It does, but different feelings can lead to the same presentation. Making an effort to look nice around the house can mean “I’m so awesome I deserve to look awesome all the time,” or it can mean “I’m so unattractive I have to dress well and have on makeup just to watch tv so people won’t be repulsed.” Sitting around in sweats and a stained, ripped tee can mean “I’m not worth the effort to look decent,” or it can mean “I’m so great as a person it doesn’t matter what I look like.” I’ve known too many people in all four categories to feel comfortable guessing which feeling motivates any particular presentation without knowing a lot more about someone than we do about the OP’s girlfriend.
IME, though, the people who fall in the third category don’t look all that much better when they go out than they do around the house.
Og forbid the OP should see me when I come home from work. Yeah, I’m a mess. I’m exhausted, I’m hot, and the last thing I want to do is haul myself upstairs and change clothes the minute I enter the house. Instead I scritch the dogs, grab a tall glass of ice water, and collapse on the couch while still in my uniform, sans apron. And I’m likely to stay that way for at least an hour, maybe two. Then I go upstairs and change.
The very last thing I want to do when I’m home from work is to do anything short of walking the dogs. After that, I’m toast until dinnertime. I usually rally a little right after, but the minute I sit down, forget it – I’m out like a light.
OP, if I were your girlfriend and I knew you’d pitted me for this, I’d whip your sorry ass till kingdom come. Then I’d plant a perfect footprint on said ass and smile as I watched your rag-doll form sail out into the street
I’m not going to read the rest of it, but I hope the OP was a parody of something posted earlier. (And it does sound familiar, like something in IMHO a few weeks/months ago).
To the OP: You cut your hair every two weeks? Really? Anybody else think that is a bit excessive?
A couple minutes ago I was about to make a flip comment that I only score one out of three on those items (the showering part), when I was knocked offline by a lightning strike (we are having big-time thunderstorms tonight).
The OP may be trolling (I don’t think so though, he sounds sincere enough) but getting your hair cut every two weeks isn’t unfeasible if you like to keep any sort of brush cut.
I get my hair cut once a month, but I’d go more often if I had the time.
Hmmm, that reminds me, I gotta call my stylist. (I’m also thinking about coloring it again, although I’d like to go for a different shade of brown, this time)
If you read only the capitalized words, you get “OBVIOUS TROLL IS OBVIOUS”. Nevermind the odd phrasing; it’s only an instance of the general meme “X Y is X”. The point being, Vinyl Turnip feels the OP is an obvious troll.
Pretty lame. Unless the OP has some history of trolling, I don’t see anything in his question that sounds implausible on the face of it. It’s pretty common IME that one partner in a relationship will feel like he or she is “trying harder” than the other and finds it to be a source of frustration.
I agree with this. Personally, I purposefully choose the most raggedy clothes to wear when I get home because I gives me freedom to paint and get dirty doing whatever without ruining nicer clothes. If someone were to judge me as a slob based on this, I’d feel like, “Yeah, I might not be a fashion plate, but at least I’m getting shit done.” My priorities are less on what I look like and more on being productive and staying active. I’ve found the two don’t often go hand-in-hand.
I catch hell at work from the secretary because I don’t dress “feminine” enough. I wear Tevas instead of painful heels or those slipper-like shoes that are purely cosmetic. I have no problem throwing a sweater over a dress if I’m freakin’ cold, and I don’t spend hours picking every bit of lint off of my wool pants. Every time this secretary sees me, she goes, “Oh lord!” and rolls her eyes. I laugh along with it, but secretly I wish she’d shut the fuck up. My priorities are different than hers. Not worse, not stranger, just different. As long as I’m hygienic, tidy, and not looking too crazy, I don’t see why anyone should care what I look like. I’m not studying other people, so maybe they should do likewise.
For the OP, it’s different. The OP doesn’t have to “put up” with someone he’s not physically attracted to. So if he’s not willing to break up with the woman, he needs to at least try and communicate with her. If they are as emotionally connected as he says they are, then it shouldn’t be THAT difficult to say, “Honey, you know I love and care for you very deeply. It’s just that I miss seeing you looking your very best. I think we need to have more opportunities where we go out dressed to the nines. What do you say?” Maybe if the OP makes it about what he’d like, rather than what she should do, then the girlfriend–if she’s a good one–will accommodate his wishes.
If it bothers you now, in 10 years it will really drive you insane. I have a friend that feels this way. He is deeply resentful and feels trapped because of the children.
You could talk to her and maybe things will change. The reality is that in time she will return to this. As the saying goes: when somebody shows you themselves, it’s your job to pay attention.
Without knowing her, it’s hard to say what she is really like. The point is, from how you describe her, you are not a match.
If the OP finds her unattractive, it wouldn’t surprise me if the feeling was mutual. Not saying this to be snarky either. There doesn’t sound like there’s enough passion in this relationship to motivate her to pretty up herself. If she had that animal lust for you, those feelings would more than likely express themselves someway in her outward appearance. This tells me that she sees you as a friend moreso than a lover–like people who have been married for 40 some-odd years do.
I’m not anti-shacking up in the slightest, but I wonder if this is one of those situations in which moving in together caused one or both of you to get too comfortable too soon in the relationship. Once you start living together, you see each other all the time, so you stop going out on dates and stop trying to impress. If you were friends a long time before you started seeing other romantically, maintaining mystery is even harder, because there are fewer mysteries to maintain.
It doesn’t sound like she was ever into dressing to impress other people. The OP should be pitting himself for not having the foresight to see this was doomed from the start. But we all make mistakes. Move on already.
