The Mirror Crack'd

When I first saw Robert Pattinson in one of the Harry Potter movies and then again in Twilight, the thing that struck me most was what it must be like to walk about looking like him. What does he see when he looks into the mirror? I wondered. Does he see someone who is unspeakably good looking or does he just see a face with two eyes, a nose, a mouth and perhaps a pimple or two?

Which then made me wonder about what other people see when they look at me, perhaps for the first time. Do they also think, “Oh my God, he’s gorgeous!” or do they think, “Seriously, only a mother could love that one!”?

“I think of you like a door knob,” said Saffy after thinking about the question for a while before adding in a rush, “but not that you look like a door knob! But you know, it’s kind of like it doesn’t matter how beautiful a door knob is, after a while, when you’ve seen it a thousand times a day, it’s just a…well, you know, it’s just a door knob! But that doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful!”

“So you don’t look at me and think I’m good looking?” I asked.

“Define good looking,” Saffy said cagily.

“Richard Gere in a tuxedo in Pretty Woman.”

“Oh, definitely not,” Saffy replied promptly. “I’d say more Jackie Chan in Lust, Caution!”

There was a moment of silence when mental visual libraries were rifled through, and then rifled again. “Jackie Chan wasn’t…” I began.

“It doesn’t matter,” Saffy said smoothly. “It’s six of one and a dozen of the other! The point is, you’re you, and you’re a beautiful child of God! Surely, that’s enough?”

The next morning, at breakfast, Amanda suddenly looked up from her cereal and asked, “What do you guys see when you look at me?”

Saffy choked into her coffee.

“There isn’t anything about your looks that I’ve not already said many times in my blog, Amanda,” I said loyally before turning sharply to Saffy. “Who else have you been gossiping to?”

Saffy looked shifty for a moment and decided that the best way out of this was to just go on the offensive. “Seeing as you looked so hurt about that door knob comment, I was just looking for a second opinion! What is your problem? You are always making such a big fuss about nothing!”

“You look nothing like a door knob, Jason,” Amanda said kindly, patting my hand. “I was just asking because I’ve seriously been thinking about getting a nose job.”

To everyone’s surprise, it turns out that the most beautiful woman I personally know has secret issues of her own. Apparently, Amanda’s nose has long been a bone of contention between her and her sister. “It’s why we’re not very close,” Amanda admitted. “I always thought that my parents preferred her because she has the prettier nose.”

“But Amanda, you’re identical twins!” Saffy said, her eyes wide as saucers.

“No, if you look at her profile, her nose is one degree higher than mine. I know this because we once took a Polaroid from exactly the same position and then we measured the angle. One point three degrees higher to be exact. So that gives her the edge in the looks department,” Amanda added with great dissatisfaction.

For days afterwards, the look on her face haunted me. Here we have a highly successful, driven career woman with the kind of looks that stops traffic and she wants a nose job because she thinks her parents prefer her identical twin because her nose is one point three degrees higher.

This, obviously, is a woman who does not see in the mirror what the rest of us see. Which, in turn, leads to me to wonder, yet again, what Robert Pattinson sees when he looks into the mirror each morning.

“Maybe he sees Ricky Gervais?” my best friend Karl suggested.

“No, he doesn’t,” Barney Chen said firmly. “Beautiful people like Robert Pattinson will always say that they don’t think they look very special, but deep down, in the darkest part of their personality, they know they’re drop dead gorgeous, but they just have too good manners to actually say it!”

“So, who do you see when you look in the mirror?” Karl asked.

“Someone I’d definitely date if I wasn’t already dating someone!” Barney replied. “I have no issues with my looks! None at all!”

Meanwhile, Saffy is trying to decide what she sees when she looks into the mirror. So far, the list includes Angelina Jolie and Penelope Cruz.