The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-08-04
Dorothy Dix Tails
BIZ DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman vFrltsr,
What Can a Poor Girl Dol.

What Can a Poor Girl Dol.
One of the most pathetic things In
the world is the case of a young girl
who has no charm for men.
She has been born with all of the
instincts of her sex, the craving for
admiration. the longing for love and
marriage. She is just as anxious for
q good time, just as fond of dancing
as any little fluffy ruffles around
whom men swarm like bees around a
rose.
But no man ever looks at her a
second time. She never has a beau
whose attentions have not been bought
and paid for by her mothers dinners,
and her fathers theater tickets and
automobile. No man dances with her
unless driven to it by his hostess, and
then he one-steps with the expression
way TO the stake. Whenever she is
one of a crowd she is miserably con-
scious that the man who falls to her
lot is eursing his lack of luck in
drawing her for a partner.
In the course of q year I get in
Vulnerable letters from these forlorn
Inaidens, who all recite the same story
of their inability to attract men, and
who ask why this is thus, and
in what does the charm of the vamp
consist, anyhow?
Alas, nobody knows. Only He who
created Eve out of mans rib knows
why 1t is that Adam falls for one wo-
man, and is adamant before another.
No man. himself. can tell you just
what it is in the girl that makes him
get up and follow her to the ends OF
the earth, while he beats it, away from
her sister as fast as he can run. Be-
fore the secret of woman's charm for
man, science throws up its hands,
helpless to analyze it, still more pow
erless to devise a substitute for. it. All
that we know is that some women
have it, and others have it not. And
there you are.
1t is not a matter of beauty. for we
all know homely girls who have had.
the pick of the matrimonial chances,
and made big catches. 1t isn't ques-
ton of brains, for we see silly little
flappers with men seven deep around
them. 1t isn't clothes, for we observe
many Paris frock papering the walls
at balls. It is not accomplishments, for
we watch girls who dance like baller-
iras and play tennis like professionals
who disport themselves with no part
ners save other deserted damsels. 1t
isn't a question of money, for about
the only thing a rich and indulgent
father can't buy for his pampered
daughter is belledom.
So all that one can say to the girl
who seeks a magic formula for con-
juring men is that If. you haven't got
the come hither look in your eye, you
haven't. and that is all there is to it.
1t can not be acquired, and the wisest
thing you can do is to interest yourself
in something else than men.
It's folly for the girl whom men
don't run after, to run after them, for
woman was not built for the chase,
and men can always outsprint her.
And, anyway, kissing goes by favor.
and you can't argue with the high
gods that made some lips desirable,
and others repel1ent. 1t is fate.
This may sound like cold comfort,
but 1t is comfort, nevertheless. for.
after all, a woman achieves the peace
that passes all understanding when
she finally gives up the attempt to- be
alluring, and to catch husband, and
gets to the place where men are only
incidental to her happiness instead of
constituting the whole show.
OF course, it takes a lot of grit and
courage for a girl to admit to herself
that she is one of the women who
have no attractions for men. but once
we face a bitter fact, the worst Is over.
And after she has quit shivering
from Sthe cold douche to her vanity,
she is happier.than she has ever been,
for she has recovered her self-respect.
She knows that she is no longer the
unwanted hanger-on; she is no longer
the grovelling slave waiting for some
two by four masculine thing to throw
her the handkerchief which she picks
up with tears of gratitude at being no.
ticed at all.