LIKE it or not, my photograph was going to be posted on Asian Cuties to get a taste of what it was like to be scrutinised by 'cuties' in the online world.

Would they pick on silly things like the size of my nose, whether my teeth were straight enough or just label me as downright ugly - things that even my closest kin and friends would never dare to comment on?

The thought of having my flaws laughed at seemed risky to my self-confidence.

So the worry wart that I am spent two hours frantically cropping and resizing my pictures to the barest minimum of pixels so that those who were going to judge me could not see my flaws in all their glory.

Then I had to do a short write-up about myself.

As I did not want to get slammed for having bad taste in music, I had my cousin, who is active on the music scene, cough up the names of 'cool' indie bands for the section on my favourite music.

Ten minutes after I posted my pictures, the first vote-comment came in.

It was a 'yes' (thank goodness!) and the member took into account the pictures I posted of myself alongside my sister and cousin.

'Your family is cute and so are you,' she said.

But she added that Singaporeans have the 's***tiest taste in American music', in reference to the bands my cousin had suggested and to the music choices previous Singaporean applicants had listed.

It was a good start, but my fears were still not assuaged. Nervously, I read the next comment which came in shortly after, and it went along the lines of my being 'tooootally gorgeous' - this coming from a female member too.

Another comment even touched on my ethnicity, with the female member saying that she loved girls of an Indian-Chinese mix because 'they're so beautiful'.

I did not expect to receive compliments, so they came as a bit of a shock to me.

Still, I could not bring myself to rest easy. Over the course of the week, I spent numerous hours clicking on the refresh button of my Web browser.

Frankly, it drove me nuts. How did applicants survive each day waiting for the votes to stream in? They had to be inhuman, for I lived each day in trepidation.

Each time I found out that I had received a new comment, my heart would skip a beat. Was this going to be my first insult?

But all 15 votes I had received as of yesterday afternoon affirmed that I was a 'cutie'.

I can rest easy - for now.

Melody Zaccheus