Let’s just state a fact: Women are encouraged to optimize ourselves from every conceivable angle. Perfect your profile, boundaries, texting strategy, feminine energy, skin, hair, nails, body. And that’s just for dating.
Meanwhile, the most desired woman of the twentieth century spent most of her life being a complete and utter hot mess.
I’m talking about Marilyn Monroe. The more I’ve read about her this week for what would have been her 100th birthday, the less sense her boundless allure makes.
Her insecurities were legendary. Her marriages were messy. She infamously abused alcohol and sleeping pills, found at the scene of her death.
She was chronically late, emotionally volatile and unreliable. Stories about her lack of hygiene also floated around Hollywood.
She should have been completely undatable. But none of these bizarre anecdotes mattered because the most powerful men in the world were falling over themselves to get near her.
How on Earth did she get away with this, let alone become an icon? The obvious explanation is beauty. Yes, she was absurdly beautiful, but history is full of beautiful women. Very few of them became Marilyn Monroe.
But I think we’ve been looking at her all wrong. Despite her flaws, of which there were many, Marilyn Monroe remains fascinating today because she exposes a dirty truth modern dating culture would rather ignore.
Women are encouraged to optimize ourselves from every conceivable angle
Marilyn Monroe was the most desired woman of the twentieth century and she spent most of her life being a complete and utter hot mess
There’s this wild theory that men love to repeat, usually after a few beers and almost always after making an appalling romantic decision: The hotter a woman is, the crazier she is.
Personally, I’ve always thought it was a convenient way of rewriting history. It’s much easier to tell your mates your ex-girlfriend was insane than admit you ignored all the red flags because she looked incredible naked.
Still, a woman like Marilyn comes along and makes you wonder whether there might be a tiny sliver of truth buried inside the theory.
If she were alive today, the TikTok dating gurus would be foaming at the mouth. ‘Men, this is exactly the type of woman you avoid,’ they’d say. And I hate to say it, but they might have had a point.
By the end of her career, she’d developed a reputation that would make a modern publicist reach for the Valium. Entire productions were reportedly left sitting around waiting while the most famous woman in the world took her sweet time arriving. Her tardiness was due, in part, to debilitating anxiety stemming from childhood trauma and made worse by her persistent prescription drug abuse.
Other rumors swirling about her did make you question her sanity – the most infamous being that Marilyn apparently hated underwear. It wasn’t a clever seduction technique. She simply found it uncomfortable. (And to be fair, every woman reading this has probably reached a similar conclusion while wrestling with a bra after a long day.)
But, along with no underwear, she wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about basic hygiene. Many claimed she’d happily go days without bathing.
Then there was her ‘body count.’ Joe DiMaggio married her and famously never recovered. He even sent roses to her grave three times a week for twenty years. Arthur Miller left his wife for her. JFK allegedly pursued her, and if rumors are true, so did Bobby Kennedy. There’s also Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Clark Gable – whose wife blamed Marilyn’s lateness on set for the stress that killed him. That’s one way to be remembered.
If Marilyn were alive today TikTok dating gurus would brand her exactly the sort of woman to avoid
Sure, she was stunning in that curvaceous, meat-on-the-bones kind of way. But what made her stand out from the other beauties was that she had this special effect on people.
I’ve always suspected the real reason certain women become unforgettable is that they make other people feel like the most interesting person in the room.
People often describe expecting to meet Marilyn and be overwhelmed by the most beautiful woman in the world. Instead, they felt as though they’d been truly seen in a way they hadn’t experienced before.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that powerful men spend most of their lives being talked at. People want things from them: introductions, opportunities, money, attention, status. They laugh at jokes that aren’t funny and agree with opinions they don’t actually hold.
Then somebody comes along who seems genuinely fascinated by them as a person and suddenly the dynamic changes.
Marilyn appears to have mastered that long before men with microphones started monetizing relationship advice.
Treat a man like the sun shines out of his butt and watch him turn into a Golden Retriever – a much harder trick to learn than buying a new dress or getting a boob job.
But women who’ve mastered it – and there are a few – tend to leave a trail of very confused, very devoted men in their wake. Women like Lauren Sanchez, Melania Trump and Meghan Markle.
I’ve never understood the endless internet obsession with asking what Jeff Bezos sees in Lauren. The more interesting question has always been how she makes him feel.
Melania, whatever you think of her politics, has spent decades making a very difficult man feel like the most important one alive.
And Meghan had Prince Harry so besotted that he walked away from the entire institution his family spent centuries building. All because she was constantly reaching for his hand and looking at him like he was a God.
More interesting than, ‘What does Jeff Bezos see in Lauren Sanchez?’ is, ‘How does she make him feel?’
Meghan had Prince Harry besotted because she was constantly reaching for his hand and looking at him like he was a God
It’s no accident. These women made their men feel like the most important person in the room, and it worked.
Unfortunately for Marilyn, understanding how to attract powerful men and understanding how to build a happy life with them aren’t the same skill.
For all the men who wanted Marilyn, her own love story remained heartbreakingly complicated. She could inspire desire effortlessly, yet happiness seemed to remain permanently out of reach.
And perhaps that’s why we’re still talking about her nearly a century after she was born. Not because she was perfect. Not because she followed the rules.
People don’t fall in love with perfection. They fall in love with people who make them feel alive and interesting. Desired and understood.
No underwear required.
