Sorry for the bump, but I just saw this. Re:Ridiculously good looking boyfriend. I kicked him to the curb about two years ago. He was purty, but that only carries you just so far. He stopped being fun to be with, so I stopped being with him. Re: other women’s attention, I have never really been the jealous type. I was amused more than anything else.
Is this something you’ve actually witnessed? Where the hell do you live?
OT, I’m potentially decent-looking but I got horrible cystic acne when I went to college. I could feel the way people’s attitudes to me changed. One girl that flirted with me a lot before I got acne won’t even look at me now. But I’m getting better, and I know some have it a lot worse than I do. There was one thread I found with some very painful, heartfelt posts by men who have disfiguring permanent acne scars. I’ll keep looking for it.
Could be Thailand. The Thais are quite frank about people’s looks, generally more so than Westerners are comfortable with. I remember when I was first here, I kept being asked if thought Thai women were beautiful, and this or that woman would be pointed at. Once they pointed to a rather unattractive lady – and this was not behind her back, she was a participant in all of this – and asked me if I thought she was beautiful. Not wanting to be rude I said, “Er, um, yeah, sure she is.” The group looked at me with mouths agape. They all started telling me no, she was not beautiful, was I crazy? Even the lady herself was telling me no, she wasn’t, what was the matter with me.
(Or it could be West Texas.)
This was posted quite a while ago, but since it was bumped I figured I’d give my two cents.
I don’t know what it’s like to be ugly(though I wouldn’t consider myself to be overly attractive, either). I know what it’s like to be fat. For a period of time I was very heavy. I am 6’ woman and my heaviest was 315 pounds. I was in an abusive relationship and turned towards food as a comfort. To be fair - I’ve never had trouble finding romantic partners, no matter what I’ve weighed. I am not what I would consider unattractive. HOWEVER, that being said, after I lost the weight I noticed an extreme change of attitude directed towards me.
There were certain types of men in particular that were only interested in sleeping with me while I was heavy - they didn’t want a relationship. Once I was thin again, they wanted to take me out in public.
Women, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind whatever weight I was. I know that’s weird, but I’m serious - if there was a woman who was interested in sleeping with me, she also wanted a relationship.
Friends and family would go out of their way to make comments - sometimes only trying to be nice and often times just to be insensitive. Physically I was still very strong and actually still pretty healthy. There was nothing wrong with me medically, and I could easily keep up on hikes with people who weighed 100 lbs less than me. There were a lot of changes in that period of time. I distanced myself from a lot of people and burned some bridges altogether.
Complete reversal - my sister is petite and was blessed with large breasts and a large rear. She is what I would consider “Too attractive”. Beautiful blonde hair and bright cat eyes. She had trouble in high school finding good boyfriends because nice guys were too intimidated to approach her and only cocky jocks wanted to. She has a Bachelor’s in Anthropology and there were multiple occasions where she’d be on a dig and they would say things like, “I’m sure you don’t want to get dirty or break a nail, but…” or “That looks too heavy for you, let me do it.” And this was detrimental to her career. She was passed up for multiple promotions and I personally think it was because she is an attractive woman.
She is also a gamer, like I am - the responses we get are ridiculously different. As I said, I’m not unattractive, but I’m not feminine, either. I’m very tall and strong-looking. When I say I play videogames, play D&D, and read comics, people don’t usually question it (unless they’re questioning it specifically because I’m a woman, which has happened). She is petite and feminine. No one ever takes her seriously.
I think it swings both ways. There are pros and cons to each. Being fat introduced me to some of the most non-judgmental people in my life. And it taught me how to stand up for myself. But it also sucked. And I think there is a point where you become ‘too’ attractive and that sucks too.
That being said, I voted attractive is easier. I’m sorry, but saying it taught you to be stronger is just a cop out to me. I don’t want to be forced to be strong just because I look different than this stupid preconceived idea of beauty. All it did was teach me how shallow and insensitive most people are. I cannot imagine what it is like to deal with that your entire life.
No pity for those of you who are saying you DO deal with it every day. Just empathy.
We once had a very beautiful blond woman as our IT lead tech and she told me that she felt she had to tone down her good looks or people didnt take her seriously. Yeah weird isnt it.
I’ll be frank and say I’ve almost never even tried flirting with the most beautiful women because I felt so insecure that I felt they were out of my league.
I’ve been in several such IT companies. The beautiful girls are often pressured away from the heavy technical side of it and towards more customer oriented aspects. Or even to just be like front desk girls. Probably not good for their long term career.
If you looked at me from the back, you might think I was a looker. I’m slim, good toned legs from running and tennis, no old-lady batwing upper arms (thank you, tennis), and natural golden blonde hair. But when I turned around, you’d be disappointed. I don’t have an ugly face, but I do have a plain one, a little too long and with no nicely-prominent bone structure. I’m used to it now, but when I was younger, it hurt terribly to see how people’s faces would drop when I’d turn around.
I have lots of good things going for me. I’m built well, smart, quick and witty, kind, generous, and fun to be around. I smile and laugh a lot. People like me and in some cases admire me. And I’ve gotten past caring about the looks as much as I possibly can. But if you dug really deep, there is probably a vestige of that humiliated teenager I once was haunting my present.
Being plain, unattractive, homely, whatever you call it, is NOT pleasant. Certain people treat you as second class, and in certain situations you are marginalized.
In an ideal world, it shouldn’t be the case that we don’t take people (especially women) seriously because they are beautiful. However, I’m a bit skeptical about the people protesting it’s so hard to be beautiful while wearing clothes, haircuts, make-up etc that emphasizes said beauty. If it really was so bad, I would think it’d be easy enough to fix with a bad haircut, dowdy clothes, some ugly tattoos in strategic places etc.
Very interesting thread, prompted me to register.
Consequences, not that the opinion of strangers should mean much but you posted pictures so here’s my opinion. You’re not “extremely unattractive”, in fact I find you appealing. You could trim the beard and as someone else mentioned maybe different glasses might be more flattering, but in no way do you appear “extremely unattractive” from here. I will say I’m someone who prefers bigger guys and I do mean heftier (fatter, if you prefer more blunt language), and taller is fine though I’ve never written off shorter guys either. I know this is not a typical preference so it probably is not much comfort to you but on the other hand I don’t think it’d hurt to remind you that everyone’s preferences are NOT the same despite what society drills into us. There are women who prefer men of your size, or even larger.
The other significant thing you cite as making you unattractive is your teeth, and IMHO, I’d second what someone else suggested about dealing with that as soon as possible. And I’d add a further thought, which is that I have a feeling when you get your teeth taken care of, it’s really possible that some of the other things will gradually “take care of themselves” like lack of confidence (from being bullied or otherwise). But the teeth thing, it inhibits you from smiling and I’m sure makes you very self-conscious about even speaking for fear of someone looking at and judging your teeth. There are bound to be all kinds of negative effects in other parts of your life that trace back to that self-consciousness.
I say this because I had a woman friend who had really bad teeth her whole life. Around the age of 35 she finally was able to get them fixed, she had to have them all pulled after which she got dentures. She was terrified of doing this firstly because of how painful she thought it would be (it wasn’t, due to the wonders of anesthesia!) and also the stigma of being so “young” to get dentures and thinking they would look awful, obviously fake, and so on. Turned out that those technologies have changed alot and dentures do not have to look like uber fake “grandpa teeth”. Hers were matched to her skin tone and age, so that the color of the teeth look as realistic as possible. She was beyond thrilled with the results and later kicked herself for not having done it sooner.
Here’s the point of telling you this: She totally came out of her shell once her teeth were fixed. Laughing without covering her mouth, smiling freely, talking with ease… all the obvious self-consciousness from before totally disappeared. She says it was like starting a whole new life, and watching her, I have to agree. Don’t underestimate the extent to which that self-consciousness over your teeth is negatively affecting just about all other aspects of your life, there’s no way it couldn’t be. So I really hope to read an update here sometime where you talk about how much better your life is with your new smile!
As for your BFF that turned out to be only using you, maybe no comfort to you but listen, that sort of thing happens, and not just to people who consider themselves “unattractive”. Although maybe if you DO think you’re so hideous (even if you’re not) it could be that you ignored or somehow made allowances for whatever “red flags” the BFF may have been giving off that she was just a user, simply because you were so glad she wanted to spend time with you. All I can say is please don’t allow one bad apple to make you so cynical that you don’t give other people a chance. I promise you, there are lots of good people out there who aren’t nearly as judgmental as you and some of the others here saying they are “unattractive” seem to fear.
Well, MY dating strategy for a long time has been to try to get a date with the most interesting woman I am aware of (no movie stars or celebrities, must be a local). The person you’re most drawn to. If you try it, you’ll be surprised that not everyone is going after the same person. The best thing that could happen to you is to get all the dates you want with someone totally hot, and then be really disappointed with how boring they are. Then you will understand how to date and your looks won’t matter anymore (unless you’re the Swamp Thing).
Personally, I look kind of like a big potato. To be unattractive feels painfully insecure. But, it helps that I have my life in order, that I can hang on to a chain of thought. I was more unattractive in the past before I’d dealt with my issues, but my dating strategy seemed to work then, too. Now, I have a great gf. Do I need to be pretty to get extra attention at the grocery store or something? To play in a band or do commercials? What do I need it for?