Lessons in the gym

I got a job at a fitness centre where I worked for about a week- I quit because I got a better job offer, but one week doing sales and interacting with my colleagues was a very interesting experience and I learned more about myself and the society during this one week than I have ever learned in any other week of my life. It was, all in all, a weird, if not uncomfortable experience for me, but it was a useful one nonetheless. During my entire week there, there wasn't a day that went by without someone commenting on the fact that I prefer to go sans make-up, my clothes, my hair, my body and my behavior. First impressions do count, and being in a profession where any sort of impression is important, the GM has given me a lot of advice on how look more desirable and appealing to the average male population to help boost my sales, although admittedly, a lot of this advice went unheeded due to laziness and also partly because I am very stubborn person in general.
If I am honest with myself, I would probably admit that showing more skin and taking life less seriously would make things easier for me at work, but instead, me being me, I refuse to believe that, telling myself that I have to look 'professional and proper,' resulting in me looking out of place at the office, turning me into some sort of a nun in a brothel( no insult intended to my colleagues). When I complained to someone, that person told me: "Why go against the flow and trouble yourself? The right thing to do is to go with the flow." I guess he is right, subject of course to a caveat: I will go with the flow only if it is not against my conscience. In this case, I don't think it is a 'choose ONE of the following options' situation, so I guess it is time that I took 'personal grooming,' whatever that means, more seriously, now that I have stepping into the working world. No more Einstein hair, geeky glasses, torn bags and shoes and boy clothes. Not that I want to dress like a slut- mind you, that requires a lot of effort that I am not willing to make (again, seriously, no insult intended) But lesson leaned: I will, from now on, take my colleagues advice and put in reasonable effort into looking good.
I always thought that MOST people were intolerable, troublesome beings that I should avoid, so I refuse to deal or talk unnecessarily to people I don't know. I don't do small talk, ask personal questions if I can help it or share my thoughts or feelings with random people. Having spoken to so many strangers for the past week, however, I have found that people are actually very interesting, even if I can only hear their voices over the phone. I had spoken to bored tai-tais, people working at the airport, a silat master/salesman, an art gallery owner, a badminton coach, a gym owner and businessmen over the phone; these are the people whom I had actually had a proper conversation with after the realization that asking personal questions and small talk is important in making a sales proposal. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed it! I guess before this I was the intolerable, troublesome being that other people avoided!
So yes, a very fruitful week indeed!