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!

@ColinRobinsonsFart I love the sound of MrFart! He’s clearly got great judgement.

Im pretty average looking. I have a friend who constantly talks about how good looking she is & was trying to score her in nightclub and she “oh you’re so good looking” and then turned to me & said “you’re not” and my friend laughed & hooked up with him. It really hurt so I can’t imagine how it must be to get that regularly.

On the upside I think we all care much less about things as we age very much including looks if not mainly looks as even the very beautiful can’t maintain it forever.

Im sorry the train incident happened but glad you have a sense of perspective.

@NameAU1 I agree so much with what you’ve said. I didn’t have a ‘proper’ relationship til I was in my 30s because I was always the one who was never chatted up, asked out, smiled at in a bar etc:

I did find apps to be better for meeting people as you chat beforehand and I’ve even had some relationships from there but I do also know I was so desperate - literally - to be wanted by anyone, that I ended up with some absolutely awful specimens. If you do ever decide to dip a toe in, I would recommend working on your self worth so it’s steely by then! (I know you didn’t ask for that advice so feel free to disregard)

Things stick in my mind from earlier on. I was out with another friend of mine and she is stunning, obviously being chatted up and they turned to me and said 'if I was you, I'd erase myself and start again'.

This made my stomach drop, along with the abuse from your ex-husband. I had someone ask me, when I was younger, why I bothered going out 'when you look like that and are disabled.' I'm so sorry, @movedonfromsmithy

A common theme seems to be the hurt by thoughtless and cruel comments in our younger days, particularly from young men. I’ve had my share, and most of them now I can look back on and recognise as bravado. Young men in a group without a thought that the target of their comments was a real person with feelings. Some from utter shits too, can’t rationalise those away.

I was single too for most of my adult life until I met DH in my forties. I did everything I could to have a fulfilling life, travel and holidays on my own, worked abroad, had interests and hobbies. Had pretty much come to terms with spinsterhood. My one regret is that I was too old to have children by the time we got together.

Never been photogenic and never been complimented, other than by husband. I’m also short and built for famine and he’s tall and very handsome. Woman tut when they see him first and then me. Openly try to flirt in front of me.
The women on the bus are a bunch of arseholes. What kind of person does that? Now THAT is ugliness. Sorry it happened snd you had to experience it.
I’m sorry you’ve had these micro and not so micro hurts all your life.

@ExpatAl I’ve had that experience in my last 3 relationships- women tutting, being looked up and down with disgust, being ignored as they try to flirt and muscle their way in with your boyfriend when you are standing right there!

In 2 cases it was clearly a case of arsehole attracting arsehole and they are all welcome to each other.
In the case of the last one, to be fair to him, he would never engage with it. But still - no such thing as sisterly solidarity if you are not pretty!

I notice that the vocabulary, grammar, punctuation and humour is all present in the 'ugly' ladies' posts. That plus the warmth also present is very attractive.

^this
Im not what i would class as ugly, im pretty enough...still get attention. However now the wrinkles, turkey neck is creeping up quickly im less bothered. I think it is knackeredness, sassiness, and im older oc things wont stay the same. I put less importance on looks. Im actually ok on my own, because its my time after raising DD and now have grandkids. I need me time. Its all about me doing me now.

I'm a prolific poster on these threads.
I really am a very ugly woman. Thin hair which looks flat and shapeless, long and pointy nose, thin lips. Fat cheeks. Flat chested, pot belly. Crooked teeth. I am 38 and still get upset about it. There are no photos of me from age 21 onwards and that was my passport photo so a necessity.
OP, I am sorry this happened. I have had insults too. Called pinocco and told I look like a man or a kid depending on whose looking. I would do anything to look even half attractive or even average.

Bull shit to that! Everyone is beautiful in different ways! Why anyone would speak about another human being like that. Those young girls are ugly inside and that is a far worse thing to be than not being societies convention of pretty!

I had this about 15 years ago on a bus. I'm very very overweight and have a serious lazy eye. It was standing room only on the bus and unfortunately they were sitting on the front seat. They started laughing and one commented "just imagine trying to have sex with that" They continued pulling me to bits then all of a sudden the bus braked sharp and I had to grab the pole. They clocked my wedding ring and one said "OMG someone has married her" The other said "Maybe it's fake and she's just put it on to make it look like someone wanted her" it was the most horrible and longest 15 minute bus ride I'd ever been on.

I can understand exactly how you must feel. Just remember this, it takes one ugly rotten individual to even think that about another human let alone voice it out loud. You are not alone. Their words don't define you but their words without a doubt define them x

It's this kind of thing that makes me dread groups of people. I cross the street to avoid them.

Fellow ugly here!! The good thing about being middle aged is that no-one looks at me 😆 haven’t been called ugly since my 20s I think, but I’m not blind and can see myself in the mirror.
I mainly don’t care but I do feel more haggard lately in my 50s/ have lost weight due to stomach issues - I def look better w a slightly fuller face too.
Weirdly my children are very nice looking - they’re a real mix of me and dh’s good points and don’t have my ugly feature (they’re adults do have fully grown into their faces). I did worry I’d have ugly kids, I stopped at 2 as didn’t want to tempt fate 😆

What an inspiring post. Thank you

Yes, I'm very unattractive but my children are quite good-looking and don't have my very odd features. One of my sons has a really fine-boned, model-handsome face. I can tell that people are puzzled that we're even related. Genes seem to be a total lottery.

The pressure is real, even mumsnet needs to give their heads a wobble, just seen ads on this very thread for ..weight watchers, mascara and washing machines. You really couldn't make it up, it's kinda depressing. Iam glad you now give zero fucks, we should all take a leaf out of your book xx

You see , I think they are “ cu**s.
They deliberately made fun of you , so you could hear. They are horrible.

I totally agree with you.

I HATE all photos of myself somehow I always look hideous! I look at the picture and think is that really what other people see! I do not look in mirrors any more than I can help, I wish I had your confidence OP I constantly imagine that people are pointing at me as being fat and ugly and probably they arent but I wish I didnt care

"I genuinely object to spending time that could be spent in bed trying to make myself look prettier! Just can’t be arsed with make up etc."

In my opinion a woman can do only 3 things to look prettier :

1 Sleep
2 Be happy (have an healthy mind)
3 Be busy/Active (have an healthy body)

Points 2 and 3 always go in hand with each other, you can't be active if you're feeling miserable, and you can't feel good if you can't be active:
Happens that point 1 is a great support to points 2 and 3

The idea that a woman can make herself look "prettier" with cosmetics of any form is pushed on women by pressure groups which have economic interests in it

An happy, rested, active woman is as pretty as she could be: Concealing her appearance isn't making her prettier:

The rest all depends on genetics, and you know what? You can actually impact your genetic (not your DNA, but the translation made of it by the RNA) through your environmental conditions (epigenetics); So here are the rules :

1: Teach yourself to love what you see, it doesn't matter what others think of it, you need to find the perspective to find what you are beautiful
2: Always devote your time to what benefits most your health because your health is your mental health as well
3: When in doubt, picture yourself and everyone else in 60 years, if still living, none of you will look good, so to win at the game of life is not to end up pretty, be smart, your appearance is completely secondary:

And all those rules, I have learned the hard way being really stupid as for 16 years I have let a man convince me that I was too disgusting to be seen in public to the point of self-destructing:

By the time I got out, I looked like what I used to fear that I looked like: That is why I often insist on the power of manifestation we have and don't acknowledge, what we believe in, we can make it happen, because of the fact that we believe in it

Believe in what would make you happy and you're half way there: Who says that we need to be realistic about our appearance, seeing ourselves in a comparative mode to others: Imagine if the world was filled with individuals looking like you, would you be able still to find it ugly, or being normalised you would not give a single thought about your appearance?

What causes someone to feel ugly, is their difference; Even very beautiful individuals can find themselves disgusting if they differ too much from the norm from their gender:

Remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder:

Decide that you are beautiful, however you look like, and you are:

My DD gorgeous...model material and im not just saying that, tall, dark, thick long dark hair..beautiful.im short, pale... frizzy hair etc. She looks nothing like me, thank goodness she got her Italian dads looks.

I am working on DGAF as someone who is often paralysed by worrying about what people think. You are an inspiration and a great lady, more power to you. Fantastic post.

This makes me sad. Not for you, you quite evidently rock, but for them.

I put a lot of store in the saying ‘you can tell who the strong women are, they are the ones building each other up and not tearing each other down’.

IMO it’s not event specific to women - although I think they are more likely to experience it from both other women and men. It’s a sad indictment to a world gone wrong - that we feel it’s okay to openly criticise anyone in that way.

Let’s hope that “be kind” can become more a reality and less of a tag line.

I remember reading a description in a book that has always stayed with me ‘the difference between beauty and ugliness is only ever a matter of millimetres’
It’s completely true and emphasises just how shallow it is to believe it measures the worth of a woman.
thanks for posting @Over40Overdating 💐