'Being average-looking has made me happier in life and love'

My looks don’t stop traffic. Nor do they light up a room. It would be more accurate to say they have the impact of a one-bar gas heater in an ice-cool lounge; slightly insipid yet perfectly effective.

I can sidle up to my son’s football match with little more than a nod from the other parents, the swish of my shoulder-length brown hair going unnoticed by the referee. Only my sharp observations and witty put-downs during the game turn heads.

This is what I love about being a self-affirmed plain Jane; the ability to be seen not for the symmetry of my face – which, frankly, has everything to do with good genes and little else – but for wit, character and intellect.

You only have to look at the A-list to see I’m on to something. Elisabeth Moss was hardly off our screens this summer, starring in the critically acclaimed The Handmaid’s Tale (which earned her an Emmy)  and Top of the Lake: China Girl, yet she’s hardly your stereotypically beautiful Hollywood star.

The same  goes for Girls actress and creator Lena Dunham,  Joanne Froggatt, of ITV’s recent hit drama Liar, and Catastrophe’s Sharon Horgan.  Unlike the Angelina Jolies or Gwyneth Paltrows  of the world, these actresses have a normalcy to their looks that gives them an air of relatability we, the viewers, can’t get enough of.

On the catwalks, too,  there is a trend towards jolie laide models – a delightful French expression, literally ‘beautiful ugly’, to describe a woman who has what many would consider unattractive features.

Lily McMenamy, who’s walked  for everyone from Chanel to Fendi to Emilio Pucci,  is the perfect example with her sticky-out ears and teeth, as is the alien-like Molly Bair, who’s modelled  for Dior, Moschino and Vera Wang.

While it heartens me now – aged 46 – to hear of the traditional aesthetic of beauty finally being challenged, it doesn’t help the teenage me, who pined to be beautiful at a time when a cute button nose, straight teeth and poker-straight hair were the only attributes that mattered. (FYI: I only had the button nose.) 

I eyed pretty friends with envy and thought my problems would disappear if I had better skin, hair, teeth, lips…

Boys didn’t seem to care I was one of the cleverest in the class or that my politics essays were distributed by teachers as examples of excellent work. Who cared about excellent work when excellent bone structure was the sole gateway to social nirvana?

I remember having an insane crush on a tall Greek boy called Pedro in sixth form (cue nightly fantasies of our elopement to Kos and a barefoot wedding ceremony under a white-hot sun), only to have him utter these soul-crushing words: ‘Do you think you could put a word in for me with your mate Shelley? She’s dead fit.’ 

My heart twinges even now when I think of it; my tear-streaked face in the bathroom mirror, my mother whispering useless words of comfort as she attempted to run her fingers through the frizz that was my hair.  I eyed my pretty friends with envy and thought all my problems would disappear if only I had better skin, hair, teeth, lips, eyes, cheekbones…

After a lengthy period of wound-licking, I resolved  to stay away from shallow boys (which ruled out most, it turned out). Then hope arrived, somewhat ironically, in the form of lithe heart-throb Patrick Swayze. ‘Nobody puts Baby in the corner’ was his seminal line to Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing, before lifting her triumphantly over his head, championing plain girls with talents hidden under bushels everywhere. 

I started to see the advantages of blossoming away from the spotlight; the greatest being not having your looks speak for you.  By my early 20s I had filled a bookshelf in my London flat with dog-eared second-hand books I had devoured and could happily critique with anyone, while my beautiful flatmate simply went to Waterstones one day and came home with an armful of 30 books, wanting a shelf that looked as interesting as mine.

It was as if she was trying to prove she had substance as well as looks.  It took her years to marry and settle down. I don’t think she ever knew who she was; only how she looked to others. I, on the other hand, found love relatively easily in my early 30s, got married and had two gorgeous boys.

Sadly, two years ago, we split after a decade together; and although I didn’t lift my head up for the following year, I met my current partner soon after that. (He was my third date back out there.) Being beautiful, I learned, only took you so far and everyone around me at the beginning of the noughties seemed to agree.

In 2004 Dove launched its real beauty campaign featuring ‘normal’ women, and quirky, interesting-looking models began to sashay down the catwalks.  It’s a shift that’s slowly gained momentum on billboards, on screen and in the fashion world.

‘Nine times out of 10, it’s the girl at a festival who is plain at first glance, has braces and is unconfident who will catch my eye,’ says Robyn Bright, international scouting and placement manager at UK model agency Models 1.

‘The range wanted by clients now is so broad, especially with the rise in gender fluidity; diversity is everywhere. There is no longer one aesthetic that fits.’ Carolyn Mair, professor of psychology for fashion at the London College of Fashion, credits social media for this swing against traditional beauty.

‘We’re so used to seeing the photo-ready flawless look – fake eyelashes, puffed-up lips – and people are tired of it,’ she says. ‘We’ve reached peak vanity and women are now looking for more depth and meaning in their lives. Social media allows everyone – not just the perfect and the beautiful – to influence and have a voice, and that’s great.’

I am convinced my non-threatening appearance has helped me win and maintain friends at the school gates, as well as granting me smooth passage at work. While studies have shown that attractive people are usually hired sooner, promoted more quickly and paid more than less attractive colleagues, the theory espoused by the Stanford graduate, former JP Morgan wealth manager and author Michelle Miller in her notorious article in 2015, was that women who succeed in business were likely to be seven out of 10 on the attractiveness scale.

By this, she meant they weren’t so good-looking (a nine and a half) they distracted other colleagues, or too unattractive (three out of 10) to have zero client-facing skills. As Miller says: ‘Pretty enough to be noticed, not so pretty that her prettiness overshadows other traits.’

Look, I don’t want to blow my own trumpet here, but on this scale I think I hit a solid six out of 10.

We’ve reached peak vanity and are now looking for more depth and meaning

When I used to edit a women’s magazine and host weekly meetings, I can bet you real money that not one of my colleagues was watching me mouth off about circulation figures or Hugh Grant’s latest love child while fantasising about what I was like in bed.

Nor, on the other hand, was my face so off-putting that my bosses didn’t dare put me in front of advertising clients whose business I had to win. My looks are just above average. But, at my age, it takes a fair amount of maintenance to keep that up.

I colour my (grey) hair every three months, book a brow tint every month and splurge every season on a few key pieces at my favourite shops (currently Anthropologie and Reiss). But my looks aren’t intimidating, and nowhere is this more important than in the highly competitive and judgemental school playground. 

Other mums can moan to me about ageing, tiredness and tops that cling too tightly around their waist, and know I can relate. Beautiful women – it’s not their fault – but they just don’t get it. People treat them differently.

I see how women react to the good-looking, well-put-together mums at the school gates and while they may be drawn in initially, hoping some of their glamour might rub off, the conversations aren’t as natural or deep and they’re often missed off the all-important WhatsApp groups about nights out or general gossip.

‘In this Instagram generation, beauty is seen as an ideal everyone can reach and there’s a pressure to be attractive at all times,’ says Viren Swami, professor of social psychology at Anglia Ruskin University.

‘Resentment can, however, build towards those who seem to achieve it effortlessly – look at the backlash to those Protein World adverts two years ago. [The adverts featured a bikini-clad model with the slogan ‘Are you beach body ready?’] What we want now is a more realistic version of beauty.’

It took me a long time to understand my power as a woman and how it related – or didn’t – to my looks. When I catch sight of myself in the mirror now, I’m happy with what I see.

My boyfriend, who I’ve been with since March this year, tells me all the time how pretty I am, but his words skim off my ears; partly because I’ll always be the teenage girl who Pedro overlooked. But mainly because it no longer matters. Beauty is built from within and I’m a bloody good architect.