you see isn’t half of what you’ll get.' "
Guildenstern: (1:25:25 AM): What?
Guildenstern: (1:25:31 AM): You were struck by her?
Guildenstern: (1:25:43 AM): I wasn't struck by the last woman I fell in love with.
Rosencrantz: (1:25:52 AM): i am agreeing with you
Guildenstern: (1:26:06 AM): I hope I do not sound like, uh, what's-his-face.
Guildenstern: (1:26:11 AM): I am just providing running commentary.
Guildenstern: (1:26:21 AM): You can steer if you like.
Rosencrantz: (1:26:28 AM): i'm reading the article Guildenstern: (1:26:45 AM): Did you know that Ben Jonson used the word "also" an awful lot?
Rosencrantz: (1:27:03 AM): i didn't even know ben jonson's name
Guildenstern: (1:27:20 AM): Can you tell I just finished a book about Shakespeare? I was thinking of my justs. Elizabethan/Jacobean playwright.
Guildenstern: (1:27:41 AM): Confident that he'd face little competition?
Guildenstern: (1:27:43 AM): what a wad!
Guildenstern: (1:27:48 AM): What a dick hustler.
Rosencrantz: (1:28:26 AM): he sayd that?!
Guildenstern: (1:28:30 AM): YES
Rosencrantz: (1:28:31 AM): says*
Rosencrantz: (1:28:35 AM): wow
Rosencrantz: (1:28:37 AM): wow
Guildenstern: (1:29:14 AM): There's a gap in the narrative, I think, at "Click here to see Father's Day ideas."
Guildenstern: (1:29:23 AM): Or right after.
Rosencrantz: (1:29:50 AM): yeah
Rosencrantz: (1:30:20 AM): i think i hate walter kirn
Guildenstern: (1:31:00 AM): He doesn't have many examples. I suspect that he's used to dating Cinderellas.
Rosencrantz: (1:31:07 AM): HE IS MARRIED TO A MODEL!
Guildenstern: (1:31:11 AM): He is?
Rosencrantz: (1:31:18 AM): Walter Kirn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rosencrantz: (1:31:31 AM): oh, now they're divorced
Rosencrantz: (1:31:52 AM): i wonder if that whole article was a stab at his ex wife
Guildenstern: (1:32:00 AM): I duno.
Guildenstern: (1:32:04 AM): Dunno.
Guildenstern: (1:32:05 AM): But.
Guildenstern: (1:32:10 AM): It sounds like he's bullshitting.
Rosencrantz: (1:32:14 AM): yes it does
Guildenstern: (1:32:38 AM): And then, later on, I went out with a model. She wasn’t shallow or ignorant, this model, but she wasn’t stimulating either.
Guildenstern: (1:32:46 AM): He said his wife wasn't stimulating.
Guildenstern: (1:33:13 AM): Who looks for scars on flawless skin?
Rosencrantz: (1:33:14 AM): that's his daughter's mother
Guildenstern: (1:33:22 AM): Who even looks for flawless skin?
Guildenstern: (1:33:33 AM): I would be kissing that skin by that point.
Guildenstern: (1:33:41 AM): If she were evan half-nude.
Guildenstern: (1:33:46 AM): If she even has a shoulder exposed.
Guildenstern: (1:33:49 AM): had
Guildenstern: (1:35:29 AM): "Thank you, sleeping model."
Guildenstern: (1:35:42 AM): He's trying to convince himself. He's a shallow, unchanged man, I think.
Guildenstern: (1:36:07 AM): And the undertone of entitlement through the whole thing offends me.
Guildenstern: (1:38:58 AM): Tesla.
Rosencrantz: (1:39:19 AM): it's all bullshit
Rosencrantz: (1:39:23 AM): what about him?

Contact information for this author is not available.