Have you ever fancied/ become attracted to someone with a facial disfigurement or is that something that would put you off ?

[areyoudifferent]

Absolutely no judgment on this what so ever at all so be as honest as you like. Have you ever fancied someone or gotten to know someone that has become really attractive if they have some kind of facial difference. Does some one you know have an amazing personality that outshines their disfigurement?

I'm a single male so I'm intrigued at the answers

I would find someone attractive still if they had this.

I think having different eye colours is stunningly beautiful !
I went to college with a girl with one blue and one brown eye. Amazing, so striking.

OP, are you familiar with the organisation Changing Faces?

I was a friend of a friend of the founder James Partridge. I thought he was very fanciable, as it happens. Lovely man too.

My friend has a prominent birthmark covering more than half her face. Hasn’t stoped her having a fab DH , great career and lovely kids, but I dare say life amongst the general public isn’t easy.

I dated a guy for ages who had a facial difference from surgery to repair a cleft palate.

I work with someone who has a massive red birthmark across his face - he's v good looking, previously been married, has kids, now in a LTR with someone. He's also had two successful careers.

I have a significant overbite which I absolutely detest and which my husband has always (literally since we were teenagers) told me he finds sexy as hell.

Beauty isn't as simple as clear skin or compliance with the latest "look" or fashion. I remember being mocked by "friends" for going out with a guy who they thought wasn't good looking. I had one of the best nights of my life with him, we laughed so much and he quite literally laughed me into bed. He was brilliant fun. My "friends" were arseholes.

Yes. The love of my life, the one who got away, the man I’ll always carry a torch for, had a squint, a lisp, and some facial scarring. He’s the most intelligent, honest, genuinely kind, and all-round wonderful human being I’ve ever known, and it’s unlikely I’ll ever meet as anyone as brilliant as him again.

For context, I’m traditionally attractive and have always been complimented on my looks by men and women alike. Few people would have put my ex and I together based on looks alone!

My experience and observation is that many* women tend to place character and integrity much higher than looks on their scale of attractive characteristics in a man. Conversely, many men value looks more highly than personality in a woman, and some of them assume attraction works the same way for women. It generally doesn’t.

Focus on your character, confidence, and self-esteem; do worthwhile things with yourself; and you’ll be just fine.

*not all! But don’t be disheartened by those ones.

I went out with a man who was legally blind due to a genetic disorder. He had a pronounced nystagmus. Not a disfigurement, but I had friends and family who found it very strange to talk to someone who obviously wasn’t looking at them, or who found the nystagmus distracting. It was pretty serious between us, and we even talked about having children and how we’d deal with that, (none of his children would have had the disorder, but any daughters would have been carriers for their potential future sons). We broke up for other reasons.

We met through a shared hobby and friendship group. He made me laugh.

I've been with someone with a facial disfigurement and it really didn't bother me. Having a good personality and being able to make me laugh trumps everything for me

I really don't think that it matters what the person looks like! When you love someone's personality, you connect and share each other's humour then you grow to love how they look anyway!

If I connect with someone, the disfigurement would become a non matter to me personally. Make me laugh - that's the most attractive trait to me!!

I can honestly say it would in no way put me off.

Finding a man attractive and sexy has nothing to with perfection for me. It’s a combination of everything about him and the way we connect and communicate.

I have a male friend who has a quite striking facial disfigurement due to childhood burns. He has never had an issue attracting women. He says the scars weed out superficial people anyway and he wouldn’t be interested in anyone who was repelled by them. I like that attitude!

A good friend of mine has a genetic condition that causes her face to be lopsided - this thread made me realised I’d actually never thought of it as a ‘disfigurement’ I think that’s a very negative term.

she’s happily married and it honestly has never occurred to me to think about her facial difference. I also have a few friends with facial scars, birthmarks etc. all do fine in relationships. I genuinely think it’s one of those situations where folk might notice the first time they meet you but then it just becomes a normal characteristic of who you are (like wearing glasses, gappy teeth etc)

Some of the most attractive people have some kind of minor facial difference. Tom Burke, Joaquin Phoenix, both 🔥
I have not been in a romantic relationship with someone who has a facial difference, but I would.
I know the accepted beauty standard is a very symmetrical rounded face, or square jaw for men, but I've always been more attracted to quirky looking people and have a thing for slightly wonky teeth, or with a big gap between the front ones.
I've got an asymmetrical face myself, some minor scarring due to an injury and some nerve issues (not Bell's palsy, but similar effect), I also have very assymetical ears and odd eyebrows. It's never been a problem for me.

@FurAndFeathers I'm sorry if I used the term wrongly, I just didn't know how to word it. That nice that your friend has met someone to share her life with! Out of curiosity is she confident about how she looks or is she quite reserved?

I've got a mate with a massive birthmark across half their face. I don't even notice it any more. Same with another friend who was bitten by a dog as a child, so has a big scar up and over their top lip, if someone asked me to describe them, I probably wouldn't even think to mention it as it's just blended into part of the 'them' blob I see when I think of them.

In my opinion, a bad personality can spoil the most perfect face, and a good personality makes what they look like utterly irrelevant. People are a whole package, not just what they look like.

Yes, my first serious boyfriend, we were together for 2.5 years. From a childhood car accident he had a top lip that turned up in the corner as he spoke - in an Elvis kind of way. I was first attracted to him because he was uber fashionable and a fantastic dancer and the most memorable thing about him after 45 years is that when the sun shone on his hair it was like strands of pure gold.

My husband has a cleft lip and palate, which was quite severe and the surgeries he has had have not been fully successful. When I first met him there was something about him, an attractiveness that I couldn’t pin point. I fell in love quite quickly, his lovely personality and humour drawing me closer. And I definitely fancied him (and still do!). He has spent his whole life being self conscious about his appearance, which makes me sad because he is an amazing person and when I look at him I see all the wonderful things. His lips may not be perfect, but when he kisses me with them I feel loved.

It's a great organisation. It helped me so much with my difference which was acquired during early adulthood.

My ex had an accident and one of the scars was a thick one running across the whole side of one face, from forehead, down through eyebrow and eye, down his neck and into his chest. It’s very deep and sort of went inwards.

He was even more gorgeous with it.

I haven't met any to know really, but what I've always found fascinating is that the people I've been most attracted to IRL are ones who I really didn't look twice at / fancy at all when we first met. It's the reason I hate feeling like OLD is my only option to meet people because I know for a fact I'd have swiped left for most if not all of them, whereas if we'd met IRL I'd have slowly but surely fallen for them.

I think facial features are important when it's the only thing you have to judge a person on, but when it's not then it can be anything really. The sound of their voice or the accent they have, the clothes they wear, the way they walk, the things they say, their general attitude to life, even dumb shit like the way they reverse a car.

So yeah I think if I had a facial disfigurement and wanted to date / find a partner I'd ditch OLD and join some groups, get a hobby or a PT job or something and just try to meet people organically.

Also: I read something once that facial scars can make people more attractive. Not sure how much truth there is in that but off the top of my head I'm sure Roxy from Eastenders and Jaquin Pheonix both have one and arguably it adds to their appeal.

Yes it was, apologies to the other poster.

Nope, although usually co-occurring thry are totally different parts of the maxillofacial structure. The palate is inside the mouth.

No I honestly haven't ever fancied someone with a facial disfigurement. Not saying I would necessarily be repulsed, but my reaction would depend on what it was. I have to say the thing I find very off-putting, is large moles on the face or neck. They are very unappealing to me.

A man could be physically appealing in every way, but if he had big moles all over his face and neck - even just 2 or 3 - like the size of a penny or bigger, I would be put right off. Different people are attracted to, and repulsed by different things. So if it's YOU who has the facial disfigurement @areyoudifferent , I wouldn't worry about it.

I'm really attracted to men with bulbous, slightly protuding eyes. No idea why 🤷‍♀️

I'm a bit unusual in that I actively like facial differences. I love wonky features, crooked teeth, moles, scars. My DH has a large noticeable lump/mole thing between his eyebrow and his eye lid and a scar through his opposite eyebrow. I love it. He's also got the most gorgeous full lips, an almost overly feminine pout but with his goatee and pirate scar it's a different effect totally. The guy I was with before him ( back in the dark ages😂) was a boxing skin head with a nose like a curly wurly teeth like tombstones and when he full belly laughed I just loved him even more. It's about confidence too though. I wouldn't have been attracted to either men if they had huddled in the corner refusing to make eye contact. Confidence can make me fall in love with anybody.

For me it's all about being comfortable in your own body and fully accepting and owning your flaws. I fully embrace mine and very much want that in a partner.

Just realised I missed this. I do a sport, and my first trainer was a man with Bell's palsy. After 3-4 lessons with him I totally forgot about it tbh and by lesson 6 we were firm friends when I got to see him compete after 6 months (TMI) I got the Fanny gallops . I would never act on it as we are both happy but I know he met his wife in this sort too. It's very sexy to see somebody you respect doing something very well and confidently and excelling.

Yeah I had a serious crush on a tutor of mine who had extensive burns on his face, head and hands. He was fit, clever and funny.