I've always been secretly vain about my looks, though with less and less justification as the years go by. I was a cute kid, a Monday's child, and I let the praise of countless doting grannies go entirely to my head. Ever since, I've been unable to shake off the idea that I'm one of the Beautiful People, despite masses of photographic evidence suggesting otherwise. I like to surround myself with mirrors. When I hear people go into rapture about the latest big-screen Adonis, I think "but he doesn't look anything like me!" People occasionally catch me admiring my reflection in shop windows. My favourite view from a train is the view from inside a tunnel.
I was a cute kid, and now I look like a twenty-six-year-old, balding cute kid. It's a sad truth that the features considered attractive in children -- doe eyes, little noses, high foreheads -- are the exact opposite of what you want to see in a rugged full-grown male. This is why boy stars never make it as leading actors -- a fate rarely shared by their girl colleagues. While the adorable little girl more often than not turns into the hot chick, it is the doom of all boy cherubs to see their big-nosed, gangling, squinty-eyed schoolmates surpass them in beauty. It's one of nature's cruellest jokes.
I don't want to give the impression that I'm fishing, since there are apparently girls out there who for whatever reason dig the altar-boy look. In any case, I fully expect to regain sex symbol status among my peers once I reach retirement age, when granny instict will take over, and I will again have to beat away hordes of septaugenarian admirers who will want to lavish on me all the doting attention they would give to an adorable grandson. I can't wait.