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Original poster

A message from an ‘ugly’ woman

532 replies

Over40Overdating · 13/09/2023 23:57

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!

OP posts:
MrsZargon · 18/09/2023 09:30

One thing I have learned as I have got older is that you can honestly see what a person is like on the inside reflected on the outside. I have known many “beautiful” people, who despite being beautiful on the outside are selfish, shallow and conceited on the inside. After a while when you look at them all you see is ugliness. The flip side is true as well, you can meet someone and think blimey its hard to look at them they are so ugly, but if they are a lovely person after a while that’s all you see when you look at them like they have a certain radiance to them that shines through xx

Calistano · 18/09/2023 10:01

MrsZargon · 18/09/2023 09:30

One thing I have learned as I have got older is that you can honestly see what a person is like on the inside reflected on the outside. I have known many “beautiful” people, who despite being beautiful on the outside are selfish, shallow and conceited on the inside. After a while when you look at them all you see is ugliness. The flip side is true as well, you can meet someone and think blimey its hard to look at them they are so ugly, but if they are a lovely person after a while that’s all you see when you look at them like they have a certain radiance to them that shines through xx

That's just pollyanaish nonsense. It's not the people who love and know you who insult you in the street for no reason. Despite all the "who cares what people think" blah blah it cuts deep.

Calistano · 18/09/2023 10:10

People really hate a woman with a big forehead for some bizarre reason, the first mocking I had was from my own sister.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

Menopause Women's health
OnAFrolicOfMyOwn · 18/09/2023 10:17

Calistano · 18/09/2023 10:10

People really hate a woman with a big forehead for some bizarre reason, the first mocking I had was from my own sister.

This is correct. I couldn't walk down the corridor at school without getting my forehead slapped. There's a diary entry from when I was 14 saying 'Quite a good day today, only got my head slapped twice ..."

SallyWD · 18/09/2023 10:39

Calistano · 18/09/2023 10:10

People really hate a woman with a big forehead for some bizarre reason, the first mocking I had was from my own sister.

Really?! I envy people with big foreheads. I always thought it was a sign of beauty - all those medieval paintings of ladies with big foreheads

Oscarposcar · 18/09/2023 12:40

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SurprisedWithAHorse · 18/09/2023 13:18

One thing I have learned as I have got older is that you can honestly see what a person is like on the inside reflected on the outside.

No. Not unless you already know them. That's the problem. You know what Dahl meant with that quote, and it is meant kindly, but that's the trouble with it. You certainly find people more or less attractive as you get to know them, but when you don't, all you have to go on is the skin deep beauty. Some people fall very far short of what's considered ideal and it simply isn't true that you can see all of their character in it without knowing them. That's the root of the "good people are beautiful" idea which is partly why people who are far from conventionally beautiful suffer such shitty abuse.

I mean, what about "resting bitch face"??

shadypines · 18/09/2023 13:26

Firstly, I can't remember being on another thread where the posters have, in the main, sounded like such wonderful people that I wish I knew.
Secondly, I work with many young people who all have to have an ID photo. Sadly, many of the young women look like they've been made in the same factory, same tan, same hair, same make up. It's like they are all adopting the same mask, bit scary really.

AInightingale · 18/09/2023 14:23

Calistano · 18/09/2023 10:10

People really hate a woman with a big forehead for some bizarre reason, the first mocking I had was from my own sister.

That's interesting, maybe because it is associated with cleverness (a cardinal sin in a woman if there ever was one)? And the women who receive most social approbation look like dolls.

TheLostNights · 19/09/2023 15:06

I am very ugly and no good thoughts or anything like that will transform my face and make me normal looking or halfway attractive. It's a nice idea but not sure it works like that in reality.

ArcaneWireless · 19/09/2023 16:03

I am a veritable pig in knickers. My own personal favourite insult by two pretty people was ‘there is someone who has given up’…

I won’t say I don’t care because I think part of me does. And that one stung more than the usual fat munter insults. Even when auld is thrown in there too!

The phrase I hear in that ‘you get the face you deserve’? I’m wondering what I did that was so wrong.

Sadilicious · 19/09/2023 17:48

One thing that happened to me was that I had spent years staring a photos of myself and seeing all of the faults, but then I watched a video of me, and my face when it's doing something is nice actually. Not text-book beautiful, but friendly and nice. It was quite liberating actually.

To the others on this thread who have had horrible things said to them, I'm sorry people were so vile to you, they're obviously really horrible people, please try and remove their horrible words from your minds. Why do they get to make you feel awful?

shadypines · 21/09/2023 13:06

This thread has been very timely for me after what I encountered this week!
A practical stranger who I met ( who shares my family tree) enlightened me with the fact that our ancestors were all ' really ugly', he kindly added 'particularly the women - pig ugly'. This was Infront of other people who I'd just met so I was rather taken aback. If I'd been quick witted I might have said 'why don't you skip the niceties?' As it was I did well to inform him that my mother was NOT ugly.
Thinking about this thread really helped me to think what an idiot this guy is. Thank god I don't go through life with so little self awareness.@Over40Overdating thank you again for the strength and solidarity.

chaosmaker · 21/09/2023 13:53

Also to the mirror avoiders, I'd say that it is actually good to look at yourself in a mirror so you can see the reality and not what others have put in your head. I quite like my face now :)

michalwave · 21/09/2023 13:54

ArcaneWireless · 19/09/2023 16:03

I am a veritable pig in knickers. My own personal favourite insult by two pretty people was ‘there is someone who has given up’…

I won’t say I don’t care because I think part of me does. And that one stung more than the usual fat munter insults. Even when auld is thrown in there too!

The phrase I hear in that ‘you get the face you deserve’? I’m wondering what I did that was so wrong.

The phrase I hear in that ‘you get the face you deserve’?

That’s awful, who said that

SurprisedWithAHorse · 21/09/2023 14:01

michalwave · 21/09/2023 13:54

The phrase I hear in that ‘you get the face you deserve’?

That’s awful, who said that

Show quote history

It's a pretty old saying and it's often prefixed with "after 50".

And it's horseshit, obviously.

Original poster
Over40Overdating · 21/09/2023 14:15

@ArcaneWireless Whoever coined that phrase about getting the face you deserve was an ass.
I think we can’t win - we can’t help the face we are born with and judged for it.
We can’t help aging and are judged for it.
We try to ‘correct’ genetics or age and we are judged for it.

So fuck it all, I say!

OP posts:
AInightingale · 21/09/2023 17:43

It is nonsense. Some of the foulest individuals look lovely. Jeremy Bamber, murdered his family- looked like a film star. Lucy Letby just looks a sweet-face girl. That terrorist Daniel Khalife who has been on the run and captured- what a baby face!

Sadilicious · 21/09/2023 18:06

Doesn’t it mean if you have spent your life scowling, after 50 you will have ‘deserved’ a face full of frown lines.

i have laughter lines and frown lines so can’t win!

SurprisedWithAHorse · 21/09/2023 18:10

Sadilicious · 21/09/2023 18:06

Doesn’t it mean if you have spent your life scowling, after 50 you will have ‘deserved’ a face full of frown lines.

i have laughter lines and frown lines so can’t win!

But what if you were frowning because you suffered a lot of tragedy and trauma? And not everyone suits laughter lines either.

Besides, some lovely people have the famous bitchy resting face.

It's just a stupid glib saying that someone thought was profound and isn't.

Sadilicious · 21/09/2023 18:34

SurprisedWithAHorse · 21/09/2023 18:10

But what if you were frowning because you suffered a lot of tragedy and trauma? And not everyone suits laughter lines either.

Besides, some lovely people have the famous bitchy resting face.

It's just a stupid glib saying that someone thought was profound and isn't.

Show quote history

It sounds like a line from a Jilly Cooper book, or maybe one of those 1950’s ‘how to be a perfect woman’ guides.

it is codswallop of course.

Original poster
Over40Overdating · 21/09/2023 18:49

@shadypines I already know we would be friends due to your user name.

What a charmer that hopefully extremely distant relative is.

This is what the ‘no one is ugly’ commenters don’t get. Some people feel the need to comment on others appearance and judge them harshly in the most innocuous of situations.

There was no other reason than pure arseholery for him to comment on generations of women’s looks and then quantify it with that awful remark. And that’s all it ever is. Arseholery to make someone feel awful for something out of their control.

He might want to think whether being pig ignorant passed down his branch of the tree.

OP posts:
shadypines · 21/09/2023 21:02

Thank you@Over40Overdating that made me smile, yes I detect a kindred spirit.
You sound wise and kind.
Imagine walking through this life making cruel remarks to people for no good reason. That is true ugliness.

CoffeeLover90 · 23/09/2023 20:31

I'll join. Let me list my 'things'
Hair - no matter what I do its frizzy. I have a 'widows peak' its a bloody bald spot on my hair line.
Wonky teeth.
One eye is bigger than the other. It appears hooded, if I do my eyebrows it looks much lower and obvious.
Rosacea and breakouts.
Occasional cysts on eyes
Large nose.
Extreme hip dips
Bloated but yet flabby belly
Flappy knees
Second toes longer than big toes
Legs appear stubble rushed, no matter what.
Bite finger nails and can't stop.
Continues pile

What a catch 😅

OnAFrolicOfMyOwn · 23/09/2023 20:35

CoffeeLover90 · 23/09/2023 20:31

I'll join. Let me list my 'things'
Hair - no matter what I do its frizzy. I have a 'widows peak' its a bloody bald spot on my hair line.
Wonky teeth.
One eye is bigger than the other. It appears hooded, if I do my eyebrows it looks much lower and obvious.
Rosacea and breakouts.
Occasional cysts on eyes
Large nose.
Extreme hip dips
Bloated but yet flabby belly
Flappy knees
Second toes longer than big toes
Legs appear stubble rushed, no matter what.
Bite finger nails and can't stop.
Continues pile

What a catch 😅

We might almost be twins except I have a massive bumpy forehead with no widow's peak!