What's worse in terms of one's looks/attractiveness?

Post Reply New Topic

I've read threads where aspies reported feeling or being ugly. More men than women did this, so this thread is male-skewed, but everyone is welcome to vote or comment. Now, here's a question no one asked before, and I hope it doesn't violate TOS. (Mods, lock or kill this thread if it does.) What's worse in terms of one's looks/attractiveness: (A) Being ugly when you're young, and later aging into your looks; or (B) Being good-looking when you're young, and later losing your good looks. Pick one or the other.

I'd say it's worse to be ugly when young, even if you later age into your looks and become attractive. Rejections at a young, sensitive age (because hey, you're not attractive to the opposite sex) can do permanent damage to one's self-esteem. And naive-sounding "encouraging arguments" adults give you just don't hold any water. In a young person's mind, "'someday' you'll meet someone who loves you" is almost equivalent to "never", because "someday" could really be anything.

Not only that, you lose out on a critical milestone: young love. Yeah yeah, "you enjoy it better when you're older, because you're more mature". But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, can replace the thrill of your first slow dance in middle school, your first French kiss in a deserted hallway in high school, your first real date in an ice cream shop down the street from your school, your first bow-chicka-wow-wow when it's OK to be inexperienced, etc. No future to plan, no responsibilities to worry about. Just feeling invincible, and letting your brain get flooded with euphoric levels of serotonin and oxytocin, that are almost impossible for adults 30+ to attain. At least not without prescription antidepressants, like I'm taking now.

Plus, as I learned from first-hand experience, relationships at age 30+ are boring. You don't drink Sluprees laced with vodka, you don't have private conversations in a empty pedestrian underpass (think of the "Lucas" movie scene), you don't dance on the sidewalk to a street performer, and so on. You have to act in ways that make your grandparents or your religious leaders beam with pride, but make you feel dead on the inside. So without being attractive while young, this is the only type of relationships you experience. You effectively leapfrog over the fun, exciting, carefree relationships attractive young people get to have. The attractiveness you do attain feels a day late and a dollar short.

I myself was ugly when young. To the point where a waitress once said to her colleague: "Oh my god, look at his eyes! Ew!" (She didn't know I could hear her.) And countless women rejected me, obviously; nobody wants an ugly guy, I get that. The women I actually dated weren't very attractive. Things started getting better around age 27, so I caught the tail end of being young and decent-looking. By age 29, most women reacted positively when I flirted with them, or at least treated me with respect. By 33, I had conventionally attractive women show interest in me. But like I said, it all felt a day late and a dollar short, especially I saw people I know get into monotonous, sedate, boring relationships.

Conversely, when you're attractive when young and later lose your looks, it's less damaging. Most importantly, you don't get rejected at a young, sensitive age. Second, you have a full range of compatible partner to choose from. And when you do lose your looks at an older age (30+), it's mostly irrelevant. You already got casual dating out of your system, and found a partner who actually respects you. Plus, older people are less looks-focused anyway.

My bf and I totally do this kind of stuff! Haha.
My previous bfs were verrryy boring.

I think you maybe just need to meet the right person

I don't understand the poll, since you have several choices for at least three different genders. And I wouldn't know how to answer even if you clarified it. I'd just say if I could be in my 20s again (or even my 30s), I'd trade almost anything for that, both b/c I'd be younger and better looking and I'd have more time left (for everything) than I do now.

Ignore the genders for a moment. Consider the following two choices:
A. Ugly when you're young, then become attractive at an older age.
B. Attractive when you're young, then become ugly at an older age.

Which one, in your opinion, is a worse life path to be in? I specified genders because men, women, and nonbinaries may have different opinions about it; vote in the gender that applies to you. I'd say (I'm male) that it's worse to be ugly when young, even if you become attractive later. Because it puts you through rejection at an age when you're most sensitive about it, as well as bar you from experiencing young, exciting, carefree love.

According to the poll so far, men universally agree that it's worse to be ugly when young, while women and nonbinaries are evenly split.

I came very close to getting plastic surgery when I was 21; I even went in for a consultation. The only things that deterred me were the cost and the recovery time. If I had the money and independence back then that I have now (at 36), I'd probably have gotten it.

Ugly when young. When I was in middle school I wore really tight clothes because
1. I was in denial of being plus sized
2. I didn’t know of any stores

As I got into my late teens and 20s I decided it was time to start wearing makeup, wearing clothes that are cute and stylish and started to feel less insecure.

It’s bad to be so focused on one’s personal appearance that it impedes growth in other areas.

There are many types of body shapes and imperfections. I suspect if you visited a nudist colony, many of these differences would become quite obvious. As a result most people wear clothing. And clothing can dramatically improve their appearance. So from my perspective I really never paid much attention to how I look and my imperfections. As a result over the years I had gained a lot of weight and that began to dramatically affect my health. So I had weight loss surgery and dropped 120 pounds. One of the things that I found to be astonishing was that when I lost the weight I become more conscious of fashion. I went from size 3X down to size small in shirts. I could buy the latest fashions and they looked good on me. So here I am 70 years old and enjoying wearing fashionable clothing that makes me look good. Anyways my wife disagrees - she basically says "When you buy clothing why don't you dress your age!"

But on the flip side, some people can over obsess about the way they look. According to Wikipedia:
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), occasionally still called dysmorphophobia, is a mental disorder characterized by the obsessive idea that some aspect of one's own body part or appearance is severely flawed and therefore warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix one's dysmorphic part on one's figure. In BDD's delusional variant, the flaw is imagined. If the flaw is actual, its importance is severely exaggerated. Either way, thoughts about the dysmorphia are pervasive and intrusive, and may occupy several hours a day. The DSM-5 categorizes BDD in the obsessive–compulsive spectrum, and distinguishes it from anorexia nervosa.

Yeah yeah. But it doesn't change the fact that I used to be hideous-looking; girls/women wanted nothing to do with me, and wouldn't touch me with a 100-foot pole. The ugliest part of me was my face; my body was a little chubby but nothing bad. I didn't go on my first date (where nothing happened) until I was 18, and with someone I wasn't attracted to. I didn't get my first kiss until I was 20, and we were both drunk out of our minds. I had to hire an escort to lose my virginity, for crying out loud. And a waitress once said "Oh my god, his eyes are so creepy, ew!" when describing me to a coworker. So if that doesn't mean I was ugly, what does? Seriously, I want to know. It got better in my mid 20's, when at least started going on dates. But I didn't age into my looks until I was 28 or 29.

It's not "dysmorphic" if it's true. I actually WAS hideous-looking. Otherwise, I'd be able to find easy hookups or at least a girlfriend I enjoyed being with. And I wouldn't have had to hire an escort, either. That said, I'll give credit to the plastic surgeon I went to a consultation with. When he saw how upset I looked at the $10,000 cost and the 6 weeks of recovery time (I couldn't afford either, and I think he knew), he waived the $50 consultation fee he normally charges. And he didn't accuse me of having dysmorphic anything, nor did he suggest seeing a shrink; shrinks are all morons anyway, and wouldn't help me. Case in point: When I was 16, I told a therapist that I was ugly, and she just smiled and said: "No, you're a very attractive guy". Which came off as more cringeworthy than reassuring. I never brought up my looks with her again.

Us Apsies do tend to have problems with facial expressions, staring or not looking, & eye contact issues, & can be sensitive to lighting conditions which could all affect the way our eyes look/appear to others.

It’s better to go through the ugly duckling phase...and become a swan—than vice versa.

Do you have a picture of yourself when you were young, Aspie1?

THIS!! This is my I still prefer college-aged girls out of a desire to make up for lost time in middle and high school

Both sexes generally look better younger, but men seem more consistent. There are very few women who look good beyond forty, IMO, except those with equine features, who are to die for; a middle aged woman with equine beauty just looks so elegant and refined, in a way no other type of woman of any age can match.

Given that I'm young, I suppose I'd rather be good looking now than later, but then good looks wouldn't be much use for me now, given that I intend to wait a decade or more before getting married, so that it'll be easier to find a more mature (intellectually, morally and emotionally) woman.

Lauren Bacall was pretty darn cute when she was in her 70s.....

Bacall was gorgeous in her day, working with Bogart. Either way, I'm talking more about normal women than celebrities; one can't really judge celebrities in this regard because it's difficult to know where the plastic ends and the flesh begins (or is it the other way around, perhaps?)

There’s a person I work with who is about in her 60s.

She’s the Cat’s Meow!

Kraftie:

Yes, there are some good looking older women, to be sure. I knew a woman in her fifties a few years ago who would put every woman my age to shame; she had a kind of Rubens-esque dark, plump beauty. She had such a pretty but shy smile - and manner - that I concluded nobody had ever told her how pretty she was before, which would be a crime.

Still, I think women my own age are usually better looking - just not mature enough and frankly too androgynous. I also don't like their dress sense, but let's not go there again.