My family’s surname, Schoen, comes from the German word “schön,” translated as “beautiful, lovely, pretty, handsome,” and for many generations before me, the name fit our likenesses quite well. Objectively, my mother is classically beautiful, my father is strikingly handsome and my sister is frequently stopped in public and complimented on her looks. These people apologize after the compliment and walk away with a quick, “Just to let you know.” Thanks, stranger. All the, “Just to let you knows” I get from strangers—and friends, for that matter—regard embarrassing debacles I’m unaware of. Although I’m thankful for the heads up, the wave of humiliation I feel when someone lets me know I’ve got a little mustard on my cheek never gets easier. At 24, I’ve finally learned. Now, if an attractive woman smiles at me while we walk past one another, I default to quickly stopping in front of a mirror so as to cautiously search for whatever leftover was responsible for her amusement.

For me, my last name acts ironically more than anything else. If you haven’t seen me before, don’t worry, you’re not missing out on much. I don’t turn heads. Ever the person who’ll wave back to a stranger, only to turn around and realize they were greeting the attractive person behind me, I’ve come to embrace my awkward nature rather than attempt to quell it.

Once, when my family was invited to a friend’s house for a barbecue, we walked through the kitchen where a couple of girls in their early 20s sat. My mom, dad and sister walked through the threshold before I did, leaving one of the girls to remark to her friend in a drunkenly amplified voice, “Geez, who let in the beautiful fam—” cutting herself short of the last two syllables when I walked in. She looked down with the silent assurance that all was right and balanced in the universe. I walked out to the pool and looked at my reflection in the water. Sure, I wasn’t the best-looking, but I had a personality, right? Yeah, I had a sense of humor, and didn’t women love those? 10 years later, making a room full of people laugh has never gotten me anywhere with potential dates. Women say they like a guy with a sense of humor, but really they like a strong, attractive, confident guy who also happens to have a sense of humor. I don’t blame them. Still, that much should’ve been specified to me as a teenager.

Somewhere along the way, I made the mistake of surrounding myself with even more beautiful people who weren’t related to me. I guess they made me feel comfortable—after all, I was basically raised by two models. My best friend Justin is easily a 10. His dark, quietly assured features, perfect “devil-may-care” smile and sensuously soft hair only lend to his ever-growing confidence and charm. When we met in third grade I knew we’d be soulmates forever because we possessed the exact qualities the other didn’t. Our BFF4L (Best Friends Forever For Life—it’s like twice your best-friendship) proved itself as much a curse as a blessing for me. Whenever we met single women, they fell for him instead of me and darn it if I wasn’t plummeting into his eyes right there with them. I most likely served to cast him as a nice guy, the type to take a self-conscious loner beneath his wings to show him what living an awesome man’s life is like. He tried to show me the ropes, teach me what women want in a man, but after 16 years I realize I’m a failed project.

But everything’s OK. I’ve come to understand I’m an introvert and therefore enjoy my time alone. It’s nice not having to worry about another person’s emotional state or what to get that special someone for Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Yeah, and it’s really empowering to work on oneself and all that.

However, it’d be nice to know what life is like for beautiful people. I imagine much more eye contact is enjoyed. Sometimes I ask Justin what it’s like to arrest people’s attention so easily, so charismatically, but spending so many years around him I know his ability to talk to people, to make them feel comfortable in his presence, isn’t something innate or inherent to him or his looks—I watched him work at it, honing his skill.

There are moments when I curse my genetics, which undoubtably left me the good-looking gene as a recessive trait to pass on to my children. Lucky them. If I’d been born beautiful though, they’d probably have to live an ugly person’s life and if it means I have to carry that burden instead of them, I’m happy to do it. Still, there are moments in my life when I can’t help but fantasize about a handsome version of Mason Schoen. Like that time I came home from college after my first semester and every single last photograph of me was replaced by photos of the rest of my schön family vacationing. I realized I was the dirty little secret, the metaphorical hidden monster locked in the attic and they didn’t want company to find out about me.

But you can’t stop me, Schoens! I’ve got a readership and that’s much more valuable than looks. I can make the student body believe anything!

Extra! Extra! Mason Schoen unanimously voted Most Handsome Man on campus, to the surprise of no one!