You know the ones—cold coffee, warm egos, and enough buzzwords to make your frontal cortex herniate.
Anyway. I’m at one two weeks ago. One of those events.
Now normally, I’m civil. I smile, I nod. I answer the usual “What do you do?” like I’m reading off a cereal box: “I specialise in facial aesthetics—mainly botulinum toxin, dermal fillers, skin health…”
Boom. The Marmite EffectTM kicks in. Every time.
Half of them? Eyes light up. “Ooh, what would you recommend for me?” And I love these ones because they don’t know me yet. Poor souls. I give it to them straight:
- “You’ve left it 15 years too late.”
- “You can’t polish a turd, but I’ll try spackle and hope for the best.”
- “Best option? Dim lighting and sunglasses.”
And I do it with a deadpan face that would make a royal guard blink. But the other half… Oh, the holier-than-thou crowd.
You know the type—smugly sipping organic chai while mentally diagnosing you with a soul deficiency. They always say something like:
“Oh, I’d NEVER put poison in my face. I’m about NATURAL ageing.”
Good for you, Susan. Enjoy your collagen collapsing like a flan in a cupboard. Normally, I let it slide. Smile. Internal scream. Move on. But this time? I just couldn’t.
Maybe I’d under-slept. Maybe I missed my gym PB and still emotionally processing the loss. Maybe my blood glucose dipped into hangry demonic possession range. Whatever the reason—I snapped.
This lady (we’ll call her Judith because it sounds judgmental) looked at me with that tone… you know the one… like I’d personally injected Botox into the Pope.
“I would never do anything like that to my face.”
I paused. Looked her straight in the crow’s foot.
And said: “It’s usually the ones who need it the most that are anti it.”
Dead. Straight. Face.
Then I turned around and walked off.
MIC. F***ING. DROP.
Didn’t even wait for her reply. Just vanished like a Botox syringe at a nurse prescriber exam.
LESSON IN WISDOM: STOP APOLOGISING FOR YOUR EXPERTISE
Look. I’m not saying go full savage mode at every networking event. But at some point, you’ve got to stop tiptoeing around people who secretly hate what you do—just because they don’t have the balls (or budget) to admit they want it.
You wouldn’t shame a PT for training abs. So why are aesthetics practitioners meant to act like we sell shame in syringes?
Own your lane. Even if Judith can’t see it through her moral superiority fog and faded jawline.
