how to speak Mandarin with Charlie Brown's ASL teacher

I am continually surrounded by so many legitimately beautiful people that I've realized this upper echelon of hotness is my Everest, and I'm forever stuck at base camp trying to get my backpack on.

I mean in the grand scheme of the world, I'm usually confident drunk enough to believe that I can be classified as 'attractive.' Going out on a limb, I could be labeled with 'above average attractiveness.' That is, if the person judging me was stoned and/or just left a Denny's, Toby Keith concert, or any form of public transportation.

This is me on a typical knuckle-dragging day:

This is me at my best: 

Note: This picture has been heavily, professionally photo-shopped so don't feel inadequate:

Honestly, I'm not fishing for compliments or trying to be annoyingly self-deprecating, I just realistically believe this is where I am. You know, generously above the middle but definitely out of arm's reach of the top, like Michelle Kwan. I'm more comfortable with that than anywhere else on the 'do-you-wanna-do-me' spectrum.

If you're too close to the middle, you're easily forgettable. But insanely attractive people are like velociraptors. Hard to approach, usually travel in packs, and were once birds.

When I talk to these people, I may as well be speaking Mandarin with Charlie Brown's ASL teacher. Much like Moses and the burning bush, I'm so in awe with what is before me, real communication becomes nearly impossible. While they may be asking me about what I do for a living or where I got my jacket or if I normally drool this much, I'm constantly either searching for a flaw or resisting the urge to smell their hair.

Then I have to remind myself something that might be the best advice I've ever given myself. And by 'given myself' I mean 'probably heard somewhere but don't remember and changed it just enough to convince myself it was an original idea of my very own.' 

Anyway, here it is: when you meet someone and are filled with the sense that the world is so unfair to let so much beauty be obscenely localized in one person,  remember this, they too at one point or other in their life have had diarrhea. 

In my mind, it totally levels the playing field. When I am about to swallow my own tongue out of fear of saying something embarrassing in front of a guy that looks like he's Jon Hamm's younger brother with a Superman chest and no beneficiaries to his 401K, I just picture him in child's pose on a dingy bath mat jointly cursing the good people at Taco Bell and the inventor of malt liquor while simultaneously making a deal with the Devil to avoid a 'both ends' situation.

It's almost EXACTLY like when you are in public speaking and they tell you to imagine everyone in their underwear...