sooo confused

Today was a pretty typical day working at the elementary school I volunteer at. Everything was the same.. went to my classes, taught some math and spelling, took my break up in Ryan's room.

While up there something was said by Ryan that made me feel as if everything had changed.. not really with his personality or anything like that.. maybe it was just another added side to him. I spent some time talking to him about how great the concert was, being sure NOT to over-do it, as we were talking he said something to me. He said something that made me realize he wasn't just the regular "nice guy" that he was presenting to me - he was the type of guy that I have grown up hating since I moved to Canada.

He was discussing his friends and happened to mention a whole bunch of people from Northland that he described as "good & nice friends" - now... not to sound too judgemental, but these were not the type of people that I would call 'good'. Aside from remembering many terrible things that these people did to eachother, as well as others, I started to notice a theme. All of these friends were "attractive people" (both guys and girls).

I didn't really react much to it cause it was just something minor that I had noticed... nothing was concrete here. After school we got to talking again and he started talking about the importance of 'physical beauty' - I decided to straight out ask him "are you friends with any people who aren't attractive?" Well. His answer was a very strong and solid "no". He didn't even seem to understand how much this would bother me. No reaction whatsoever!

I'm still really stunned. I don't know what to think.. this guy claimed to be the least superficial guy out there, yet he claimed that if people arent interested in making themselves up and taking a huge amount of care for their physical selves, he simply wasn't interested. So I decided to ask a follow up question, "What if the person was just born 'unattractive' but was a genuinely great person?" His answer - "well, I'd be nice to them but I probably wouldnt become their friend."

What?
Huh?
Who are you?
Where did the 'sweet' & 'sensitive' guy go?
Really Strange.

Anyways.. I didn't know what to think about this whole thing so I explained to him that I wasn't really sure if I was complimented by the fact that he 'likes' me. I started to realize that maybe it's totally because of my looks - or my face, because I definately am not one who invests much time into my physical appearance.

So we left on what I felt was pretty strange terms, though I'm pretty sure he was unaware of this. I still am not sure how to not be mad about this whole thing.. maybe it's my background and the whole "forest hill experience" that has made me truly sensitive to the superficial attitude of people, but I really don't think I'll ever accept it. I don't think many people are really aware of how painful a rejection is for the person who is being rejected.. especially for such shallow reasons.

Looks are NOT Everything!