DO YOU WANT TO BE POPULAR?

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21356, 26 February 1941, Page 3

DO YOU WANT TO BE POPULAR?

Build Up Your Personality JT’S a silly question, isn’t it ? Everybody wants to be popular. We all see a mental picture of ourselves, looking radiant, the centre of a group of attractive men and women, with everyone hanging on our words—but alas ! the dream is too often far from the reality. The fact is, that so many poor, tongue-tied violets, nestling behind the mossy stone of their shyness, can make their dreams come true if they make a slight effort. We mean by popular, “to be liked and admired by people generally,” as one dictionary puts it. They can be sure of having their evenings well filled, their company sought, and of being always in demand for any social event. It’s not difficult if you know how. Everyone has that spark of something that makes people like her—in most cases it’s just a question of bringing it out and adapting it to the personalities of the different people one meets. * Taking for granted, then, that somewhere inside you—however deeply buried—is the ability to sort out your character with the things people like in you well on top, we should like to give you a few ideas of what we think goes to make popularity. Banish from your dreams that vision of yourself making a witty and sarcastic speech; of playing the Concerto in A minor so brilliantly that there is that sought-after hush before the applause breaks ail records; of being the heroine in a fast and furious tennis match. Those are not the things that make a girl popular—in fact they tend to make her unpopular because they produce inferiority complexes in other people ! No, we could tell you in one word the whole key to popularity, but it’s an old-fashioned recipe that you would probably stop reading here and now, so we’ll tell you an honest-to-goodness true story of a popular girl, instead. A year or two ago there came to our publishing office a girl not very pretty, not very smart, but infinitely nice. That’s an odd adjective, but strangely enough it was universal where Louise was concerned. The Old-Fashioned Virtues When we discovered that Louise was the best example of a popular girl that we knew, we decided to find out exactly why. We told you that she was not really pretty, and certainly not smart, although she followed all the beauty rules and made the best of herself —so looks were ruled out. We concentrated on her other points, and we were surprised to find that she possessed all the old-fashioned virtues. She didn’t try to be clever at other people’s expense, and she wasn’t particularly witty. What she had done was to build up her own individual personality—not try to adopt someone else’s—based on all the .things which, as a child, she had learned went to making a nice person. She was considerate—in an unobtrusive way; she helped do jobs that were really for less important people, so that they could finish more quickly; she never kept people waiting for appointments. She was kind—she never forgot to bring things she had promised to lend; she always had a sympathetic ear for troubles; she never said catty things about people. She was loyal—never talked about her friends to us; never gave away a secret. She was honest—gave you her opinion, when asked, sincerely and without beating about the bush; never lied to anyone for the sake of convenience or any other reason; admitted and apologised when she had been proved or convinced to be wrong. clean never had any “ off ” white touches on her frocks, or grubby shoulder-straps in view; her hands, nails and hair always looked fresh from the tub; she never told even slightly soiled stories. • s unselfish—not in that martyred way that is so trying, but jn the little things that we would probably not have noticed if we had not been studying her intently to discover her secret. And this was only her behaviour towards us—the rather unimportant people m her life, the girls with whom she worked. But it was so sincere and natural to her that it obviously was her real character The best way to popularity for yourself is to find out what * , T °, ther . People—iand what we liked in Louise was the trouble she took to be charming and really kind to, and interested in us So you see. we could have told you in one word—nice but we’ve told you in a number of words which run together to make it. And we re very sorry if we’ve made Louise out to be the most awful prig —because she isn’t at all. She’s-honestly-terribly . . . well, nice