Coming to terms with being ugly

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I don't think about it. Not because I don't like to talk about it, but because I don't really understand the concept of ugly and pretty. It's all the same to me really. People are people. Looks are looks. I've never had any reason to say "Hey! You're ugly!" Because I just don't understand why I should.

I think I'm relatively fortunate in the looks department. I certainly could have done a lot worse. I have been told by many, many more people that I was attractive, than I have had tell me that I'm ugly or plain. When I think about the people who told me that I was ugly, I come to the conclusion that it's really a self projection, rather than anything else. Of course, beauty is somewhat subjective, and even the best looker in the world is going to considered unattractive by the vast majority of humanity. Your perceived uglinesses is tied up in your self esteem. Unfortunately this world places a huge emphasis on looks, but I know with certainty that attractiveness is linked to confidence. If you find positive traits about yourself to be proud of, and remind yourself of them, you'll come across as more attractive to other people, and hopefully also to yourself. It's difficult to know what you're all talking about in using the term "ugly" as I don't think it's particularly easy to get a good grasp on how someone looks even from a few photographs. You'd need an entire catalogue of them for anyone to get a good picture.

I go through ups and downs on this one myself. Sometimes I'm pleased with my looks, other times I hate them so much that I want to curl up under the covers and never come out. I usually don't take other people attempting to insult me seriously. It's such a waste of time to worry about that. I care more about how I feel about myself (which is not good right now) and what I can do to improve that.

Even people who are considered widely to be gorgeous have self-doubts about their image. Many of the most popular public personalities of our era have had plastic surgery, or undergo cosmetic procedures, such as botox, or lip injections. Base line - unless you have a full make up, hair, and lighting crew with you at all times, and a full time photoshop artist, don't make comparisons between yourself and anyone you see in the media. Have you seen what most celebrities look like without make up, or without their images being retouched?

They saying that "beauty is only skin deep" is all too true. You may be initially attracted to people who are good looking, but if they're boring, up themselves, or small minded, you quickly lose interest (at least that has been the experience of me and my NT friends).

I wish I could tell you all not to worry about the way you look, but of course, it's impossible for most people. I think we all have to work with all we have. Find those features that you like and highlight those; try to draw attention away from those you dislike. For instance, I have a slightly lop sided face, which is more evident when I smile. I haven't given up smiling, but I always stay away from dark lip colors, which would just make it more obvious. We can all dress to our best advantage. Whether that's highlight a certain body part, or just showing the world a little about our personalities.

Good luck to you all. I hope you're not all your worst enemies in this instance. - D

How do you catch it if you're really ugly? Walking with a paper bag on your head would catch a wrong kind of interest.

people who denigrate others by making fun of their natural appearance are f*****g douchebags, plain and simple. it's pointless instant gratification sadism, or some other kind of nasty power play. that being said, aesthetic preferences are a real thing, and in all of us, they are a hazily estimated mixture of what has formed our minds in our own experiences and the culture we belong to or have to live in. so while it's nice to believe, stuart smalley style, that if i think i look great, then other people will think so too, and in fact i WILL look great... reality is not quite so nice or easy as all that.

we judge others by our standards mixed in with cultural standards (whether we admit the latter or not, it does influence us), and we are judged by others. it is pointless to let this define your life whether you are judged as ugly or as beautiful, but it is a factor influencing your mental state, isn't it? can't be ignored, and i argue that it SHOULDN'T be.

when you judge others, sure, it's obvious to not be an as*hole and use that to make others feel bad, or carelessly throw your judgment out and inadvertently do that. but what's less obvious is that you have to deal with the fact that you literally can't avoid judging, and what's more, it's natural and there's nothing shallow about it provided it's not the only thing you ever notice about them.

and when you are judged by others, it's obvious to point out that they're only going off of their idiosyncratic mix of experience and cultural bias (ah, it's easy to see the cultural bias of others, but never our own). what's less obvious is that you can't dismiss their judgment simply because you don't like it. you have to live with it and deal with it, especially when being judged by a group. and it's really more how people deal with it or fail to deal with it that becomes problematic than how supposedly shallow others are for judging their appearance. it's a problem when someone overcompensates with an eating disorder, or falls back on learned helplessness and just stops caring about their appearance altogether. those are extreme examples, granted, but from those examples it is easy to see how people (myself included) avoid actually having to deal with the social problem at hand.

and then there are those who tackle it in a relational mode, correctly recognizing it as an interpersonal issue (as opposed to being an objective ill like a disease or a disability), but still incorrectly frame the solution as being all in their own power and being in their own head. they say to themeselves, "if i believe that i'm good looking, then you'll be swayed by my belief." there is hardly anything more pointlessly self destructive. and you often see this sort of person saying oddly extreme things like, "i'm perfect just the way i am" and other sorts of hyperbolic statements about beauty and perfection. these people fight a never-ending war. could just be me, but i see that as pointless and exhausting.

what it comes down to is that you as the judged have a number of realistic social choices available. you can realize that beauty is not the only way to attract others to you. you can look for other cultural niches where the definition of beauty shifts in your favor. you can look for people who differ individually from cultural norms. but what is dysfunctional is to complain about how unfair cultural norms are, as if aesthetics were ever "fair". what is dysfunctional is to respond to meaningless negatives with equally meaningless and hyperbolic positives, the equivalent of ramming fingers in your ears and singing at the top of your lungs to make it all go away. what is dysfunctional is to play with the terms of conversation and suddenly shift from a fairly straightforward commentary about physical aesthetics into a pseudo philosophical rant about what beauty really is and how it's only skin deep. no one was talking about that; you are changing the subject.

to those who i find unattractive: do you really care what i think? and if so, what are you going to actually do about it?
to those who find me unattractive: okay, i'm not for you. hopefully there are still other options.

I came to terms with being hideous 30 years ago. I don't care anymore. I don't want to be near human beings anyway. Better for me if people mistake me for Quasimodo.

Do you know any examples of places where you could find people like this? Wherever I go, the definition of seems to be more or less the same.

well, i don't know what you look like, so i can't say anything specific. and i suppose i should admit that there may not be a place for every single type out there (though i would guess there is a place for most). but as a general example, guys coming from hip hop culture in the west generally prefer the plus size ladies, which goes against the general crazy skinny magazine preference. my point is that aesthetics are arbitrary and culturally bound. so just because you find yourself rejected by the cultural niche you occupy at the moment doesn't mean there isn't a place for you somewhere else. or people have their individual idiosyncratic tastes as well. i'm a skinny, pasty, awkwardy sort of looking guy, which is generally not very attractive to most women (or probably most men, i don't know). but.. i have found women who were attracted to me.

so in summary, the definition of what's attractive really ISN'T more or less the same. there are different places and different people out there that have quite striking differences on what they find attractive. perhaps you just need to raise your awareness on that.