With a significant amount of time off from school, what better way to spend it than to receive plastic surgery? After little speculation, year after year after returning to school from December break I find familiar, yet slightly altered faces, it’s an unproven fact that I’ve strategically assumed from essentially no substantial evidence, except for social media photos, that this is the most common time of year to receive plastic surgery.
An adolescent's bar mitzvah is mainly just a formality of becoming an adult in the Jewish community. Receiving, or having a friend undergo, rhinoplasty is the unofficial coming of age in Judaism. Going under the knife comes up in conversation more often than one would expect.
Talking about plastic surgery is a common topic at pregame, "Take a shot if you've gotten a nose job!" Everyone then clinks their glasses. It is also used as a great ice-breaker, "OMG did you use Dr. Shwartzenbergmanstein also?" Although plastic surgery is a fairly common thing, and we've all been sucked into an episode endless marathons of "Botched" on E! it seems as though nobody really knows how to talk about it.
Everyone who's gone under the knife to alter their appearance are familiar with these comments made.
1. “Why are you sitting out of gym class?”
At first you were a little shy about it, telling people the bruising is from when you “fell,” “got hit playing a sport,” “ran into a wall,” etc., and told people you were sitting out of gym because it was “that time of month,” which coincidentally lasted the entire month.
2. “You look different, did you get a haircut or something?”
You became more open about it once people started noticing you didn’t always look that way, but you still were a little self-conscious. You told people it was to fix your deviated septum, yet still don’t know what a deviated septum is. After wearing baggy sweatshirts and sports bras for two months, people caught on to the fact you had a breast augmentation. And any guy who told you a reduction is “like slapping God across the face for giving you a beautiful gift” deserved multiple slaps across his face.
Or there were some people who'd deny it, and every time they'd sing Lady Gaga "Born This Way" you'd want to call them out because they were just not born with their face looking that way. "I got hit playing basketball." Bitch, you went to theater camp.
Or, they were as open as a Best Buy on Black Friday.
3. "What did you look like before?"
*Without hesitation you whip out your phone to scroll through the montage of your transformation* Beginning with the "post-surgery hospital" selfie I don’t even remember taking this picture! Then the “bruised in bed” selfie.
Next, a collage of all the treats from bubby and your friends, onto a "post cast removal" selfie of you smiling like you’re in pain because you are, in fact, still in an immense amount of pain.
And for the big finish, you have a side-by-side PicStich of a “before selfie” and “after selfie” to tell the full story of your metamorphosis.
4. “Oh wow I don't even notice a difference!" or "You totally didn't even need one, what are you talking about?"
People get awkward and don’t know how to respond, which I totally understand. But if I spent a couple thousand dollars to alter my face or any other part of my appearance for that matter, and I still look the same, I might as well have flushed that money down the toilet.
5. "Did it hurt?"
6. "Why did you do it?"
7. Some lame joke about it
All in all, those of us who have surgically chosen to change ourselves need to stick together in this world. Especially in large crowds when it becomes a second nature to guard your surgically altered nose/chin/cheeks/breasts/ears/etc. That shit was expensive.
