Why, though?
Because I can't look at a beautiful woman anymore without feeling strikingly depressed.
I made a deal with my parents when I was a little kid. Either I got to have new clothes and makeup and parties and no support for college, or I got to study. I, being the introverted little freak that I was even at five years old (also markedly mentally... bizarre, for want of a better moniker), went with the "no parties ever for any reason period" route. I've never had a birthday party. Nothing with more than two or three people, anyway, a gathering where I embarrassedly wished it could be over so I could stop being the center of attention. Now I am a college student who is generally hailed as good-humored, albeit irritable, and kind of excessively smart.
And so, even though I have something for which a lot of people have insinuated envy--a rather finely tuned mind, and a good work ethic--I do not have an ability to look at busty young women wearing numerous lovely articles of clothing, the entire ensemble of which would probably cost me three or four textbooks. New. Books I would never be able to have, in exchange for those pretty looks.
(fucking Facebook)
Because that's how I measure everything, just as I have since I was a little girl. The number of books it would buy, from where. Time measured in pages and problems.
I don't have pictures of boyfriends or friends on my dresser. Just my grandfather, the mathematician, because he's the first man I have to beat. And because everyone says we have the same penetrating eyes, so I feel a little less alone.
And so I don't know what to do with all of these porcelain-faced women, with their delicately rearranged smiles. The consolation that I have learned three, five times as much as most people have by now, perhaps more than many people do in lifetimes... well, that's ringing a little bit sour, now.
So I'm taking a little sabbatical from feminine beauty. I'll hole up in my house in my sweats and old-fashioned glasses and study until my right hand can barely write another word, and maybe when I've come out I just won't care anymore.
EDIT: In other words, I'm turning into Claude Frollo. Stay tuned for more weirdness after I graduate and find some young woman to stare at and feel guilty over.