I’d be happy to donate some extra poundage to you. Free of charge.
Well, some of us need to hear it more than others do. When you’re a kid, you take what other people say to heart, and I was called horrible names as a child because I didn’t look like “the girl next door.” In the white bread suburbia of the 70s, that was grounds for social pariah-dom. I was 17 before I even entertained the possibility that I was not the most disgusting-looking female ever.
Even now, at 40 and mostly secure with my self, I look in the mirror and sometimes I still see ol’ Flatsy-face, Bug Eyes, Chink, Snaggletooth, Coke-bottle Glasses.
You’d be surprised how often I get that. If it helps, I have naturally long eyelashes and I look young for my age. Women hate me. 
Let’s just say I had an unusually long and intense awkward stage. From, say, 7 to 18, I was really unfortunately unattractive. Not just unpopular; I was gawky, overly scrawny, ill-postured, bad-haired, unfashionable, and just downright homely. I have since grown into my face, filled out some, got some fashion sense, and rumor has it that I’m a pretty hot property (although I still gotta work on that posture), but I forget sometimes.
It’s not that I have awful self-esteem or anything; I quite like myself. I just never think they’re looking at me (or if I figure it out I think I must have toilet paper on my shoe or something).
I never notice when guys are flirting with me, either, unless they’re very extremely obvious (in the “can I have your number?” vein), and when I do notice I get very flustered because I totally don’t expect it. But I don’t at all think I’m ugly. I’ve seen ugly people, I know ugly when I see it.
Okay, I take that back. It’s no longer free; I must have your eyelashes in exchange.
Honestly, if there was one thing I’d change about myself, it’s to have thicker, longer, curlier lashes. Forget the weight, 'cause if I really tried, I could shed that off, at least.
I posted in the other thread that I often feel like I’m ugly, even when others seem to think I’m not. Part of this is being a nerd throughout my primary education, part of this is my actual looks as well. I’ve always been short and skinny, and one of the tiniest people in any group. My level of skinniness in grade school was just as bad as being fat. I’ve had moderate acne since I was 10, and I still have acne. Even though it has cleared considerably, my skin gets discolored easily, so my skin tone is really uneven (I’m working on that).
Add to that the usual self-confidence problems that women have, and add to that the usual self-confidence problems that black women have in a society that holds up blonde-haired, blue-eyed fair-skinned-ness as the beauty ideal, and yeah, I’ve got some image problems. Many women do.
What makes it really bad is that I know that low self-confidence is, in itself, unattractive, but I just can’t seem to help myself. Whenever a guy comes on to me, I’m always thinking in the back of my head, “He really doesn’t think you’re good-looking, he’s just looking for a quick lay.” It’s so bad to be projecting to a date, "You don’t seriously find me attractive, do you? :dubious: ", unless you’re trying to sabotage your dating prospects.
In sum, I think I’m ugly because of society and acne.
PS. Aesiron, and any other acne sufferers, try hydrogen peroxide on a cotton ball a couple times a week. It won’t clear existing pimples, but it will do wonders to prevent future breakouts. And it’s way cheaper than that Pro-Active crap or the latest product pushed by the local friendly dermatologist.
That is exactly how I feel, too. To the point of constant discomfort.
I’m another one who was constantly picked on when she was younger. Spit on daily in class, had my hands slammed in lockers by the guy I had a crush on, had strangers coming up to me asking me if I was a guy or a girl, was called “craterface” because of my acne, “freak” because of how I dressed, and all that junior high/high school jazz. I was the girl in the class that guys would ask out as a joke. I got voted class princess when I was in ninth grade, just so my classmates could yell insults at me when I got on the stage. Probably as a result of this, I became very familiar with all my imperfections and thought my life would be so easy if I could get rid of them.
But I cannot, without surgery and years of dental work. I’ve got really crooked teeth and a 100% overbite. I’ve got a long, square face that always looks sort of chubby. I had pretty bad acne as a teenager, and even though it’s gone, I still see myself with bad skin when I look in the mirror. Explain that, if you will.
I’m jiggly around the stomach and thighs. On a good day, I think this is beautiful, like a painting or a statue. On a bad day, I just think I’m disgusting.
I’m a really jealous and insecure person, to top it all off. I’m the worst girlfriend ever. I never think I’m good enough for anyone and I can’t understand why anyone is with me, so I pick on them until they get sick of my jealousy and leave me. Like now, I have a boyfriend who is just way out of my league and I wonder when he is going to realise it.
On the good side of my looks, I have a nice butt (I’m finally admitting this!), pretty blue eyes, and a cute nose.
It all evens out to “I guess I’m probably close to average, but definitely nowhere near beautiful, and nothing you can tell me is going to improve my opinion of myself so there and ha!”.
But I think I’m being pretty honest. I know I’m not a complete dog, even though I feel that way sometimes - so instead of saying I am ugly, I will usually say I feel ugly.
I don’t want to feel ugly anymore. I want to know how to make it stop.
Dormitory life, particularly on a floor populated entirely by international students from various corners of the world, can work wonders on self-esteem. Specifically the part of dormitory life where a cute girl knocks on your door in her underwear, five minutes after you said goodnight and assumed she wanted nothing to do with you.
In general, though, it seems one of the best ways to feel better about yourself is to have others feel better about you – and one of the best ways to get that to happen is to not get all worked up and anxious about what they think. Just stop giving a shit and enjoy yourself a little.
I remember your picture from last year’s photo thread and you’re absolutely stunning.
I don’t know why you’d want to change anything about yourself.
I didn’t post in the other thread saying I’m ugly so people would say I’m cute. I know I’m not. But sometimes you’re just dying to have someone tell you you’re wrong. Fishing for compliments? Not really. Just hoping desperately that you appeal to at least one person. My dad told me every day from the time I can remember that I was ugly and fat, and no one would like me because of that. I got kicked out and my foster parents told me “If you want people to like you, you’re going to have to lose weight and wear a lot of makeup and dress like we do.” When I became a nanny, the lady I worked for said “okay, now you have a boyfriend, but if you want to keep him, you better start dressing and looking better.” When I got engaged, my fiancee told me he was embarrassed of the way I looked. When I got married he told me I was ugly and fat and started saving money so he could (so graciously) pay for me to have a boob job (too small, not perky enough) and a tummy tuck (ewwww, that “baby flop” is soooo disgusting. Please wear less revealing lingerie). My boyfriend now tells me I’m beautiful and my friends now too. I know they mean it, but after that many years of being told that I am ugly and always will be, I really feel like there is something wrong with them for thinking that and I almost feel sorry for them when they are so obviously wrong. There is a tiny part of me that sometimes thinks that hey, maybe I look cute today, but then I look in the mirror and I’m always dissappointed. I cannot overcome 28 years of everyone telling me the same thing. I don’t think I ever will. 
(wow, I’ve never revealed this much bitterness in my life. SDMB is better than a shrink!!)
Most of my insecurities have to do with my weight. I’m not fat really…but its been a battle all of my life, and when I was younger, I was teased a bit, especially in junior high. I was teased by the girls, ignored by the guys.
The teasing stopped in high school, but there was a specific incident where I was brushed off by a guy I absolutely adored (and to my own shock, let him know that). It was more than a brush off really…it was leading me on, ignoring me and then dating a short, cute, thin blonde freshman and parading her in front of me.
Anymore, I try not to care and just write myself off as plain. I’ve never been able to attract guys my own age, but have no problem with men who are considerably older than I am. I’ve never understood why that is.
I would call this mass-hysteria if that didn’t sound so sexist from a historical perspective. At the same time, history shows us that beauty is defined culturally, is subject to fashion, and therefore has no real meaning. With all due respect to those of the male-male persuasion, when gay fashion icons ruled the world they obviously selected their female models for their boyish looks. Besides, it has been historically proven that a peg is easiest to hang all sorts of different clothes on.
All jests aside, there are plenty of men out there who will fall for the successful busines woman. I’m sure it can be nice to jerk yourself off inside a young hot body, but there is a lot more to love (and sex!) than that, believe you me. Sex is sharing feelings and emotion, and outside of perhaps the eyes (everyone has beautiful eyes anyway, especially when they happen to reside in someone you like), which can indeed be windows to the soul, looks are pretty insignificant.
The kind of attention you’re not getting is due to so many silly things. Be glad you’re not caught into this maelstream of foolishness - it could lead you to believe for far too long that being in fashion is all that matters in life.
Ah, I wish I had you for myself for a week - seriously, I’m 100% sure I could teach you a lot about yourself and about being happy about yourself. Few people realise how insignificant looks are and how much else there is. Useful things to read from looks, are, at best, confidence. Attitude. Originality perhaps, though some people are so desperate to be original that being original becomes a shallow fashion item in itself.
My how unhappy would blind people be if looks mattered as much as we think, huh?
My ass doesn’t get pinched anymore
I don’t have panties and hotel keys thrown at me a la Tom Jones
I don’t seem to give women ‘the vapors’
Jumping Jesus Fish kimera! You walk on water!
Afer reading your post I can that gone through what I am starting. I am just starting to take better care of myself. (eating better, exercising, getting back into my photography etc.) But I just say, that from your pictures, you are really my type and I would probably rather have a root canal than actually approach you and ask for your number.
So maybe you don’t get as much attention from guys because the type of guy who is attracted to your type is a really quiet type and you just don’t notice.
No kidding, Zebra. I’m finding a delicious sort of irony in the act of trolling the “ugly person” threads for pretty girls.
Fishing for compliments?!?
No way!
Take a gander at my pic in the ugly thread–and also in the one about surviving it.
It is ONLY NOW–at age 42–that I can look back and say I was pretty. I may not be pretty now since the vitiligo–no, there is no pic and won’t be one–but by God, I was once.
A little background since it touchs on much of this dicussion:
I was NEVER told I was attractive, cute, funny, smart or pretty as a child. EVER. I was more put up with, if you know what I mean. I wasn’t abused or really neglected, Iwas just not really nurtured or supported. My parents weren’t very good parents–to any of their 5 kids. They didn’t go in for encouragement, warmth or affection, much.
My mother believed and believes that telling girls they are pretty goes straight to their heads–not good to have conceited daughters! So none of the 4 of us were EVER told we were pretty. FTR, my brother was never told he was handsome or cute, either.
The best compliment I ever got from her was on my wedding day:“you look very nice, dear.”
Sorry to ramble on here–but you hit a major button with me. I had no more idea that I was pretty, even beautiful, until a modelling company spotted me in 1972 and contacted my parents about me being a child model. I begged them to say yes. To give you an idea of how anti-this my parents were, they had my sister who was taking photograhy in 8th grade do my portfolio. I never modelled–but I hung onto the fact that someone out in the world thought I was attractive. That fact helped me build some sort of confidence. (and to be fair, I am glad I never modelled–it seems to be a socially accepted way to destroy beauty via eating disorders and silicone).
Christ on a cracker! You think that people are just vain about their looks? You never be told that you are attractive, you wear ugly eyeglasses thru grammar school (fashion came to eyeglasses about 1978), you be shy and scared of being teased etc. And I didn’t have to deal with a deformity or bad skin or obesity! My point is that I was pretty! And still suffer the lack like some here! It can happen to anyone and it does.
Well, I agree with the post that said around 30 you get more confident re: your looks and you know how to present yourself better (or are more comfortable with your appearance regardless). But I got vitiligio around that time–thus delaying my confidence and comfort for awhile.
I still–to this day–hate how I look in summer. The “good” skin tans and the splotches don’t and I attract the wrong kind of attention. It’s fucking hard to get up and wear a T-shirt and shorts and go to Home Depot and be stared at. You try it and see how you like it. You hear repeatedly, " she was such a pretty girl–too bad about the skin…"(especially when you weren’t told you were pretty when you were!) I am now a fan of winter–because, since I am so fair, the skin tones even out and I look normal.
It is good to look normal. Trust me. And it’s normal to want to be told you look good.
I am sorry that this has turned into a rant–it’s not even to anyone in particular here–this is just so personal and painful. Most here who think they are ugly aren’t–most folks have regular features that may not be striking, but are not ugly. What is missing is the reassurance by others (and then internalized) that those features are attractive and/or that the “deformity” doesn’t matter.
Appearance and body image go right to the core of self-esteem. Don’t believe for a minute that they don’t. To me, that’s not vanity or narcissism or being shallow–it’s being human. Yeah, it’d be great if we could just look at one another’s souls and gifts etc–and I think we should emphasize those more and broaden our defintion of beauty. But even with that, how others perceive your looks impacts hugely on your estimation of yourself.
Sorry if this was TMI.
When I was a child, I never thought about my appearance. I didn’t care what other people thought because I didn’t spend much time with other people anyway. My parents both worked full time and I didn’t many, if any, friends at school.
So when I’m about 16, my older sister brings a date to have dinner with the family. While we’re eating, her date looks around the table and says directly to me “Everyone else here is normal, but you’re just plain ugly!” I didn’t know how to react to that, I had to either laugh it off or punch him out. Since he outweighed me by at least 50 lbs and could turn me into a pretzel without a though, I laughed it off. Later, my mother said it was a very inappropriate thing to say (to which I agreed) but neither she nor anyone else said it was wrong. My sister saw him a few more times, but it didn’t work out, so I didn’t have to see him anymore.
That was more than 25 years ago and I’ve never forgotten.
Where to start? I’m a redhead with the accompanying very pale skin. I grew up in Florida where everyone was always tan so I stood out a lot. Plus, I was always a little chubby, not monstrously chubby and, by today’s standards, I would have been almost thin but at the time I was considered chubby. In sixth grade, I got glasses and braces and headgear (and not the cool behind-the-neck head gear but the insanely geeky over the top of the head headgear) plus I had always been a tomboy so I had absolutely no clue about fashion; I just wore jeans and t-shirts every single day. And I started developing in that grade but my mom was too busy to notice and I was too embarrassed to say anything to her so I got a lot of shit about it (and crap for other things, I was very shy and an easy target).
So that’s me in sixth grade: bright red hair, albino skin, chubby, glasses, braces, headgear, and in desperate need of a bra. How could I not feel ugly? It didn’t help that my dad thought it was “cute” to tease me by saying, “Look, it’s the Lee (my name is Lee) sisters, Ug and Home.” Get it, it’s Ugly and Homely. :rolleyes: My dad’s really not a bad guy and he thought he was just being amusing, he just didn’t realize that you don’t say things like that to 13-year old girls. (BTW, word of advice to all the fathers of girls out there, NEVER EVER do that. Tell your girls that they’re beautiful from day one, they need it.)
Anyway, looking at my face realistically, I’ve come to realize that while I’m definitely not drop dead gorgeous, I’m pretty average. Nothing really stand out but the hair and some guys seem to think I’m cute. And, taking a global view, I’m an incredibly blessed person, being healthy, having a good job, etc. But, some part of me will be that incredibly awkward, shy, harrassed sixth grader…
It’s easier to maintain a “better to look at me than stare directly at the sun” perspective than to try maintaining “I look good” or even “I don’t look bad”.
(This is, actually, an improvement on the past.)
I didn’t post in the aforementioned thread. I don’t really think I look particularly good or bad. I’m not deformed, but I do have one or two little items that, if it were free and effortless to fix, I’d fix. Plus I could stand to lose a bit of weight. Also, I have no fashion sense and am proud of that fact.
My main interpersonal worry is that I’m boring to other folks, actually.