Because I really don’t think anyone is really, “gross”. I think that people may be plain, but if you’re clean and decent, you’re not, ugly? You’re just plain, or what have you.
I mean, I’ve seen people who are gross-like I saw a woman who had bumps all over her skin, hands, neck-even her scalp-I’m assuming it’s some sort of condition. I don’t know what she does. I feel bad. But that’s what I mean by fixing up-it makes ME feel better.
And to tell you the truth, I don’t think the Duchess of Windsor was ugly. She wasn’t a beauty, but she had grace and poise and style.
Very true. And, as has already been mentioned by others, it works that way for males as well. My ex-wife was really the first woman who ever found me attractive…and looking back on it, I have have realized that a large part of why I ended up marrying her was that I was grateful that anybodywould be attracted to me.
(I can admit to patheticness here. If this were real life, I’d have to kill all of you now.)
Somebody mentioned “Hot or Not,” and I’m going to confess that I actually go in there and rate women. I’ll also confess that I’m not an honest rater–almost everybody gets an 8, and I never go below 6 (and my 6s are invariably running at 2s and 3s overall). I can easily imagine what it would be like to post a picture there and be told by everybody voting that I’m ugly, and I hope maybe my higher ratings make somebody feel just a little better about themselves.
But–and this is the real point I’m making, in my verbose way–sometimes my actual opinion is so divergent from the general rating that it startles me. I have given 8s, 9s, and in one case a 10 (I don’t give very many 10s; if I give a 10, it means I’m salivating on my keyboard) to women who hundreds or thousands of other votes are running much lower–sometimes as low as in the 4s. Now I may be eccentric, but I doubt I’m unique–if I find these women attractive on the basis of looks (which is all I have to go on), then so do others. This is just another way of saying that physical attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder, which everybody is supposed to know…but I think a lot of people really don’t know it, not in a way they can apply to themselves. It’s true, though, and should be kept in mind by all of us who usually feel like hideous lepers.
Really, I’d say it’s about the same for women who are considered “attractive” (by whatever standards we’re using, here) and “unnattractive”; it comes down to finding people who look past the cover and move right on into the book.
Some people are better reads than others, no matter how they look.
I feel extraordinarily lucky in that while I did get a lot of attention for my looks as a kid, I was also praised for other things, too: being a smart kid, an entertaining kid (I used to lie on top of our piano and do Cher imitations at my older sister’s slumber parties), and a generous kid (I always shared my Halloween candy with my siblings, who were too old to Trick-or-Treat).
So I never had much patience for those boys in college who asked me out because they thought I was gorgeous, but then weren’t really interested in talking to me, or who found my sense of humor indelicate, or who thought I would look SO much better in 3" heels. Pah! Life’s too short.
The flipside of that, of course, is that I DID, whether consciously or subconsciously, end up dating guys who tended to ignore my physical attributes entirely (as did other women I knew who were considered “conventional knockouts” in that arena). At the same time, I started rebelling against my perceived “beauty”.
I cut my hair “boy-short” as an act of defiance (and watched my list of suitors dwindle considerably).
I wore funny, baggy clothes and banana stickers on my forehead (hell, you’re supposed to be kind of weird in college).
I wore Birkenstocks and dared someone to love me anyway.
Love of my life (back then, anyway) was a fella who thought I was ugly.
Now, of course, I’ve realized that the best thing to have is someone who thinks you’re smart, witty, amusing, exceptionally limber (you know… whatever floats one’s boat), AND a hot tamale, but at that time in my life, I guess maybe I thought guys who appreciated my personality and guys who appreciated my va-va-va-voom were mutually exclusive.
So, in answer to your question, shrew (which is certainly valid in light of the OP), I personally dealt with the issue by seeking out guys whose idea of “Hubba Hubba” I was NOT. They were hard to find, of course…
With all due respect, I think this is the stupidest post I have seen in this thread.
Right now I do not look my personal best. My hair is kind of dirty and messed up, and I’m running on three hours of sleep. I doubt I’d turn stomachs if I went out like this, but I certainly wouldn’t turn any heads. With a nap, a shower, and a change of clothes I would look much better. Would I then be an ugly woman hiding behind a mask? If I would be, then every woman would – Cindy Crawford even more so than me, as I never have the elaborate makeup, professionally styled hair, and designer wardrobe that you always see her in.
I was a horrifically ugly child. I had buck teeth, a funny face, huge glasses, bad hair, and I was always a bit chubby. No pictures exist of me from age 5-11; I’m not sure, but I think people were afraid I would break their camera. There’s a picture of me at 12 and anyone looking at it would probably laugh or look away in horror. And I am not exaggerating, either. In 7th grade my best friend Carrie Metzgar told me that her mom thought I was the ugliest person she had ever seen. Jennifer Ruffini, another “friend,” told me that she couldn’t bear to look at my teeth (by that point I had the crowns I still have today). No one liked me. I never had boyfriends.
I always knew I was ugly growing up, and I never had a lot of friends. My family couldn’t afford cute clothes, so I didn’t fit in with the crowd. Because of this, my grandmother (god bless her dear sweet heart) made me start reading a book a day (we lived right by the public library). She (and my mom too, but Grandma practically raised me) taught me every day of my life that I might not ever be the most beautiful woman in the room, but I could easily be the most brilliant. I cultivated my intelligence, and I know I am very smart. I have no trouble getting straight A’s at my (Honors) university, with minimal studying (though I usually challenge myself because I want to). I was asked to be in the English Honors Program (usually you apply) and I just won a scholarship to England based on an essay I wrote. If I want to, I know I can craft an essay or a poem or a story that is moving, insightful, and amazingly well-written. If not, I can write what I consider a ho-hum paper the night before it’s due and still get an A. I never have a single doubt about my intelligence. I never doubt my writing. I never doubt that I can win the “intelligentsia” over with my brains. My professers love me and I often hang out with them after classes. A few I consider friends, and they go out of their way to help me get scholarships and write recommendations. Two professers were in a tizzy over who would be my Honors adviser. My English adviser, a wonderfully intelligent and sweet man, pulled about three hundred strings so I could apply late for a research grant because he thought I deserved it. I am not the best people person, but I know how to treat people, I am exceptionally polite and well-mannnered (thanks again to Grandma), I write thank-you notes and I make people feel valuable as often as possible, because I know what it’s like to be invisible.
I don’t worry too much about my looks these days. I have a great haircut that doesn’t take much work, I rarely wear much make-up, and I dress in what I think looks good (more often that not, I got it at the thrift store). When I look in the mirror, I am generally happy with my appearence. I may notice a zit, but for the most part I just smile and move on. I know that I am not beautiful by anyone’s standards, but I don’t really think that matters. When I think about myself, I don’t think about my imperfect features or my big butt, I think about how I donate blood every two months and buy coffee for the homeless man who is always nice to me and how I always smile at people and how they always smile back, and how intelligent and well-read I am. Because at my very core, I know that I am much more than a face or a body.
Just an example: my front teeth were knocked out when I was ten, and for the past 11 years I have had rather unfortunate crowns. (You can click on the www. link and see my teeth). They protrude (despite the fact that braces made my front teeth straight), they are too long and a slightly odd color. I now have the opportunity to get brand spanking new front teeth that are mostly covered by insurance. My mom has even offered to pay for them. The woman who would do it is a well-known cosmetic dentist and I know I would have beautiful teeth afterward. But I am still not sure if I am going to do it or not. Someone on this very Board made fun of my teeth when they say my picture, but most of the time I don’t think it matters. Teeth are teeth. Mine aren’t perfect. I’m not sure it matters enough for my mom to pay $500. There was a time when I would have begged and pleaded with her to let me have them, but now I don’t know if it’s worth the money and pain and effort, because I don’t think how my teeth look matters all that much.
Granted, it took me a lot of tears, a lot of rejections, and a lot of anguish to reach a point where I felt like this. Only in the past nine months or so have I been satified with my appearence. But it’s a lot easier and a lot simpler to just accept myself as I am than constantly worry over how others percieve me. Looks fade, bodies decay, but my good works, my kindness, and my intelligence will last me until the day I die and hopefully long after for the people around me.
Not that it matters, Sara, but I think you’re a knockout. If that picture is in any way accurate of how you look now, you most definitely outgrew the childhood “uglies”. You have this great happy glow about you…definitely the look of a happy woman.
You misunderstood me. you describe yourself as a woman who is ok looking without makeup, and even may be good looking if you had enough sleep and were clean. I was refering to women who are fundementaluy ulgy. I did not say all women are ugly. I simply said if a woman is ulgy without makeup then with makeup on she is only an ugly woman in disguise. A beautiful woman, in normal circumstances (enough sleep, washed) is beautiful without makeup.
I was defending the quote in the post that I replied to by saying that if the woman was ugly then she was ugly - weither she had put her makeup on or not was irrelevent.
Except for the fact that I’m not as brainy as you (I concentrated on other areas) or, after looking at your pic, as photogenic as you, your post sounded a lot like what I’ve felt over the years.
Like you, I’m fine with myself now.
I had extensive facial scarring from a car accident when I was 7. You can’t find anything crueller than a bunch of school children. My nickname was scarface. My first boyfriend asked me out on a bet, and got about $20 for it (a lot at the time). He told me about the bet 30 minutes later as he told me to never talk to him again. I knew no guy would ever be attracted to me physically. I knew that people were repulsed when they looked at me. I also knew I had to either kill myself or move beyond it.
Four operations later you’d hardly believe how my face used to look. Now that I’m in charge of my own life, there will be no more operations, because I am who I am. I’m also happily married to a guy who makes me feel like I am the most gorgeous, sexy woman in the world. I am happy with who I am, and how I look.
In my eyes, I have succeeded. Who cares about ‘normal’ beauty, when you can see a different type of beauty.
While I can certainly understand your point that a woman’s fundamental still-image beauty is most apparent without makeup, I still take umbrage with your statements. You have defined beauty so narrowly. What does it mean to you to be ugly? Does it not rely on other factors besides how she looks?
I think it’s all in the mind. Many of the people you perceive to be attractive or unattractive do not see what you are seeing. I can look back at pictures from 5-10-15 years ago and say “There was nothing wrong with me, what was I thinking?” I also know that in 5 years from now I could be looking at a picture from today and say the same thing “What was the matter with me then? I look fine here.”
I have been at both ends of the spectrum – invisible to all and construction worker magnet – at either time I had no shortage of people ready to comment on my looks. They thought they had the right to say anything they wanted about my physical body. You can only listen to so many comments, good or bad, before you want to hide in a corner and scream.
Miamouse, I totally agree with you. I had always thought that I was grossly overweight my whole life. I’m 42 now and am very overweight. A few weeks ago, I saw some pictures of myself from 20 years ago, in college. I looked fine. Sure, I had an unflattering hairstyle, lousy glasses, and poor taste in clothes (some things never change) but I was about a size 12 ( a size 8 today equates to a size 12 back then). Why was I so hard on myself?
