Welcome to another post in my still not publicly available category “getting old stinks”. After covering a problem that might happen some time far far in the future and talking about cheap hair retention shampoo marketing strategies and the gate to hell today we will face another ugly fact that hits everyone of us when maturing (does this really sound better then getting old?): The open mouth unsexiness.
It already occurred to me quite some time ago but – like with all bad habits that one develops – I successfully ignored it until last saturday when I went on a long bus trip with some of my students. Nice and polite how they are they reminded of me of that weird, strange and ugly fact that aging still hits me from time to time (even though I still do not like that! of course!).
The last reminder was picture on my facebook wall that showed me sleeping during a bus journey…with open mouth! Damn it. Now it is official. I am old. I sleep with open mouth.
Since the biological explanation is quite obvious and it is very common those points do not make it any better. The fact that remains: It is unsexy! When I was younger (so much younger than todaayyy) I always thought I will never sleep that way. I couldn’t imagine why I should open my mouth when I can use my nose instead (same thoughts about running or doing sports – now I know better in this cases as well, unfortunately).
the three stooges - Denial, Shame & Downplaying
After being hit with the ugly truth there are usually three different periods coming along. The first step usually is denial. Something like “What? Me? Never…that’s just because I was sick that day…usually I never do this. Really. Don’t you think I wouldn’t know….” (really?).
Stooge (or Stage) number 2 then is the shame. When there is nothing more to deny (after a picture of you sleeping in the bus with mouth wide open for example) you start to be ashamed. Ashamed of the fact that you are indeed getting older, that you are not invincible and that you looked pretty unattractive at that moment and that others saw it. If you’d take a picture of you during this period of shame you would have to reduce the RGB intensity on your monitor in order to not suffer from any long-lasting damage due to the high amount of red color in your face.
The last step is usually to pretend that it isn’t that bad at all. After all it is something natural and almost everybody does it when getting older. So no need to be ashamed of or to feel bad about it….(but we all know that it still looks damn unsexy no matter how much we downplay it).
So what to do? Easy: Only sleep alone….. ;-)
