to ask whether you were pretty when you were younger?

[Totur]

I look at photos of me and I was so pretty when young but I had zero confidence.
I'm stuck now being old and miserable. I wish I had enjoyed or known that I was actually quite pretty.

Even now, my confidence in dealing with people is tied up with how I think I look in the mirror.
I think I was actually pretty but wasted all my youth thinking I was Ozzy Osbourne in the female form!

I think now that I'm older I understand female jealousy and where it takes women. Male hatred when they can't have you because you're out of their league and so they call you a stuck up bitch who thinks she is too beautiful, even though I didn't know that I was beautiful. I still am, but if I admit that I finally recognise it, I get called vain etc.
The difference now, is that I'm no longer bothered by hate for no reason, I know it says more about them than it does about me. I have more going for me than my looks, I'm witty, kind hearted, generous, great company. If people want to judge me on what I look like instead of looking deeper, then those are the people I'm better off without.
That is what being beautiful has taught me.
At least I can help my daughter

I spent all of my teens and twenties thinking I was completely hideous. Then at my parents' house last week I caught sight of my graduation photo and was struck by just how bloody pretty I was.

Now in my forties I still think I'm hideous - I wonder whether I'll look back at photos when I'm seventy and think the same.

This is such an interesting thread, it's one of those things that's almost impossible to get an honest answer to IRL.
Let's say I like looking at old pictures now that back then I hated. I was a very confident child but withdrawn teenager and not focused on looks at all. So while I think I had natural good looks ("good bone structure", big eyes, cute nose, slim) I never attracted much attention and didn't miss it. I wasn't insecure exactly and never thought of myself as ugly, but "prettiness" wasn't something I either envied or aspired to, I was largely uninterested in clothes or grooming. Maybe it was because my twin occupied that niche. Maybe it was because looks were never really commented on in my family, either negatively or positively.
The only body insecurity I had for a time were very small boobs. I really enjoyed the hormone boost in pregnancy, when they took on that proper round shape. Post pregnancy boobs and pre pregnancy tummy, that would be the perfect combination!
I enjoy nice clothes now, have found a style that suits me and appreciate having a figure that's very easy to dress. Still not much into grooming, but I like what I see in the mirror, except for that evil looking vertical crease between the eyebrows. I admit to having a fringe mainly to cover that .

Judging from photos certainly prettier than I was being told by classmates.

But I don't really wish I had known that or thought about how to make the most of my looks- the things I did think about were absorbing and enjoyable and have stayed with me.

To me, youth was about different things: it was about the excitement of finding I could learn and understand difficult things, it was about finding I was quite physically tough (though not sporty or coordinated) and could enjoy strenuous manual work or travelling. Those are the things I miss now that my body is beginning to get less resilient. Beauty- nah, never really saw what that would give me.

Always decidedly average here.

No. Looked like a pudding with bad skin. I was one of those girls who just look like a podgy child well into their 20s - pot belly, thunder thighs. Men were brutal too. Then there were the ‘kind’ ones who’d say things like ‘ah but you’ve, erm, got nice eyes’ usually followed with ‘and you’re such a good mate’. It dictated my relationships in a really destructive way, and I regret that enormously. I’m slimmer now and my face is less pudding-y but I’m into the ‘over a certain age and therefore ridiculous’ bracket.

Nope. Didn't scare the horses and at a push you could say plain.

I often wonder what it must be like to look in the mirror and see a pretty face looking back.

No. I had really short hair and as a friend put it "your nose is too big, your eyes are too far apart, you're just all wrong". I think I've got better with age or perhaps I'm looking at myself in the mirror without wearing my glasses. Forty years later she is still my friend.

I think I was eye catching but not typically pretty. I look back at pictures and can't imagine I looked like that. Was always considered 'chubby' but now I look at the size I was with awe. 'Built to last' per my DM, yet I look perfectly fine looking back.

I could always turn men's heads, and enjoyed a little light flirting. Then when I was 50 I was ill for several months, lost a ton of weight and my face collapsed. Like spider webs - the worst kind of collapse. I have since gained all the lost weight, and apparently that of some other people who mislaid it. My face has never recovered. I have found it difficult to reconcile to the fact that this is now me. I don't feel like that face looks.

Luckily, I still turn DH's head. That will suffice.

I was a cute kid, a miserable and very sullen teenager and a reasonably pretty late teen early 20 something. I was always a bit chubby.

I look better now (at 29) than I have done since I was about 9 years old. I'm quite pretty now despite the stretch marks and the odd grey hair.

Yeah I was alright looking for a mid 90’s teenager. I didn’t do anything with my hair and rarely wore make up until I was in my mid 20’s.
I had a nice face, not fat, not thin.
I still have a nice face. I’m actually ok with how I look. I’m no supermodel but I don’t need to be.