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!

@SurprisedWithAHorse

"Ugly" and "fat" always were neutral descriptors in their meanings. They never meant stupid, lazy, unlovable, evil etc. Those were just societal associations.

I agree, but the terms are used as insults and negative descriptions in general now. This is a societal association, absolutely, but one that causes harm to those on the receiving end. So I think it's a powerful thing when people decide to re-neutralise them.

Quoted for truth!

If I could walk into a room backwards I would. 😂

I’ve recently acquired a facial injury which has meant people constantly stare and whisper about me. Or at least it feels like it. Oh how I wish I could go back to before.

How do you get to that fuck it point?

Fellow ugly here! I've gotten to the point where IDGAF what I look like and I've accepted my features. It does sting when other people make nasty comments though. It's completely unnecessary. I'd rather be ugly on the outside than the inside.

I consider it something of an advantage, or certainly did when younger and my attractive friends couldn't go anywhere without attracting the attention of sleazy men. I didn't have that problem, the odd "ugly" comment was easier to deal with than the alternative. Also, as I get older I don't have to worry about losing my looks!

OP i hear you. i am no oil painting.
It is no coincidence that the women in the train carriage were younger. There are some really really nasty bitchy and incredibly shallow younger women out there, its just the way they are.

If you can forget (much easier said than done in my experience) then do so and I am 110% certain that karma will bite them on the bum at some point in their future. (whether they will realise it was karma who knows but it seems inescapable it will happen)

So glad to have found your thread. I have wasted so much of my life wanting to be beautiful and to be rid of the various conditions I inherited that made this impossible.

For me the worst thing was as a teenager developing PCOS, the daily nightmare of hair removal and trying to have everything camouflaged for school to avoid bullying meant that I was crippled with anxiety and underachieved despite being rather bright. My mother who is obsessed by appearance was appalled at how I looked and made a complete disaster of helping me. She told me that I would never be able to get close to someone physically because of how I looked, and I believed her.

I won't bore you with all that I endured but I'm going to add my voice to the people who say that teachers do indeed feel able to comment on looks. One of my solaces was being a reasonably good musician at school, I thought I was being judged on my musicianship, until one day when we were packing up after orchestra practice, the young Head of Music was joking around with us and for some reason we started talking about competitions that we could all easily win, suddenly, out of the blue, he said " And of course, Katharine could always win a Bearded Lady competition," everyone laughed and thought it was a huge joke, I smiled slightly and carried on putting things away, but my heart broke.

I'm now in my early sixties, my mother was wrong about some things, I actually met someone great and married them, but being ugly and fat and hairy has impacted me in many ways, less so the older I get, but I still haven't quite reached the totally not caring stage, but I have hope!

I am older now and don’t put so much importance on my appearance. I think younger people have a lot of pressure to conform and look a certain way but that does not excuse the two shallow people on the train., obviously not happy and feeling insecure about themselves. Throughout my life the people who were kind, accepting, supportive etc are the people I will never forget , who have made a difference to my life. Not just friends and family, a memorable teacher, stranger etc . I remember how they made me feel not how they looked. Good for you OP , for finding some peace .

I agree. I'm not bad looking but I've never had the sort of looks to attract a lot of male attention.
There was an AIBU recently entitled "To think life is so much easier if you're beautiful" or something similar.
I strongly disagree having spent time with beautiful friends. They can't even walk down the street in a jumper and jeans on a Monday morning without men beeping their horns or trying to chat them up in the supermarket. Call me strange but I would not enjoy a life like that.

@Over40Overdating, yes! I love your post!
I've always had a big nose but it was only when I hit 40 that I realised that I didn't want to look like a carbon copy of the current definition of attractive. I do quite a lot of presenting to audiences and I realised that what's actually way more interesting than being attractive is being memorable and recognisable. People walk up to me and mention a point I made in a conference - if I didn't have my big nose, would they have recognised me? Would they take me as seriously if I were one of those small-nosed people? Who nose!
A friend of mine has a particularly beautiful daughter. She says to her, "do you know why you're beautiful? Because you're kind and it's the kindness that shows through." I've started saying this to my sons because I think that this is great.
Keep being you. x

Just comfort yourself by reminding yourself that they'll have NOTHING when they are older. Zero character, depth, kindness, intelligence, or looks. In fact, with the number of lip and face fillers young women like this are having, they'll probably look very grim indeed when it catches up with them. I can't imagine that injecting chemicals into your face from late teens on will ever end well.

OP you are full of grace to give those two unkind lasses the benefit of the doubt re their motivations & see that they're also perhaps? trapped by a 'beauty myth'.
I'm 55. In my teens, it was important to have clean clothes & hair & we used a bit of eye make up & lipgloss. My Dd is in 6th form now. Most of the girls who attend wear a uniform of very short skirts (bum freezers), opaque tights & ballet flats (in Scotland so they are freezing much of the year!). They also have long straight hair & 'perfect' make up, lashes, nails etc. The pressure to conform to that must be massive. My Dd is ASD & chooses to wear cargo trousers, boots & a shortback & sides (as she has sensory issues). She's bullied for it (quite a lot).
If I'd raised a lass who was capable of being so mean to a stranger I'd be ashamed.

Your DD sounds rather magnificent, good for her for paddling her own canoe.

My mother said to me 'You better become smart or rich because at best you could be considered striking and there is no point trying to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear with makeup or clothes' (see username)

She then likened me to Mr Potato head, with my oversized features and that it looked like someone put my large nose on crooked.

Shes was not wrong, not kind, but still not wrong.

However it didn't impact my life a single jot because I decided to DGAF. I got the job i wanted, travelled like I wanted, settled down and have the lifestyle and freedoms I dreamed of and my face and figure really didn't play a part in that.

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

I get the 'you could be quite pretty if you lost weight' said a lot, usually by older people who have lost their social filter, although the rather too loud 'have you seen the state of that' did make me

I very much DGAF, will lose weight to make my life easier not prettier !

Hoping to reach the DGAF stage soon but I’m only 26, so have a long way to go.

However, I am more than used to being the one who is only ever approached by men to be asked “who is your friend?”. I seem to be invisible to men, or viewed as simply as one would view a lamp. It’s there but who cares? It’s just a lamp.

Never been hit on, never even been catcalled.

Still stings but slowly getting used to the idea I’ll be alone forever and that romance just isn’t in the cards for me

I think it's great when people can acknowledge that ugly is just an adjective. And of course some people are 'ugly' by what humans seem attractive. It's not some shocking or awful thing, it's just a fact.

I'm fat. I can't stand it when people try and tell me I am curvy or voluptuous. So patronising. I'm actually flat chested with no bum, so which parts of me are voluptuous? My chin? Stomach? Ankles? Just let me be fat. Or better yet, don't comment on it at all :)

Oh I understand this all too well! The only thing small about me is my “freakishly” small hands.

What I hate most is the unwarranted “you look like you’ve lost weight!!”. It’s meant as a compliment, but it just reminds me that people are looking at my weight rather than me, what I’m saying or what I have to offer.

The biggest lightbulb moment for me was realising I did not exist to please other people. I recall one morning putting make up on to go to the supermarket and i asked myself why i was doing it. So absolute strangers might think i was attractive?

If I dropped down dead today, I never want my final thoughts to be 'Does my bum look big as I lay here on the floor.'

I now feel pity for the women especially the young girls today who are told their worth lies in their looks.

If I dropped down dead today, I never want my final thoughts to be 'Does my bum look big as I lay here on the floor.'

🤣

"Does this ICU bed make me look fat?"

I'm not amazing looking. My eyes are a nice colour. I was average to pretty when I was younger. I mean, there's not a lot you can do about your looks anyway unless you have access to a lot of money for surgery. I just don't worry about it too much. Why worry about stuff you can't change? My nose is a bit big but it kind of fits my face. I don't have time to worry about it, to be honest.

Big hugs and a big middle finger to your mother.

When I was 17 in my diary all the things that would happen if I lost weight - I would have friends, a boyfriend, a job, i would go to festivals (lol, did i think they weigh you at the gate?)

Spoiler - I never lost weight but did have the most wonderful time - travelled the world, wonderful boyfriends, fantastic cool career, best friends for life.

I do think it helps that I've never had a job where I've had to rely on my looks. I'm sure it must be hard for actors and models when their looks inevitably start to go.

I would just feel sorry for any woman who felt so insecure she had to comment on my looks, would suck to be her.

I'm so fucking sorry this happened to you, I'm absolutely shocked, fucking arseholes. You write beautifully and are clearly funny, intelligent, kind, articulate and an absolute badass, so fuck them! Sorry for all the swearing 🤬