Only caring about appearances

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My mom told me that all I care about is weight. I've lost 15 pounds and already feel like I'm going to get fat as all hell and there was no point in wasting nearly all of my money on clothes this week. My mom is very gifted in the looks department and here I am having to work insanely hard to look a certain way.

My doctor says that I'm going to want a boyfriend who doesn't care how much I weigh. I call bull s**t on that because the first thing I notice in men is how the look. The maximum weight I'll take for a guy is 190.

Maybe I'm just an aesthetic oriented person who could give to craps less about beauty coming from the inside

Or in other words, you're just like 99% of the rest of the population? I'm not really like that at all and so I cannot relate, but I can confidently say *most* people are that way.

There's a possibility that I may request going on an anti-depressant. My life has had ups and downs lately and I'm having really bad pain in my right knee. I weigh 220 and am 5'2 and if I go up in clothing size I'm screwed.

Well, one gets what one deserves.

?

I do not understand.

I meant that it was not a very nice thing to write, and if a person goes around thinking like that then maybe you will one day meet someone that thinks the same about you. Imagine how you would feel then.

You are young and you seem very preoccupied with you appearance, but don’t forget that the inside is also very important.

Most people care about their appearance, but it's important to not let that be the only important thing in your life. It can be hard, and sometimes people focus on looks because that is easier to focus on then the problems that a person has on the inside. Like saying ”when I lose 10 kg I will be prettier and boys will like me" instead of thinking "I am a nice person and I will be confident with who I am and I will find a nice boy that deserves me"

Well, I do care what people are like on the inside, if appearances are all someone cares about, they aren't going to be very complex or interesting intellectually.

However, I also understand having aesthetic standards. I work very hard to look my best and I think its quite fair and reasonable to expect the same from a partner. Why would I want to start an intimate relationship with someone who doesn't care if they repulse others with their slovenliness or obesity? There's nothing sexually attractive to me about rolls of fat or body odor and if it's too much effort for someone to maintain a healthy weight or bathe regularly, then they're not for me.

Aesthetics fade, everyone wrinkles, everything sags, today your skin is fresh in a decade it wont look as good, your body will change shape, that ankle might make you need a walking aid in twenty years time... Who knows?

Who you are on the inside is different, it grows if you invest in it.

Why bother?
The guy you're hoping to meet will age, sag, same as you, and really that is what you will spend your life looking at, so whats on the inside is for life, it can grow and improve, while the aesthetics fade... If they also value personal depth over the outward appearance then you wont be exchanged for a younger model.

Why should a person who values personal depth invest their time in a future with someone who only cares for the impermanent aesthetics?

If any guy tries to pick on me by saying "Hi beautiful!" he has no chance because I am strongly against relying on appearance alone. I know my personality is problematic and if someone wants to be with me just because I am good looking I can't help but think he will be unhappy with me once my look becomes less than the amount of my quirks the guy can take. I want to be liked for who I am, not for how I look like.

I am the same when it comes to other people - of course, I have some ecstatic standards (I won't be interested in someone who looks like a train run over his face or is unhealthy overweight) but what makes me fall for someone is the personality and attitude, not the look. All of my crushes so far were average looking and the one I fall in the most was even slightly below average.

I'm really more interested in being healthy than anything. (Though it's hard not to be self-conscious about my body as I approach 30) I think that generally if you have a lifestyle that promotes your mental and physical well-being you will be attractive. Exercising and eating a balanced diet helps to keep me in a better mental state and it is also good for maintaining muscle mass and promoting physical health.

I'd be careful not to obsess too much. It's good if you're trying to lose weight for health reasons, but if you get into the spiral of dieting and being too vigilant about your weight, you might find you're on you're way towards an eating disorder.

It happened to me. I started off with completely innocuous intentions of just wanting to slim down a bit and maybe get fit, but it turned into restricting behaviour and purging. To this day, I still feel messed up by the idea of getting into that vicious cycle again. That's why I'm not dieting anymore or even really focussed on my weight as much. I'm just worried that I'm too sedentary, so I'm trying to do more aerobic exercise and maybe make better dietary decisions, and even then I'm needing to be careful that it doesn't spiral again into extreme behaviour.

Just watch out. If you start to recognize that food is taking up way too much of your thoughts, maybe you need to speak to a counsellor on top of seeing a dietician (best case scenario is having a dietician that is experienced with eating disorders as well).