# GwapoProblems: Musings on the Existential Anguish of the Absurdly Handsome

# GwapoProblems: Musings on the Existential Anguish of the Absurdly Handsome

By Nicholo Jallores

There’s The Cute guy. There’s The Handsome Guy. There’s The Hot Guy. And then there’s the Absurdly Good-looking: men who are aesthetically pleasing beyond all discernable reason and genetic feasibility.

Girls fawn over them, while guys… well, they fawn over them too, albeit in a different and more confounded kind of way. You see them walking towards your general direction and suddenly you go into tunnel vision – the world whizzes by you while are stuck looking at this magnificent being moving in seeming slow motion. Your mind races at a million miles per minute, wondering how it is possible for one guy to possess a world’s worth of beauty. Such is the discrepancy between your looks and theirs that they actually look like they are made of an entirely different organic material. If you are the salt of the earth, they are sugar and spice, oak bark and cigars. They even smell differently – they can never be “stinky,” only “musky.” They glow as if their skin cells are microscopic prisms that bend and improve the light.

Mind you, the Absurdly Good-looking Men are of a rare breed, as is the nature of all absurdities. You can’t just go hunting for them, as they tend to be elusive like unicorns. Instead, they come to you, most often in times when you are the least mentally prepared, so your daze is at an optimum. So seldom is a sighting that when it comes, it almost feels divinely ordained – as if God knew you needed a bit of magnificence in your life, and sent it in the form of a 6-foot model with a jawline that could cut stone and shoulders that horizontally extend towards infinity.

Blessed with physical perfection, the Absurdly Good-looking Man seems to embody mankind’s next step in the evolutionary ladder – the homo sapien superior. It’s not at all difficult to surmise that such a beautiful creature could not possibly have the same problems as the rest of us biological rough drafts, or could they? An inconvenient social dictum: the more handsome you are, the easier it is to have things your way. In as much as we admire the Absurdly Good-looking Men, we also cannot help but resent them because they have advantages that the Average-Looking Populace does not. We have to work and struggle and toil to impress others; all they have to do is, well, exist.

This begs the question: what sort of problems does one face when one’s face is practically perfect? If your good looks borders on the ridiculous, do you also have bad hair days, bad skin days, days when you could not stand to look in the mirror? Is it at all possible for you to feel physically insecure? What sort of existential anguish besieges the Absurdly Good-looking man? We can only imagine.

People expect them to always be perfect and polished
The sight of great beauty tends to leave a lasting impression in the mind – obviously, because rare is the sadist who only likes to remember ugliness. Once people have marked you for your absurd good looks, they will want you to stay that way forever, or even worse, they will want you to falter, as it has become a bit of a spectator sport to watch gods crash and scorch the earth. Imagine the type of internal pressure this creates. You can never have a zit, gain a pound, nor leave the house with a bedhead. People will audit you for consistency. In their minds, your only role in the world is to look perfect and polished – deviate from this, and your value plummets.

It’s hard for them to be taken seriously
Imagine you have the prodigious mind of a young Mark Zuckerberg in the body of Tyson Beckford, and you go for your first job interview. You have a boatload of brilliant ideas and a stunning educational background, but all the hiring manager could focus on is how your rock-hard chest is bursting out of your Oxford shirt. People tend to undermine your intelligence because, someone that handsome could not possibly be brainy, right? Like the famous expression goes, “Hindi binibigayngDiyosanglahat,” hence you can only be Absurdly Good-looking or smart – never both.

They are magnets for excessive and unwanted attention
Sometimes, you just want to get your business done without having to cause too much of a stir and ruckus – a functional impossibility if you were born with a face that stops traffic. Yours is a countenance that is meant for spectacles, not stealth, so even something as innocuous as rushing to the grocery for eggs can turn into a riot of creepy stares and hushed giggles. You walk the streets wearing hoodies and dark sunnies to avoid scrutiny. Sometimes you just want to be left alone, but that becomes almost improbable as the people around you crowd you telepathically. You have become a prisoner of your own handsomeness.

They always have to worry about ulterior motives
Making a genuinely meaningful connection with another human being tends to be a challenge, because it’s difficult to tell if a person is truly into what you have to offer to the world, or if the person just wants to get freaky. Instead of establishing deep, like-minded bonds with individuals who truly respect your worth and worldview, all you have is a web sticky entanglements that are awkward at best, sinister at worst. You can never take people at face value, because that would make you naïve and stupid – which would be playing into stereotype. You must always assume that people always look at you with dark and even slightly bestial motives.

One can only go by handsomeness for so long
Your stunning good looks may get your foot through the door, but your character, talents, and capabilities will give you the right to stay in the room. Even industries that rely primarily on physical beauty also demand their own specialized set of professional skills. Contrary to popular sentiments, the absurdly good-looking also struggle with the usual daily human gripes such as stresses in the work place, unpaid bills, laundry, and yes – even the occasional bad hair day. Handsomeness can only take them so far. They would have to depend on their wits and ingenuity the rest of the way.

# GwapoProblems: Musings on the Existential Anguish of the Absurdly Handsome

We asked some of the gwapo-est guys we know for their take on this topic. Here’s what they had to say!

Jonelle Layug Tagbo
There is a stereotype that gwapo is nothing but a superficial asset. With this mindset, some do not take gwapo people seriously. Another downside is that they are referred to as eye candy. It may sound flattering but in reality it may mean that some people will not care about the personality and/or assume that gwapo people are ill-mannered and have the right to be mean to others, which is not always the case, and I personally find that pattern very shallow. Automatically, people will perceive gwapo people as snobbish and intimidating; and people always assume that gwapo people do not interact with others who are not at par with their looks. If they do, they’d be called plastic. Gwapo people will always be arrogant to the eyes of the insecure no matter how simple and humble they actually are. It’s as though they just can’t win.

Marlon Soliven

You don’t have privacy anymore. Everybody wants to be near you; everyone wants to be associated with you. All day, everyday, you seem to be crowded from all directions by the most avid fans to the scums of the earth. And it doesn’t end! Being gwapo is the epitome of being a part of everybody. It’s a gift and a curse at the same time.