Let me describe a beautiful friend of mine. Blonde waves to her waist, strong jawline, an astounding talent for holding eye contact, and an equally astounding ability to pull off tulle and eccentric headwear. Last summer, I was running early to meet her and she arrived apologizing. We hadn’t seen each other in months, so we had a lot to catch up on, and she didn’t want me to think she wasn’t invested in whatever drama I was about to regale her with. She was coming from a Botox injection, so she wouldn’t be able to emote much, she said. She laughed, and her smile almost reached her eyes.
A few months later, I was home for Thanksgiving when a friend from childhood, who is in her early 30s like me, made a similar pronouncement — apologizing for her Botox-limited range of expression, which she worried might be mistaken for emotional stoniness. And when, soon after that, my 28-year-old sister accused her best friend of seeming apathetic at her birthday dinner, the friend replied with surprise — evident in her voice, if not her face. Didn’t my sister remember that they’d been on FaceTime earlier that day, literally during her Botox appointment? That night, I anxiously searched my face for burgeoning lines.
