How do you get over being unattractive/plain-looking?

(1) grow a whopping shaft
(2) grow a whopping bank balance


that should cover most bases

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Being physically unattractive is much harder for women than men. We all frequently see men who drew the short straw in the genetic lottery with attractive women - the reverse is rarely seen by comparison.

So do whatever you can - get in shape, work on your confidence, and you won't have an issue unless you are literally a hunchback.

As a wise man once said...

I think it's more difficult for guys. At least we women have make-up. Well applied make-up can make an incredible difference.

I'm a proper fugly (fúcking ugly) :eek:

Scars on my face, long ZZ Top beard, missing teeth, heavy tattooing etc., but then I'm a biker, kind of goes with the perceived image.

Long story short, got some dental implants, shaved off the long hair (the beard is staying, look what happened to Samson) & started exercising regularly.

I look a little better than I did, but the confidence soared & I am now with my OH (who is a stunner & a beauty therapist, but obviously needs a white stick & a labrador :pac:) for the last decade after being single for nearly four decades on & off :cool:

Moral of the story...if a fugly like me can find the love of their life, despite all my aesthetic disadvantages, anyone can

Speaking of ugly don't feel alone. Hate to use that word but was out visiting the folks yesterday and had to endure an episode of "Fair City". I've never seen such a shocking collection of ugly men. Wrinkles you'd think were accident gashes. Skin the texture of an old bicycle tyre. Pasty as something you'd find in the morgue. And that's with make-up on. Not - Fair city if you ask me.

People always speak about confidence as if it was easy to come by. Sure, a person can work on their confidence, but in general confidence is about belief and you can't make yourself believe what you know deep down just isn't true and so that advice is pretty much pointless. Confidence has to have foundation.
If a person has a life of never having had anyone negatively comment on how they look, has had tons of compliments growing up on how their physical aspects of their appearance, no shortage of attention from the opposite sex, or same sex.. then naturally they will have confidence in themselves. Such people might not even give the importance of looks a second thought. Sure why would they. You drive on smooth roads your whole life, you're hardly gonna be able to relate to someone whinging about potholes on theirs. Conversely: a person has has a childhood scattered with name calling based on their physical failings, zero attention from anyone that is remotely interested in them.. then naturally, confidence is not going to be all that great, no matter how much the person works on it.

Oddly enough, I have experienced both. I was quite good looking (as it goes) up until around 17 and had tons of attention from girls, ridiculously so and then, as a result of an illness, it went. So I can relate to both sides of the coin as I once would have not understood where people complaining about such things were coming from, and then I very much could relate. It was like someone flicking a switch and has very very little to do with how confident you feel as I was quite shy at 16 when I had that attention and didn't like myself much at all. Was on acne meds at the time, thought everyone must think I was horrendous, but yet got lots of girls gave me attention and even often had girls say they liked that that I was shy and would blush when they spoke to me. I still hear women say that about other guys in fact, that some guy is really handsome, but doesn't yet know it and how much they like that about them and so I think the whole confidence thing is overstated tbf.

I have no real advice though, why would I, but I think it's the same as any flaw a person might have really. No use pretending you're something you're not (as some of these confidence gurus might suggest) as that just comes across if someone is hiding something, putting on an act and even if you pulled doing that, it's bound not to last long as there is no chance anyone could sustain a facade for too long and so your only real choice is to make the most of yourself, strive to look your best, as the biker dude did above. The hand you've been dealt is the only one you can play at the end of the day and maybe there's some confidence to be found in that. As a great man once said, You've got to learn to live, with what you can't rise above'. You only have one life, no point spending it fretting over your failings, perceived or otherwise.

Another thing which made me take prescriptive on things, with lots of things really, not just this, was learning how to be grateful for what I do have. Have a friend that sufferers from Craniodiaphyseal dysplasia and people will actually drive slower when they see him just so they can look at him. Groups of kids will shout at him, adults with stop talking when he walks into a room, pretty much everywhere he goes people will stare. Makes me feel like an idiot for feeling self conscious about comparatively trivial reasons when I see the level of negative attention he pretty much takes in his stride. That's the same condition that Rocky Dennis had by the way, which the film Mask was based on. He died when he was 16. He wrote the following:

These things are good: ice cream and cake, a ride on a harley, seeing monkeys in the trees, the rain on my tongue, and the sun shining on my face.

These things are a drag: dust in my hair, holes in my shoes, no money in my pocket, and the sun shining on my face.