April 25, 2016

Our imperfections make us beautiful

A few months ago, I went to visit an orthodontist. It was a medical referral, and yet the first thing I was asked was “so what don’t you like about your teeth?” I was taken aback. I’d never really done the whole cosmetic dentistry thing before. I was even more surprised to learn that the one thing that bugs me about myself, isn’t even noticed by others.

I have an overbite. A relatively large one if you ask me. Childhood anxieties meant that I was a thumb sucker and so as an adult I’ve been left with a gap between my teeth. It’s always bothered me but never enough to do something about it. Turns out, it’s all in my head. Discussing it with dental professionals and then later my friends, the reaction was a pretty mutual, “I’ve never noticed”.

Recently, adverts for Match.com plastered around the London Underground have been causing a stir. A lot of people are not happy, and understandably so. To promote their online dating website, the phrase “If you don’t like your imperfections, somebody else will” has been pasted over photos of a redheaded lady covered in freckles and a man with different-coloured eyes.

Like most people in this world, I have my insecurities. It seems to almost come with the packaging of being human that there will be things that you don’t feel great about yourself. And that the majority of those will be to do with your appearance. We live in a society that likes to tell us what we should look like, creating images of ‘perfection’ that we’re supposed to aim for. If you look up the dictionary definition of ‘imperfection’, it is described as “a fault, a blemish, or undesirable feature”. It seems ridiculous that anything that makes a person who they are, the things that make them unique, could be considered ‘a fault’. As if something went wrong with their DNA.

As Marilyn Monroe once said, “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” The truth is, that nobody has the right to tell you that a feature of yours is an ‘imperfection’. Nobody can tell you what you should and shouldn’t love about yourself. It is your ‘imperfections’ that make you special and interesting. It doesn’t have to be a bad word.

If my trip to the orthodontist taught me anything, it’s that sometimes we’re too hard on ourselves. Sure, companies like Match.com buying into the idea of perfectionism doesn’t help. Neither do edited photos of models on magazine covers. This doesn’t mean we have to beat ourselves up for not matching the absurd expectations put on us. For many people, it takes a lot to look in the mirror and adore what they see. Plastic surgery and body modification are on the rise. We get so caught up in what other people tell us to be that we forget to just be our beautiful and unique selves. It’s not always easy, but it is important to acknowledge that perfection doesn’t really exist. And quite frankly, we don’t need somebody else to ‘love our imperfections’, if we do it ourselves already.

Written by Katherine Parry

Follow Katherine on Twitter: @kattparry