Things could be worse. My name could be Jane.
Not that there`s anything wrong with Jane. Some of my best friends are named Jane. It`s just that Jane is the name people use when they`re talking about Everywoman. Everywoman is too long for newspaper headlines and lawsuits, I guess. So it`s Jane. As in Doe. As in Roe. And so on.
My aging and increasingly fragile ego has sustained several blows this month. I know I am not old, but I am getting older. We all are. This doesn`t lighten the load. It just makes me feel average and unremarkable.
The first blow was struck by an article in a women`s magazine: ”Rita Freeman, Ph.D., a psychologist and author . . . surveyed 200 American women aged 18 to 74 and found that, on average, 33 was the age at which they felt women were at their peak of attractiveness.”
I am 33. This is it?
I know that aging is inevitable and I know it isn`t even a bad thing. It`s just that I am not quite ready, at a mere five months into age 33, to have peaked already.
The second blow came via American Demographics magazine, which reports in its June issue that the Average American-Jane Doe-is 32, married, slightly overweight, dieting and lives in the suburbs. Except for the name, that was me last year.
Last and quite tragically, I picked up a new paperback book called
”Being a Woman.”
In the book, author Toni Grant aims to expose the ”10 Lies of Liberation.” That is depressing enough. But if you really want to hit bottom, I suggest you just skip ahead to ”Big Lie Number Four: The Myth of One`s
`Unrealized Potential.` ”
”This,” writes Grant, ”is the erroneous belief that we all have tremendous potential that simply must be realized. . . . Many women today suffer from what is known as `grandiosity,` the belief that one is far more important than one really is.”
With advice like that, who needs siblings?
I guess I can start by canceling my subscriptions to women`s magazines that publish depressing surveys. And I won`t read any more self-help books.
It`s not the perfect solution. I never had any delusions about being perfect. But was above average too much to ask?
