Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1927)

Friendly Advice from Carolyn Van Wyck on Girls' Problems DEAR CAROLYN VAN WYCK, How can I achieve social success? I seem to score neither with boys or girls. I have no accomplishments though my friends call me pretty. When my college class gives dances, I am always lonely and out of it all. I can't talk very well, but I do want friends. What shall I do to become popular? Beatrice. Month after month I get letters like this of Beatrice's. It worries more of you girls who write to me than any other single thing. There are girls overweight and with bad skins. There are broken hearts and deadened ambitions, but no letters contain more pathos than those I receive from girls who never get a chance at a good time. Yet every girl can have friends if she wants to. I am sure of that. THE saddest girl is the would-be flapper who never gets within roadster distance of a date. I am sorry for her and all girls like her. Desperate, worried, to pet or not to pet presents no problem to her. She can only pitifully wish it did. The life of such a girl today is a tragedy. Yet the more I see of socially unhappy girls, the more convinced I am that their loneliness is their own fault always. There are lucky girls, of course, born with an intuitive understanding of the social graces, as there are girls born to rich and established families, and to beauty and power. For such girls the way is easy. But they are so few against the rest of us, no girl striving to win her social way should take them too seriously or be discouraged by their assets. But popularity can be earned, social suci ess manufactured, and friends made. It takes work, much t lie same sort of work that success in any line demands. The first thing to do is to catalogue yourself. Stop and figure whether, if you were giving a wonderful party, you would have yourself as a guest at it. It's worth thinking about. I'eople are invited to dinners and dances because they will contribute some 81 thing to the occasion, prestige, beauty, wit, charm, entertainment or the capacity for listening. Girls are asked to house parties and frat dances for the same reasons. So think what you contribute. Do you look after the lonely people in a crowd? Or keep the conversation going? Or stop it? Or do parlor stunts? Or merely sit? See yourself as hostesses see you. It will probably startle you and change you for the better. •"THE trouble with most of us women, and *■ particularly with those of us who are less popular, is that we think things should come to us. It may be training, or it may be shyness. But it's literally nonsense. Watch men. They consciously earn their social success with women and with their own sex. They always have something to give, and give it, if it is only a cigarette or an abstract thing like encouragement. Girls can well copy them in this. Remember an ingrowing personality does not attract. This is the age of publicity. The violet stays in the wood, but the orchids get out in society. For the girl who has no friends and doesn't know how to get them I say, do something. Do almost anything but stay inconspicuous. Join a church and its societies. Go in for charity organizations. Get a hobby — anything that makes you meet people. When you do, talk. Talk nonsense or be highbrow, as you will, but don't stay silent. To listen in a sympathetic way is a very fine thing, but to listen just because you can't think of anything to say yourself, is stupid. Be sensitive, not so that you get hurt, but so that the other person doesn't get hurt. Sense moods. In friendship there is actually very little difference between the demands of men and women. Make enough women friends and you'll learn to make men friends. Or the other way round. ■CRIENDSHIP demands not sex appeal but * common humanity. That'swhat you need for popularity. All of us are lonely and pretty shy. All of us feel somewhat unappreciated. The thing to learn is that these emotions are as true of the other person as ol yourself. As much as you want sym Social Success Is This Month's Problem OOCIAL success is any girl's for the making. The requirements are simple and the price is small. Yet I have had so many recent requests for advice on gaining popularity that though I have written on it before I here give you my views on it again. Two of the most essential things, of course, are keeping your skin fair and your weight down. Pamphlets on care of the skin are yours for sending a stamped self-addressed envelope. Reducing booklets are ten cents. CAROLYN VAN WYCK pathy, so doe? the other person. As much as you desire warm-heartedness, so does some one else. Learn to give. Don't sit around and wait for someone to bring you friendship on a plate. Give literally and figuratively — gifts, pleasure, happiness, sympathy, whatever you have. There is about everyone something distinctive and pleasant. It won't hurt you to tell them so and it will do them a lot of good. Try to be a friend before you try to make a friend. Social success demands time, energy, thought and unselfishness where you have not beaut}' and wealth, and often where you have. Give of yourself then and develop yourself. There are outside things you should master, of course. There is Emily Post's verv fine "Book of Etiquette" that every girl should study. It is simply dumb not to know what to wear and when to wear it, how to eat and serve food at your home. It is just plain lazy not to keep your appearance up to its best point. [ CONTINUED ON PAGE 137 1