A message from an ‘ugly’ woman

[Over40Overdating]

I am, by all conventional standards, an ‘ugly’ woman.

I am not, and never have been, beautiful. Never pretty or attractive. On a good day with some good light, I could possibly pass for striking.

This awareness has crippled my self esteem for years, to the point of developing a phobia of mirrors and pictures. I have no pictures of me from 14 until recently.

Tonight, on my way home from work, 2 young women got on the trains opposite me and started discussing and laughing loudly about how deformed and ugly my face I was.

I didn’t challenge them because I am middle aged and knackered and didn’t fancy my chances with two very loud, much younger women, but I realised I don’t actually care.

For so long, someone calling me ugly or unattractive to my face would have been my worst nightmare but it happened and instead of the world ending, I’ve realised I no longer care about my face or how it’s viewed.

I don’t know if it’s age, peri menopause, life experience or being too tired to care, but for the first time in my life I feel like I am more than the sum of my facial features and very much like who I am regardless of what I look like.

I feel free. Like a giant weight I have been dragging around my whole life has suddenly dropped off. I wish I’d had this realisation decades ago! I wish I could tell younger me my wonky face doesn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things. I have a life I am proud to have created and many things to celebrate and not a single one of them relied on me having a conventional looking face.

So fellow ‘ugly’ women, please come join me on a ‘DGAF’ thread.

Reassurance about your face ‘not being that bad really’ is banned.

Celebration of all the many other things you are than your physical appearance encouraged!

I think in a nutshell, the love I have for myself over rides any kind of validation from others. I dont need it, dont care. Its so freeing and liberating. Like many others I wish I had felt this a long time ago.

Ok, you've never, ever, not once, seen a person and found them aesthetically displeasing. Never ever ever not once in 40+ years. OK
I didn't say that. I said the opposite if you read my posts.
But a) I rarely view anyone through the prism of their appearance - I just don't b) u don't look at strangers & evaluate their appearance either - why would I? and c) I do not ever think of people as ugly.

I'm judgy AF about other stuff - manners, respect for others etc, in case I sound like I'm advocating for a high moral ground!

But it isn't helpful to pretend that the opposite of beautiful actually objectively does not exist.
I don't pretend though. There isn't one definition of 'beauty' for one thing. And of course it's not objective. It's utterly subjective.

There are elements of appearance that could be problematic, like someone not washing, wearing dirty clothes, having particularly unkempt clothes.

That's not beauty or ugliness tho.

I really don't believe that you truly have no concept of what we're talking about.
Ok. We'll have to leave it there then. I find it truly depressing that women are accepting some arbiters of ugliness or beauty & deciding they meet it, cannot accept that someone is not ugly in and of themselves and that characterisation of such is both indicative of unfortunate encounters with horrible people, as well as their own lack of self-esteem & value.

Or how insulting yours sound?

Tell me, what do you get from putting someone else down like that?

Or my view point and one I'm entitled to hold?

Imagine feeling it's ok to dismiss someone's viewpoint so summarily.

I wish I DGAF. I too, am ugly. My own parents would not keep any school photos of me. My DM would just tell me that personality counts more.
I was bullied throughout school, and my looks were always a target. Any relationships I have been in, have come from friendships.
I have heard comments from people in shops etc about my looks. I have caused myself some embarrassment before by confronting them, and I am made to look like some crazy hysterical woman.
When I have worked, my colleagues would also feel my looks were a free pass to be horrible about too.
I refuse to be in photos. I have gone to weddings and hid during the group photo. I have demanded photographers delete my photo if they snap me.
If I ever go missing, it will be my police mug shot that will be used in press releases.

A PP said men don't get called ugly. Yes, they do. I have gone out with a man who I didn't think was ugly at all, but all my friends (male included) said he was. I am always attracted to personality.
Someone very dear to me has had people comment on his looks very publicly too. I have seen men walk past and people comment on their appearance. Not stuff like pointing out a big beer gut... more about the shape of their head, their nose etc.

I am glad their rudeness had no impact on you. But they were really nasty. Who behaves like that

I think Ms America is an imposter of the male kind.

When I was a young teenager trying to present myself with confidence, a boy told me I'd never be attractive because I was 'just fat'. I carried those words for years and years. Whatever I did, whatever qualities I had, the soundtrack in my head was 'just fat' as though it cancelled out every other thing about me. I can still hear it so clearly - and remember sitting there frozen, not knowing how to respond - but when my brain wants to throw it at me again, I take out the word 'just'. I can fail to live up to a particular person's beauty standards, but I'm not 'just' fat or unattractive or whatever else they think of me. I don't think I'm that bad, though very unphotogenic and I've mostly got used to wincing at pictures of myself and letting it go - but even if I am hideous, that's not the only thing I am by a long shot. There is more to all of us than the surface.

But a) I rarely view anyone through the prism of their appearance - I just don't

And I think this is perhaps the issue. And related to your earlier posts when you extrapolated from one poster's personal feeling about her looks to imply that she was making a comment about other people, and claimed not to be able to understand the response. It is not about what you think.

People are talking about being ugly and you keep keep replying, "But I've never seen an ugly person! So they don't exist!" It's well intentioned, but it doesn't really fool anyone. And eventually you have to concede, as now, that what you mean is that you don't view then that way. Although if you don't ever look at people through the prism of appearance, how do you know they're not ugly? Do you not see people as beautiful either?

Maybe you don't, never ever not once, but I think that's unusual, to say the least. Most people notice if someone is very attractive or not and whatever the answer to this issue is, it isn't to claim that ugliness isn't a thing because you personally don't ever notice it.

Those girls were really nasty and what they said was reflection on them not you.

It's cliche but it's fucking true: beauty is only skin deep and looks fade as we age.

I also truly believe that everyone is beautiful in their own way, we all have features, or a personality quirk that makes us unique.

I've never met somebody and thought to myself "gosh, they're an ugly person". I've only ever come to this conclusion if I've gotten to know them and they've turned out to be a complete cunt personality wise (like the women you encountered on the bus).

There will always be dim and shallow people in society who make judgements based on looks but those people are not worth any of your headspace. Concentrate on those that are important to you :)

I’ll out myself as someone who is not attractive, have a wonky shaped face and head and rampant PCOS and all the misery of hairiness. I also think I give off a bit of a “weirdo” vibe which puts off strangers. I have always been the ugly wingman for my friends and got used to going home alone after they pulled on nights out in my twenties The slow dance at the end of the disco used to be excruciating and I’d be the one heading to the cloakroom to get our coats.

my genuine dgaf attitude kicked in with menopause, and like PPs, I will ensure I have good personal hygiene, wear clean clothes that fit and suit the occasion, get a good haircut every 6 weeks and will even make an effort with make up when society expectations would make that normal such as weddings etc. I make an effort for the sake of my husband. But getting to the age where society deems women invisible is actually a relief because I’ve never been able to use my looks to get any kind of advantage, so it’s quite a leveller. I find catching someone’s eye, smiling and saying “hello my name is …” works far better now to start a conversation than at any time in my younger days.

Ultimately this thread isn't a discussion on whether "ugly" people exist.
It's about that freeing moment when you no longer care. If you haven't experienced it, you can't know how wonderful it is.

I realised that I became aware of my looks from maybe 9 or 10. I stopped caring around 50. 40 years! 40 years of trying to fit into societies standard of beauty and failing miserably. Being depressed about it. Feeling "less than". I feel now like I did when I was an innocent child. As long as I'm clean, clean clothes, brushed hair and teeth. That's all I need to do. I can spend my life doing other more interesting things that bring me joy. I wear clothes that I like. I don't care if they're in fashion or even whether they flatter me. If I like it, I wear it. It has been life changing for me.

I love the photos I have off my late nan because I loved her. I’m not looking at her hair or how pretty she was or what she was wearing in those photos. Just how lovely she was and how much I miss her. My mum refuses photos now, so crippled with low self esteem and I hardly have any of her which makes me sad.
I’m probably someone who is average looking but feel the pressure to be better than average. Cue make up, Botox, fillers and filtered photos. It’s a sad world we live in. My kids will have nothing but photos that don’t even look like me.
Its a crazy world we live in. I admire you for raising above it and not letting those awful comments get to you

I used to spend ages getting upset, studying myself in the mirror, pointing out every flaw to myself and thinking how fat I am. However, I honestly think that since building a career for myself and having children, I can honestly say I no longer care, I have bigger and more important things to worry about. I wish I could go back and tell my younger self to stop worry about such needless things.

I have never, ever seen an ugly person. I can't ever imagine thinking someone was ugly. I'm sad at the awful self-flagellation happening here with some posters.

I think this is part the problem people are discussing - you're equating people being objective about the way their appearance confirms to conventional beauty standards with 'self-flagellation' which comes across as pretty patronising.

Telling people they shouldn't feel bad about themselves because you wouldn't find them ugly is completely missing the point of the thread which is that people don't feel bad about themselves because they don't give a shit what you (collectively, and personally in some cases) think.

For all the posters saying we should stop calling ourselves ugly or they have never seen an ugly person, I understand this is well meant and genuinely felt but it does undermine the lived experience of many of us.

For those of us who have referred to ourselves as ugly, this is a value judgement that was given to us by others, in many cases at an age where we did not have the emotional and psychological skills not to internalise it. None of us are carrying the label or the trauma for self deprecation. You may not judge us but many others have.

We live in a world where people who are conventionally attractive get a different pass - and as many of said on here, an equally difficult one.

I’m sure many on here have, like me, developed a personality and skills to compensate for our looks and live mostly happy and full lives anyway. And we are not ugly because we are lazy when it comes to grooming - far from it in most cases.

I don’t understand the persistent need to undermine what is essentially our lived experience as if all we need to do is think positively for a bit to counteract decades of judgement.

Until you’ve been the friend who was never asked to dance whilst your friends all coupled up, were chatted up as a dare, had insults hurled at you in the street, had people crop you out of photos, been ignored at a bar as everyone around you was served, had strangers match with you on dating apps solely to tell you how ugly you are, been rejected as a romantic partner because you tick every box except pretty and generally been made to feel less than because of something that is totally and utterly out of your control, you can’t actually understand the weight of that one word that you think can be easily dismissed.

@EmpressSoleil
I agree with everything you say.

It's not about whether someone is or isn't ugly it's the nasty comments and actions of others that have put doubts in our minds and so our appearance matters to us more than it should.

Also, it is much much easier to make yourself less attractive that the other way around.

I think that Over400verdating is the opposite of sad, and definitely not self-hating!
In fact, OP, you sound like someone I'd love spending time with - hope we randomly meet in real life one day!

It's a bit like a man saying:

'I hate hearing you complain about women experiencing discrimination because of your sex. You must feel awful about having been born a woman to describe yourself in such negative terms. I'd never discriminate against a woman because I can't even tell men from women, so maybe it's just how you feel about yourself that attracts that treatment.

Perhaps you aren't trying hard enough not to be a woman. You could always wear men's clothes or talking in a deeper voice - maybe get your hair cut short. If you put some work into it, other people might sometimes mistake you for a man and treat you better - wouldn't that feel good?'

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

To the people saying that looks don't ever matter - that is bullshit. Of course they don't matter when you know and love someone - of course you remember your grandmother for how lovely she was.

Being more attracted to symmetrical features and signs of health and fertility are just evolutionary - we are programmed to notice these. That's why women chase youth and beauty so much, because men prioritise these above other factors when picking a mate. As for men, they have different pressures - to achieve status, money, success because historically women prioritised this in looking for a mate.

When it comes to the dating world, and interacting with strangers in the world, rightly or wrongly looks absolutely impact how people are treated by others. I don't know why people pretend this isn't the case. Why else do we have a beauty industry worth billions?

Sounds like those women are rude and ugly on the inside. Says more about them than you. They should be so embarrassed and ashamed of themselves. Disgusting.

I'm not ugly but I'm Fat and feel really ugly and embarrassed being out in public so Fat is also not fun. Those women may get Fat one day and hopefully someone will laugh at them for it.

I haven’t RTFT; have all the beautiful people turned up to tell us how much harder they have it yet?