I didn't inherit my mother's beauty queen looks. AIBU . . .

[Fatlapdancer]

To be completely and utterly sick of the look of shock on people's faces when my mum introduces me as her daughter?

No, sadly I didn't inherit my mothers beautiful, wavy, glossy brown hair or her dark brown eyes or olive skin. Nor have I benefited from her slim, toned figure. IM FUCKING SORRY!!!! I'm sorry that I ended up with the shitty end of the gene pool, that I have frizzy, mousy coloured hair, that my skin is ghost white and that I'm short and chubby.
I'm sorry I must sound really jealous and bitter but over the years I've been given a real complex.

I feel as though I'm an embarrassment to my self and my mum because of the way I look. I've been told by lads you're not as fit as your mum!!!

I'm just getting sick of it now. I'm being nagged at about my weight by my mum and I just don't even want to go out of the house any more because I'm so ashamed of myself :(

I can relate to this. At school the boys referred to my mom as 'the sex bomb'. She was, and still is, beautiful. 74 and still turns heads. I am very ordinary looking in comparison.

Are you being too hard on yourself though - i reckon you probably are.
However, your mom is being unkind hassling you about your weight - unless she is genuinely concerned for your health?

I'm no raving beauty, either. No one is ever going to write sonnets to me. But I am a worthy human being and a vibrant woman. Two men have loved me enough to marry me. OK, one was a wanker, but still……. The current one is a definite 'keeper'.

Don't let the shallow people get you down. It matters bloody fuck-all in the long run of things if your mother is a beauty. As our Mr Rogers (do you have him in the UK?) said "You are the only one like you. And I like you, just the way you are".

Stand up tall (even if you are short, me too), toss that frizzy mousy hair (mine currently looks like a Brillo pad, thank God for straighteners), and put your nose in the air. Now walk on right by those shallow idiots.

YANBU - but does your mum hassle you because she is genuinely concerned for your health or is she also hard on you for not being like her?

You need to stop comparing yourself to your mum, you and concentrate on the things about yourself that make you marvellous. Nobody should be ashamed to go out because they don't look like someone-else

FWIW - DH and his family are all very typically good-looking and I can also see a slight register of shock on some shallow peoples faces when I'm introduced as his wife and I know his family would have preferred someone more aesthetically pleasing. But I just think, fuck them, I am kind, compassionate, loyal and intelligent which are equally good characteristics as perfect teeth and a straight nose - Dh is lucky to have me as i am him.

Really do feel for you but please don't let other people define how you feel about yourself. I've just read 'Elizabeth is missing' and it made me really think about getting old and your mind/body not capable of doing things you want to do anymore so make the most of it now by not being dragged down by superficial shit

Poor you. Not for not being beautiful, but for feeling the way you do. It seems like looks are one of the most important things – and in some ways, they are. I do think (many) beautiful people have easier lives, in some ways. Or rather, easier, no matter the circumstances, than they would be if said people were not beautiful.

But! As pp have said, you are a worthy person in your own right – and looks might make things easier, but that doesn't make them the most important thing. Kindness, intelligence, sense of humour, enthusiasm, ambition, curiosity, generosity, honesty, thoughtfulness – all a thousand times more desirable in the long run (which is not to say beauties cannot have these qualities too!). Some of the most attractive people I know are not stereotypically beautiful, but what they are is confident, hilarious and unendingly kind – without exception. These – and I do apologise if I am wrong or say this out of turn – do not sound like things your mother is, or is being at the moment, perhaps.

Also, everyone feels self-conscious about something. Everyone. Just look at the threads on here about working/stay-at-home mothers, people overreacting at their grammar being corrected... There is no area in life in which we are all perfect – why should this be the most important? Don't let it be the most important. There is so much more to a person than the way they look, and once a person knows you that's the last thing they (should) see.

Two men have loved me enough to marry me. OK, one was a wanker, but still……. The current one is a definite 'keeper'. Me too, how odd!

My GM was stunning and my DM is in much better shape at 70 years old than I am at [cough] 21 [cough] 40s actually. However, I am scintillating and much funnier than my DM. So, whatever. Play to your strengths.

What's beautiful in some peoples eyes is not in others. Attraction/beauty goes way deeper than that.
The type your mum attracts may be the loud 'tell it like it is' types who are cocky enough to let it be known yet the ones you attract may be the shy quieter types who keep their feelings to them selves - who knows - we all attract different people!
I don't go for the tall dark pretty boys - give me a baldy any day

I have Always been plain. I agree that the beautiful ones have an easier ride. Life does suck. I can sympathise. Edit has said it all, but its still hard.

Beautiful people don't always have a better life

There is too much empahasis put on looks, to our collective detriment (awful stuff like self confidence issues, anerexia/obesity/botox bullshit etc.).

I have a beautiful friend (and I love her, known her for ages), her long-time partner left her for a younger model and she cannot even relax on a park bench without some creep coming up to spoil her relaxation....

Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder but more important, how you feel about yourself at the end of the day.

Disagree the80s
Beauty is different to everyone.
What one person sees will be the opposite to someone else but if you mean in the sense of someone being extremely attractive to many then yes it will have its advantages but it will also have huge disadvantages too.

Honestly op my DW feels like this because she's not a conventionally "pretty" woman. I'm not joking when I say that when I saw her for the first time I nearly fainted I found her so ravishing! It was love at first sight. It's bloody pathetic that people actually comment on this and sad that your mum tells you to lose weight, it makes me so cross that "looks" are so highly valued in this way!

My maternal grandmother looked like Ava Gardner, my mum looked and still does look like Audrey Hepburn. The celebrity I'm most often compared to is Bjork. I so understand how you feel. My mum and grandmother never hassled me about it but, gosh, I felt the comparisons others made about us keenly.

A lot of people love Bjork !!

That's a very romantic story, Gok. Your wife must feel so cherished to have you write that about her.

My Mother was absolutely stunning as a young woman, slim, still looks amazing at 72. I am attractive but no one has ever chased me down the street, not slim, not a social butterfly. My sister and I both largely inherited my Father's genes.

I'm a bit annoyed about it but at 40 years of age I an quite happy in my own skin now and have a lovely man who worships the ground I walk on.

If it's any consolation, I'm what would probably be considered 'conventionally attractive', I know I'm quite pretty. And it's never done me a bloody bit of good. I'm socially awkward, painfully shy and a total introvert who finds social interaction genuinely exhausting. As a result, I've never been on a single date or asked out or even acknowledged by a member of the opposite sex in all my 24 years! Beauty is skin deep, all you lucky ladies with lovely husbands and partners are obviously very special people, with a hell of a lot to give and that includes you OP! One day our looks will all fade, what will matter is the contents of our hearts, the state of our consciences, and the good we have done.

I love Bjork too but I don't think she's particularly attractive.

I know how you feel OP. I have a drop dead gorgeous sister, and our mother seemed to get all the blokes as well. I look like I was dropped on my face more than once as a child. I actually had a lad say (drunkenly and therefore not as quietly as he thought) 'ow come a gorgeous girl like her (sister) can have such a moose for a sister'. Ah well, I found a bloke that thinks I'm beautiful, and I have brains, it's not all bad.

Same here, gorgeous mother and sister yet I got the short straw genetics wise. Everytime my sister and I are in the same room and it's mentioned that we're related, there is always a chorus of disbelief, "you look nothing alike" etc, and I know it's because she's beautiful and I'm just average. Even my DP breathlessly commented "she looks like a model" after meeting her for the first time, I could tell he was just as stunned as everyone else that we are sisters! So yes, it does suck and I feel for you OP.