I don't know. I just don't know.

I’ve always had the sense that maybe my perception is broken.

Like sometimes people talk about how beautiful some instrumental music is…

And I kind of think asking which of two noises is prettier…

Is like asking which of two colors tastes better.

It’s sound right? I mean I can tell when something is grating and awful but above that threshold it’s all kind of an ambiguous mash of “sure sounds fine I guess.”

Aside: Songs with words sung by human voices are an entirely different story…

I think maybe I just learned what people think sounds pretty well enough that I can guess at it reliably enough to avoid notice.

I was thinking about this today and it reminded me that when I was a kid I couldn’t really figure out what made one person “beautiful” and not another.

Someone would say “she’s so hot” and I’d look and try to figure out why they said that about this person in particular.

I remember looking at eyes, mouths, hair, chins in photographs looking for clues to this thing called pretty.

And I knew that the celebrity women I felt most enthralled by as a teen were not the ones everybody branded as particularly beautiful.

Like Joan Cusack and Juliet Lewis and Laura Dern.

So I usually kept these opinions to myself.

This all came to head when I was a freshman in high school.

For some reason there was a picture of a woman in a swimsuit projected on the pull down screen.

And for some reason this guy in my class said aloud to me, “do you think she’s hot?”

I can’t for the life of me remember how all this came to pass.

But I remember sitting there believing everyone in the class was waiting for my answer.

And I had no idea what the right answer was.

Do I say she’s pretty and then maybe she’s not and everyone laughs at me?

Or do I say she’s not and she is and all the guys call me “gay” (that’s how things were in the 80s; sorry…)

I stared at that picture trying to find some clue. Is she pretty? Or more correctly, does she have the requisite look, proportion, accoutrements, or whatever to make everyone else think she’s pretty?

It felt like too much time was passing.

I had to answer quickly.

And then suddenly it seemed obvious. She was in this obviously professional photograph.

In a swim suit.

On a boat.

In the blue water.

Whoever arranged this shot would have chosen someone pretty.

It seemed like a safe bet.

So I said yes.

And that was the right answer. Or anyway it didn’t cause any laughter.

As time went on I got better at discerning what people think is beautiful and I also started caring less about agreeing with them.

So I hadn’t really thought about it for years.

Is this weird or did everyone feel this way?

I have no idea.

Maybe beauty is a social act.

Or maybe my perception was broken.