BEAUTY AND BRAINS

If I ever tell you I'm not beautiful, pay me no mind. I'm only being modest.

No, I'm not drop-dead gorgeous, but neither am I ugly or unattractive by any standard. This acute awareness of my own beauty is why, to a large extent, I stopped posting my pictures on my social media pages (Facebook and Instagram especially). I don't need the validation of strangers on the internet to feel attractive. It's also why I never feel pressured to dress up to the standard of other young ladies of my ilk. I only baff up on my own terms. 

Maybe I would have put more effort into my physical appearance if I were lacking in other areas, like intellectually. But the fact that this is not so worsens my conceitedness. I'm perfectly cool with showing up anywhere in a basic outfit and zero makeup, knowing that the moment I open my mouth to speak, most wrong assumptions about me are corrected.

I think that these liberties I and others like me take is what has, for a long time, fed the notion that beauty and brains are mutually exclusive. And while I understand that it's a convenient line of reasoning— given the number of eggheads who are so smugly aware of their smarts that they give personal grooming the middle finger—I'll maintain that it's a rather unintelligent one.

So although I honestly can't promise to up my game (dressing-wise) to disabuse the notions surrounding physical appeal and brains, I am always proud to cite Chimamanda Adichie as an embodiment of "slayqueenness" and mental agility.

There are a multitude of drop-dead gorgeous women who are just as smart. When you let yourself slip into a condescending surprise upon meeting one, you betray your exposure to only female dunces, which says a lot about you and the kind of company you keep.

(Picture: Best-selling author, Tomi Adeyemi)