HOW to be the girl who is always invited; how to always have a date ; how to get out of the corner and into the spotlight, this problem confronts every girl. But popularity isn’t a mystic thing. Its rules are simple and easily mastered.
The secrets of social success and glamour from Carolyn Van Wyck’s Hollywood Beauty & Style Shop .
DEAR CAROLYN
I’m in my first year in college, nearly nineteen, called pretty by my friends, have nice clothes and my own car. But I’m very unhappy because I am not popular. Do what I will, I can’t seem to become a “party girl.” When the boys and girls — this is a co-ed college — get together I’m always left out unless some girl friend gets me a “blind date.”
Even then – I don’t score. The mere presence of a boy makes me tongue-tied and silly. I guess I’m just impossible. Is there any help for a girl like me? Virginia B.
THIS is such a common letter. Virginia, poor dear, is feeling the pangs of an inferiority complex, making herself miserable thinking that because she was not “born” with the kind of charm which automatically makes her the pet of the party she can never acquire it.
It’s not true, Virginia. You, or any other girl, can gain charm and personality and popularity. It’s only a matter of realizing what you want and having the will to get it.
Naturally Virginia wants “dates” and hopes that one of those “dates” will find her the girl of girls. But just because Virginia wasn’t born one of those darlings of destiny with the gift of inspiring love and admiration— and so few of us are — she mustn’t meekly be defeated by it.
1920’s Party Girl – The basic requirements.
If I were Virginia, only nineteen, at college, with youth and education, and life lying open before me — I ‘d determine to make myself and my life a glorious thing. I’d begin by being humble and honest with myself and dig down deep for charm – in routine things, in diet, in exercise, in drinking quarts of water and eating pounds of green vegetable and getting hours of sleep. I’d learn to sit correctly and walk gracefully and study the fashion publications so that no matter how serviceable my clothes might have to be, they would always be chic.
For monotonous and usual as this advice may seem, it must be followed to acquire charm – just as a pianist, no matter how gifted, must daily practice five-finger exercises if she is to become a great artist.
The Daily Gift of Beauty.
I’d give myself a “daily gift” .If I were Virginia I’d keep the fires of my imagination burning. A few sentences from a great book — a few lines of poetry, some measures of fine music — or a new cold cream, or a dance step, a parlor trick or a perfume !
The gift I’d bring to myself each day need not be serious or “highbrow” so long as daily I gave my mind something to keep it alive. For the mind is so generous that whatever you give it, it in turn gives out to the world. And girls like Virginia need to cast off their shyness and realize that there is no fascination so great as the spectacle of a personality that is vivid and changing.
Dress in Gay colors.
I’d dress as frequently as possible in gay colors and learn to laugh. [ Ed: ha ha ha ha !] .
Wherever I went, I’d act as though I were enjoying myself, no matter how bored I might actually be and I WOULD NOT sit in a corner and let people forget my very existence – no siree !!
1920’s Party Girl – Enhance your true self.
For myself, I’d rather do the ‘wrong thing’ at a party than do nothing at all. The girl who slips on her pretty new heels and stumbles into the potted palms or tumbles the music off the piano — she is laughed at, certainly, but she is also remembered ! People will forgive your being incorrect but they will never forgive your being dull.
The truth is that it doesn’t matter whether a girl’s beauty or brains or blunders provide the good time. All three or any one can make you popular. Beauty has been extolled, brains have been feted and fools have been laughed at and loved for ages. But nobody ever heard of a monument to a girl who was a silent, reproachful wallflower.
