What's it like to be beautiful?

[mclover]

Just that really. Idly looking through some online gossip pages (I know) and seen a pic of David Beckham for example, and Helena Christensen. What's it like to go through life being very attractive? Any beauties out there want to share?

[dontgobaconmyheart]

God knows OP .I comfort myself with thoughts that nothing is ever as good as it seems/the grass isn't always greener and all that. I expect there are plenty of advantages to being average looking!

[Terramirabilis]

I'm certainly not but have worked with someone who is (she was working in an ordinary office job, not as a model or anything.) She has the kind of face you instantly look at in a group photo. Spectacular in every way. I saw how she was treated by people who didn't know her. Often rudeness from women and excessive chumminess from men. She was very nice to everyone. Her brother told me once she was deliberately very friendly and warm to other women because it helped reduce the snap judgements she often got where people assumed she'd be a bitch because of how she looks.

[morrisseysquif]

No idea for me - but it does not always go hand in hand with charisma, personality, being funny, being kind and a warm heart.

I have seen beautiful women who get the initial attraction but think they don't need to do anything else. Beauty fades, the other attributes which you need to cultivate, don't.

If you have them all = WHAM

[Harriedharriet]

I have a friend who stops traffic. And I must say it is not great at all. Some men, the ones you don't want trophy hunt her, the nice ones stay away, women react badly and she is never not noticed. Glad it ain't me.

[MrsApplepants]

I am very average myself but I do know someone who is absolutely stunning, model beautiful. Like a pp said, she is very nice to everyone, especially other women but is often met with hostility.

[MrsApplepants]

I think natural charm and charisma is possibly the better trait to have, as this will not fade and draws people to you positively.

[DramaAlpaca]

I'd be fascinated to know. I haven't a clue personally & I'm glad, I like being very average & being able to fade quietly into the background. I can imagine that for an introvert like me, being beautiful must be very stressful. Or maybe you'd learn to enjoy the attention, I don't know.

[Nutellalovesme]

Harried, I wonder why the nice guys stay away? Maybe they feel intimidated by her looks and/or that she would be too high maintenanced

[NightsOfCabiria]

Not me but Ive known a few.

Best friend at school stopped traffic. People would walk up to her, grab her arm, look at her and exclaim “oh my god!”. She really was astonishing to look at - very Norweigan looking, with slanted green eyes, pale blonde hair, high cheekbones and straight white teeth. She was tall with an hourglass figure too and lovely with it. She was legendary across the county!

Another who looked like Kelly Brook in her prime but taller and slimmer. Again, such a lovely kind warm person but I saw women push her and spit at her in clubs and bars simply for walking past them.

Finally, someone who I can only describe as exquisite. She looked a little bit like Christie Brinkley when she was young, all blonde hair, blue eyes, white teeth and perfect bone structure. She had the most incredible figure - slim but curvy and had the most incredible smile too. I went to a show with her once and sat on the front row. The performer took one look at her, stopped what he was doing and just stood in front of her and said “oh my fucking god!”

All three have kept their looks while I look increasingly like my father.

[angell84]

It is AWFUL. I used to be very pretty. I was known for being the prettiest at school/college etc.
Women have been ferociously cruel to me my whole life. There have been groups that I was in, where I was the prettiest, and thse women would make my life hell. Really nasty bullying.

Also men sexually harrass you all the time.

But the overall worse thing is how women treat you. Women, across the board, are cruel to good looking women.

Now that I am older and my looks have faded a bit - I see it from the other side. I am in a dance meet up, and there is another woman there who is the prettiest woman there. And instantly I felt anger at her, and like being rude to her. I never said anything to her - but I did feel that way.

Why do women always tear each other down?

[Fadedbeauty]

Name change test ...

[Fadedbeauty]

ah , OK - the name change works.

It was very nice, but I'm past it now. It's hard when it goes.

I found that men were much nicer, more friendly and more helpful than women were, and I think that's probably given me a different view of men than that held by many women. If I needed a favour, I'd always try to avoid asking a woman and find a man.

I never had much sexual harassment from men. Lots of wolf-whistling and car-horn-tooting, which was infuriating, but in my entire life, just two incidents of men making unwelcome and unexpected passes that I had to fight off rather hard. Other than that, no trouble at all. I've never been groped in a club, or anything like that. I had an awful lot of being stopped in the street, told I was beautiful and/or asked out, and men sending over unasked-for free drinks or food in bars and cafes, but I don't regard that as harassment - all the men who used to do this were respectful, and everyone has a right to ask, as long as they accept a No with good grace.

I think perhaps I had an easy time because my personal style isn't particularly feminine or "sexy", for want of a better word. I was very into vintage and sometimes rather goth-ish clothes, and I have a feeling that was possibly quite a protective way to dress. I never wore body-revealing outfits, short skirts, low-cut tops, etc.

I'm only now just starting sometimes to get a sense of that slight hostility from men that a lot of women talk about, and it's something I've never experienced before. It's changing my view of the world, and making me think that perhaps some women have a point when they talk about misogyny - to be honest, I've always believed it was a bit of myth, and that not many men really dislike women.

I loved being beautiful. It gave me a lot of confidence, and I think it made my life easier.

[JoObrien7]

I have always been told I am pretty not beautiful. I have big green eyes and curly hair with nice legs. When I was 17 I used to get asked out a lot which annoyed my boyfriend at the time. Now I am much older I still get some attention from men some old and some young .... which I really don't want or need if I am being honest.

[Monty27]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Pretty or beautiful?
Attractive to whom what or who?
That deserves a thread all of it's own.

[Fadedbeauty]

Women, across the board, are cruel to good looking women

I didn't find that to a huge extent; I just found that other women tended to be not all that friendly a lot of the time - and again, I think I possibly had an easier time because of the way I dressed. Lots of other women probably wouldn't want to look the way I did, so I have a feeling that would take the element of envy down.

I did have one absolutely horrific experience with another woman. This woman deliberately set out to damage my professional life and trash my reputation, and she succeeded, to a great extent. I'm absolutely certain, because of several things she said, that this was because she hated my appearance, and believed that because I dressed up and looked glam, that meant that I was empty-headed and had no right to be engaged in serious professional work. It was a vile experience, and it did a great deal of damage.

[JoObrien7]

@Fadedbeauty

Not all women are cruel to good looking women ... I think they can feel threatened if their man pays attention to you which has happened in the past with me. I usually tell men who are attached to bog off! or some type of similar language. I do think some beautiful women will enjoy the attention of all men but I have never been like that. Probably because I not beautiful just attractive.... well my husband tells me I am and his opinion is all that counts with me.

[Ritascornershop]

When I was younger I was told I was beautiful all the time, mostly by men (I’m only 5”4 and was never going to give Julie Christie any bother, but was quite pretty I suppose - my face was my norm and I just saw the flaws, but now I look at photos and think I was, as people said, a stunner). I thought it was just how men talked to any and all women, I didn’t have much confidence and and didn’t take it seriously. Consequently nice men didn’t try and I attracted men who got off on being seen with a beautiful woman while diminishing me in private.

I’ve always had lovely female friends and older, maternal type women have always been kind to me, but women at work have been vile. The plainer they are the worse it has been, it’s caused me a great deal of stress.

I think some of the benefits I haven’t known about as it’s been my norm. When I was in my early 20’s, for example, I’d eat lunch once a week or so in a nice restaurant near to where I worked. The owner started giving me free meals as he said I “added a certain something”. Being quite naive I thought that sort of thing was normal.

I think it’s maybe a wee bit harder to age as now I’m coming up to 60 I’m fairly invisible. I’m attractive for my age but don’t get men opening doors and offering help and whatnot. Nice not to be the focus of attention, but a change for sure. I watch with bemusement my kids getting the same sort of attention I used to get and hope to be able to help them navigate it a bit (my parents were fairly ordinary looking so I got no preparation for how to deal with men constantly talking at me - I’m quite shy so found it all bewildering).

[minesagin37]

Beaty has faded now( in my 50s) but when younger I was. It caused problems. Mainly with other women. Once in a club chatting to friends when out of the blue a girl came over and started ranting at me and screaming and crying. It turned out her boyfriend had been oggling me and I didn't know it. There were other such incidents. At work I got told by a senior female colleague I could forget about promotion on grounds of talent as men would only promote me because of the way I looked. Thank goodness I've aged. Life is easier.

[YouJustDoYou]

My friend was beautiful. Turn heads kind of beautiful. But she was also a lovely lovely human being, and the friends she had were good people too so she never got any of this bullying people seem to think "all women do", not even where she worked. She got a lot of utterly unwanted unpleasant male sexual attention though, all the time, which she hated. She's in her 40s now and said it's nicer that she doesn't get that same kind of male.attention - no one needs some gross slobbering man telling her what nice tits she has, or asking if she's up for a shag, or calling her a stuck up cunt because she won't talk to him.

[JustaScratcj]

I was considered attractive when I was younger and looked older than my age - I got a lot of male attention from the age of 11/12. At first I learned to be very aloof as a defense mechanism - as a 12yo I did not know how to handle this kind of attention from a 24yo man so I became cold and rude to get rid of them. I then had to unlearn this behaviour as I got older because, you've got it, other women thought I was cold and rude!

It gave me some physical confidence which has stayed with me even though I'm overweight and in my 40s now, I don't really feel anxiety about my appearance. But I've had many awkward situations with men I thought were just friends, or husbands/boyfriends of friends of mine behaving inappropriately, including one saying to me on his wedding day that he wished he'd met me first. Prick.

The funny thing is, there are not many men in my life I have fancied and the few times I have they have never fancied me back, so I've usually gone or with men who seemed to not be arseholes as they were the exception to the rule, rather than people I was crazy about. Bit sad when you think about it.

[Sarcelle]

Interesting thread. I was considered very attractive by others but not myself when I was younger. I had zilch confidence but I can see looking back that I was. My best friend at school was into 60s icons and she said I looked like Jean Shrimpton. Whilst there was a facial resemblance was about a foot shorter with an hourglass figure.

From an early age I had harassment from men in the street, but not so much with people I knew. Because I had no confidence I think that was a turn off for people who knew me. Strangers just saw my looks and it was like a hunter with prey. Women were the worse though. I seem to spend a lot of time trying to get girls at school, and then women when I was older, to like me. I put up with some very bad behaviour and treatment to ingratiate myself. I thought I had a shit personality which is why they disliked me. Only now do I realise it was my looks they disliked.

I am middle aged now and after a few year's in the wilderness (overweight, unhappy) I have had something of a renaissance. I lost weight, exercise, take care of myself, become stylish and now have that missing confidence. I have no interest in attracting anybody but bizarrely I seem to be attractive to guys in their late 20s and 30s. My own age not so much. As I say, no interest in that department!

However the response from other females has been astonishing. Bitchy and resentful. It is like going back in time. I fight the urge to ingratiate myself again.

[Joans3rddaughter]

When I was younger I was always described as "very pretty". I was sat in a pub with a boyfriend and his male friend. His friend said if I was to lose a stone in weight I would be "stunning".
Thanks for that.

[LellyMcKelly]

I was pretty enough in a Spice Girls way - shaggable but attainable, but my friend was a catwalk model. A 5’11” Britt Eckland with tits and a tiny waist. She turned heads in the street, but actually found it hard to meet men she wanted to date. She had no shortage of male attention, but most of them were slimy creeps. She inspired a lot of jealousy in women, which was a shame as she was (and still is) a really lovely, good and kind friend. She married an academic and moved to the country where’s she’s happy as a clam with her dogs and kids and garden.

[Sunflower20]

Not beautiful myself but have been friends with some really beautiful people. I think confidence is a massive benefit of being good looking, however not all of them feel that way. It's interesting.

[joystir59]

I was a pretty but am old now. I got lots of male attention which I hated, it wasn't positive. I learnt to be very aloof in response. I'm enjoying being invisible to men now.