Megan, I won’t pretend to know you well, but I for one wouldn’t have posted a thread like this unless I had recently been called just that, and was hurting deeply from it.
Rest assured, Megan, that I, and many others, find you very, very pretty.
Just look at her. Who in the hell wouldn’t be simply overwhelmed to receive attention from an Angel such as herself?
Don’t let some worthless asshole get you down.
As for me, personally… yes. I’ve been called that and much more. In fact, I once had a thing for a girl for three years. I had a ‘skater’ cut, and when I finally cut my hair into a ‘caesar’ style, she told one of her friends “Well, he’s not so bad looking now, but still, its… Tim.”
FWIW, Anthracite, you have posted some of the most intelligient and sensitive messages here…I have not had the opportunity to meet any of you yet, but if I ever get the chance, I hope to have the honor to look you in the eye and kiss your hand.
You have won this Pooh’s mind and heart.
…now back to our thread, which is already in progress…
Thank you Dylan. Forgive me if it doesn’t mean a hell of a lot to me right now. Just once, I’d like to be wanted for my looks rather than my mind or personality. Shallow? Perhaps. But it’d be a nice change. And in thinking about this thread, I remembered…I WAS called ugly, and fat, and everything else, as early as grade school.
I’ve never been called ugly, but I’m 6’4" and 300 lbs. I guess nobody’s ever been brave enough. Plus, my personality tends to overwhelm my appearance. If someone doesn’t like me, it always for some reason beyond how I look.
Never to my face. (Not ugly, anyway.) However, I think many, many of us went through a stage in high school or some point when we were less than beautiful. And most of us got teased in some way about it. Damn, those scars never heal.
I’m no lighter, but a few inches shorter. But mostly it’s little kids. I don’t take it personally when a four-year-old says, “Mama, that man’s fat!”
On the other hand, adult males don’t mess with me, making the invalid connection that big equals tough. Or they can tell by looking at me that I’m self-destructive enough to not care what happens to me as long as I’m trying to make it happen to them. Therefore I have never been mugged or spoken to harshly by an adult stranger unless it was because of my driving.
I used to wear overalls when I went on long walks at night. Nobody even looked at me, much less said anything bad. My wife said, “Of course not! You look like Lenny from Of Mice and Men.* They’re scared of you!” She made this corpulent geek laugh, but it may be true.
When I was younger, of course, it was different, but that’s no longer fresh in my mind. What I have found to be true now is that my sparkling wit and seductive personality work extremely well on little old ladies (I just kill 'em!) and make up for a lot with the younger ones, too. Women over thirty or thirty five start coming to their senses about appearance vs personality and fairly steady work experience, too. Just as us older guys start coming to our senses. I’m hard pressed to name a woman I know with nothing attractive about her.
But having parents who looked like movie stars has always left me feeling inadequate.
Yes. Some things people said to me - mostly in elementary school and junior high - will forever be burned into my memory. And there was one boy in ninth grade, but then he moved away, thank you god for easing that torture.
People who have met me will likely not believe this, but until fairly recently, I was very shy and taciturn. My favorite thing to do was read. I was a dork, a geek, I was never the cool kid. Fifth through ninth grades were just a long nightmare.
Fortunately, tenth through twelfth grades went a lot better. I must have lucked out - my school didn’t have the divisiveness and anger that I guess a lot of high schools did. There was literally one fight at my high school in the four years I went there.
But yes, I have been called ugly and much worse. It’s affected me pretty deeply. I can look in the mirror and know that I’m a perfectly normal looking person, but my self-image is not a good one.
I’ve been called everything by everybody.
The only person IRL who has not called me ugly is my BF. The only thing he calls me is beautiful, and the love of his life.
Yes, I’ve been called ugly, and I have been called fat. I can’t exactly object to the descriptions–I amugly and fat–but since I’ve been this way since the age of seven or so, I can probably figure it out without help.
(And you should all thank me for not inflicting my picture on the People of The Straight Dopesite. Or, better yet, send me small cash donations.)
But like dropzone, I’ve found I’m big and mean-looking enough that people generally don’t mess with me. There are some advantages.
Yes. Not by anyone else, but I put myself down all the time. What can I say, I have a poor self image. I still have some trouble looking in really big mirrors.
I have been called names, but nothing hurtful (except by my Grandmother, sad to say). I hope your friend is doing alright, mega.
Now that I think about it, I do recall one incident a few years ago. I was home from college and walking around a local drug store. I heard this, “Mommy, look at the funny man!” from some little kid. There weren’t any other men around and I wasn’t telling jokes or anything, so I knew he meant me and my appearance. Yeah, that kinda sucked. But, truthfully, I must have looked funny. Tall and skinny and had pretty long hair (and it’s thick, so it was fluffy long hair…Mmmm…masculine). Also, I’m sure I was fairly scruffy looking at the time, too (old t-shirt, dark stubble over a pale face, etc.)
Anyway, he might as well have called me ugly. Stupid kids, telling it like they see it.
