Q Dear Miss Abigail:
I was wondering ~ do you think I will ever get a boyfriend? I haven’t been out with anyone for a year and a half, whereas my friends are always going out with people. I don’t smell, I’m pretty, I don’t have spots, I’m funny (this is not my opinion, but everyone else’s). The thing is, I do have a slight moustache, and I used a cream to get rid of it but it comes back with slight stubble. Is this what is turning them off? What can I do about it?
Signed,
Lonely Heart
A Dear Lonely Heart:
I’ve heard of many a moustached woman who have found love, so I don’t think that’s your trouble. Might I suggest that you think about your little self-esteem problem, instead?
This excerpt is from Cosmo’s Hangup Handbook. It’s just a teaser, the intro to a text just bursting with tips for young, insecure women. I sure hope it helped Diane, the original owner of my copy of this book. She didn’t do so well on the quiz ~ answering “yes” for four of the five questions. Poor girl!
1971: Believe in You
It sometimes seems that certain girls come into the world equipped with all the beautiful assets . . . flawless face, figure, intelligence, wealth, loving family. Yes, there are a few like that, but even they run into roadblocks. Only part of life’s happiness depends on the luck of the draw. What really makes you a winner (or a loser) isn’t the qualities fate parceled out, but how they’re used. . . .
Celebrated cases of success-against-the-odds are supervisible. But the same methods have worked for many girls, who (all-too-modestly endowed by nature) win, win, win, while others (whose natural dowry is downright munificent) consistently finish last. The difference? Life’s victors believe in themselves (even with little to go on) and hang in there, while also-rans perversely seem to sabotage every chance. Winners are pretty sure they can succeed ~ if they continually make first-class efforts. Losers, however promising, are lazy, gloomily doubt they can ever do anything, perhaps even resist success . . . and fail!
Believe-in-You Barometer
Yes, self-esteem ebbs and flows . . . sometimes the world seems to conspire to reduce you to a humiliated little nobody . . . then, within days, presents you with a juicy plum that feeds your spirits for weeks. But think: Just how dependent is your self-concept on this feedback from others? Do you only think you’re good if someone else says so? Can you use some advice on learning to believe in yourself full-time? This quiz will help you find out. During the past week:
1. Did you pass up a good thing for a safe thing?
2. At that last party, did you glance away from a man who was watching you, instead of walking over to introduce yourself?
3. Did you worry about your age?
4. After buying something daring, were you too timid to wear/use it?
5. Did you muzzle your lone opinion in a group that disagreed?
Your Barometric Rating Scale
4-5 noes ~ What a fine, fortunate girl ~ you like yourself. That’s basic equipment; read how to keep it in prime condition.
3 noes ~ Sometimes you feel worthwhile. For insights into those other times, take our refresher course.
2-0 noes ~ Self-confidence may be the single key to all your hangups ~ and wouldn’t that simplify life? Many girls have found all their trouble fanned out from something as controllable as state-of-mind ~ and a few went on to write the heaps of good advice in the following
pages.
Source: Creaturo, Barbara and Veronica Geng, ed. Cosmopolitan’s Hangup Handbook. New York: Cosmopolitan Books, 1971.
~ pp. 1-3 ~