The Law of Inverse Attractiveness

Just recently, a bunch of my former high school classmates have started friending me (and you know we're living in the Internet age when "friend" becomes a perfectly acceptable verb) on Facebook. The reason is obvious: we're coming up on the tenth anniversary of our graduation, so our reunion is being organized and people start getting nostalgic. Perfectly understandable... I'm not sure I'll personally be attending, since it's in November and I'll have a newborn and a barely postpartum wife to contend with, but we'll see. Nevertheless, all this friending has brought to light an interesting phenomenon: almost across the board, those people who were a bit, ah, less than supermodels back in high school have gotten significantly more attractive, while those who were the greatest eye candy back then have generally gotten... well, a bit homelier. Not everyone, of course, but more often than not, and across both genders. Funny how that works, isn't it? Some people who you remember being not exactly knockouts, you now look at their Facebook photos and squint to see whether they've somehow been digitally altered; whereas others you think, "Wow, I used to have a crush on you? I'm embarrassed for both of us." Maybe there's such a thing as karma after all.

(And in case you were wondering, yes, I count myself among those who have improved since high school. Not to say I was completely hideous back then [I hope], but I was deluded into thinking long hair = cool. In reality, long hair might have been, but a quasi-mullet most certainly was not, and adding acne, braces, and oversized clothing into the mix didn't exactly add up to a ladykiller. Now, of course, I'm regularly mistaken for Brad Pitt's younger brother, but it was a rough couple of years there for a while.)

Oh, and if you happen to be one of the people I went to school with, don't worry- you're totally one of the people who've improved since then. Go you!