The PV Scale

“I always got more attention than anyone else. If I hadn't, I would have made sure I did...”
-- Salma Hayek (10 on the PV Scale)

There’s a girl at the bookstore where I work. She’s worked there a number of years, and is quite well-liked among her fellow employees.

But I can’t stand her.

It’s fascinating that somebody who I find so abrasive and irritating garners such affection from the rest of my coworkers.

I wanted to understand why.

My first suspicion was based on a general observation about human nature. Some people just rub other people the wrong way. I think the majority of people who meet me come to like me if given a reasonable amount of time. That being said, I know for a fact that a certain percentage of people find me unbearably unlikable. Now, does this mean that my behavior differs from person to person? Or is it the particular chemistry of one person and another that causes a combustible relationship?

Using the vaguest terms, we could call this personality – the distinctive traits or characteristics of an individual -- but this felt too simplistic for my investigation. As much as I could say “Some personalities just clash,” that just wasn’t satisfying for me. There doesn’t seem to be any quantifiable explanation for which personalities will be combustible and those that will mesh. I’ve seen a number of people with drastically divergent personalities get along beautifully, even fall in love with each other. So, personality alone just wouldn’t do.

Since my coworker started me on this quest, I returned to her to deconstruct my dislike. First off, a shallow pet peeve of mine has to do with dressing your figure. Self-confidence is one thing. Personal delusion is another. A girl who is 5’6” and weighs 170 should not be wearing the same shirt as a girl who is 5’3” and weighs 100. And we’re not talking the same design. We’re talking the SAME SHIRT. Call it a crime of fashion. Call it cruel and unusual abuse of fabric. Whatever. Common decency says that if your belly looks like something coming out of a Play Dough Factory Set, you might need to give your adolescent sister her clothes back and hit the mall.

In addition to her aesthetically unsettling characteristics, the spectrum of her conversation runs the gamut from her to herself. On top of this dearth of subject matter, the filter on these anecdotes does not meet FCC approval. The first story I ever heard pass her lips recalled a Christmas party contest – a race to suck the stripes off a candy cane. She relished her domination of the contest, telling the story with a wink, as if the implication needed clarification.

Most recently, she has hatched dreams of becoming an actress. Apparently she has met some business professionals who only seemed interested in sleeping with her. One such individual, who has his own production company, has even offered her a starring role in… something. I don’t know what. The whole preposterous scenario had me wondering if maybe I was caught in a reverse Shallow Hal scenario and this homeliest of homely girls was actually some beautiful waif and my dislike of her has blinded me to it. I know no other explanation for this girl’s unclear Hollywood connections. Although based on my experience with similar tall tales, I’m taking this girl’s own stories with a brick of salt.

So, as I put together all these characteristics, a concept began to congeal in my mind, a concept more specific than personality that would explain not only my dislike of this girl, but of many of the people I have encountered in my life. I call it Personal Volume.

The way I see it, Personal Volume works on a scale of 1 to 10; 1 being nearly invisible to 10 being equivalent to fireworks and flashing sirens. Any given person has their core number; age and experience can change that number one or two points in either direction over a lifetime (the number usually goes lower as life wears them down), but the number usually stays fairly consistent.

What contributes to an individual’s Personal Volume? The easiest test is how many heads turn when you walk into a room. Beauty has nothing to do with it. A 10 would not turn heads because they were attractive. A 10 would turn heads because they were wearing Christmas tree lights on their person and banging on a trash can lid. It’s about attention; a 10 needs all eyes on them.

Now, the form that a 10 takes can be very different. We have the girl who I work with now, and a girl who I had problems with at my previous job. The method my old co-worker used to get her attention was by being a grouch, complaining about everything, and backstabbing and tattling on every person she could manage. Of course, I couldn’t stand her either.

I consider myself a solid 7. I enjoy attention, but only from specific people – friends and family mainly. I don’t crave it, don’t need it to go on with my life. When I sense that desperation in somebody, I find myself immediately put off by them. Compatibility along the PV scale usually works in similar ways, especially toward the top. Normally we have a one to two point swing in either direction with which we will find the majority of our friends. Anything outside of that and things can get hairy real quickly. I just got out of a relationship with a 10 (on the PV scale), and there is no way I will venture into that territory again. Similarly, I will not date anybody below a five, because then we get into the area of complete disinterest in their surroundings.

Again, this philosophy is a work in progress. I now leave it to you, the public, to give me your two cents. What number are you? How accurate do you think the concept of Personal Volume is? Let me know.