To feel not being physically attractive has held me back?

[bluejumpers]

I’ve done my best with what I’ve got, but the reality is I’m not attractive. I was an exceptionally strange looking child and teen and that triggered a lot of bullying. As a result, I’ve never had a relationship.

I’ve done OK work wise, but I definitely lack real connections with people.

Does anyone understand what I mean?

Op,could maybe your attitude have held you back?

Very attractive people do generally have an easier time.

However, look around. The world is full of less attractive people in relationships.

If only attractive people could find a partner, the human race would have died out.

Difference between attractive and unattractive, though.

What RiddleyW said, that's the truth however unpalatable it is.

I agree with Please don’t insult the OP by telling them it’s all their fault and to do with their attitude.

Loads of unattractive people end up married, and with good jobs and families.

It doesn't matter what you look like. It's about confidence.
If I could say this in the nicest possible way, I have seen plenty of really quite ugly girls, get loads of likes on social media, dare good looking guys etc.. How? Because they are confident and they think they are good looking.
If you show that attitude, it will start to follow you.

It doesn't matter what you look like. It's about confidence.

I don't think the two things can be separated as easily as that. Yes, there may be unattractive people who have retained their self-confidence for whatever reason, but often, being unattractive wrecks your confidence completely. And you can't just become more self-confident because someone tells you it will help - just as you can't 'cheer up' to order when you are sad.

I used to think like this. One day though I stopped and looked around me and seen that all sorts of people have relationships and do well in the workplace. Looks didn't hold them back so I decided to go for it as well. Have a good look around and see how all sorts of people looks wise are achieving.

I think what is really desirable in society for women is to be attractive in a non threatening way.

Really gorgeous, glam and sexy looking women are often treated badly by other women due to jealously and attract bad boy types who use them.

I think kind of understated good looks give you the best outcome.

Besides, I don’t lack confidence, but dispassionately I am not attractive. I’m also not tall, no one would insist actually I was if I told you I was five foot, so let’s just be practical.

But op you must understand that people who are objectively not attractive still get married, have relationships, friends. Look around you in any street and you see this.

I know a few people who have never had relationships. Looks is never the reason.

Lots of people who arent what would be considered attractive, still have relationships and so forth.

Of course the reality is attractive people get more opportunities in life.

But it doesn't mean it's all hopeless for the rest of us. One of my bosses is a really good looking guy, certainly someone most women fancy. His wife, looks like a bloke. No disrespect to her but clearly they love each other and has a successful marriage and she's very intelligent as well with a great career.

I know a few people who have never had relationships. Looks is never the reason

I have a very attractive friend who is always single. I have no idea why but it's nothing to do with how she looks.

Conversely I know a woman who is not conventionally attractive and is obese who has a really good looking husband.

You have a much smaller pool of partners to choose from if you're unattractive. You have to make far more compromises (or choose to remain single) because there just aren't the people out there who'd want to be seen with you.

I used to be pretty and then I got really fat. Seriously, people started treating me like shit. It's nothing to do with confidence, I have confidence. People treat uglier people badly.

Here is from the other side. I was unusually pretty when I was young. I was Eastern and Western European - mixed.

My life was hell. HELL. From men and women. Men could not control themselves around me.

I was sexually abused many times as a young child.
I was bullied by my own mother and aunties who were jealous of me. (They told me so).

I was bullied badly by girls at school who were jealous of my looks. They also told me so. One girl made my life hell at shool for no reason. And I cried about it alot. Eventually one day - she told me why. She said "I hate how I look - I hate my hair. I wish that I looked like you".

When I was a young adult - again I was sexually abused by men.

In some workplaces - women hated me.

Women can be incredibly cruel. I have had such utter hate directed at me by women.

My life was awful. I never for one moment got to enjoy being pretty. After one particiular sexual assault at a party - I attempted suicide.

I can tell you this - if you are the prettiest in a group of girls - you will receive extreme hatred and brutality. It is a pattern I have seen in many places.

Now I am older, I have several younger cousins. Most of them look ordinarilly pretty. One of them is astoundingly beautiful. She has long curly blonde hair to her bum , and an angelic face. She is stunning. She is 6. When I have been around her house, I have heard her grandfather's friends comment about her in an inappropriate way. I need to watch out for her without being overly protective.

I felt really sad for her, because I know that she is going to be having problems from an early age

I really think there are much more unattractive people where I live and so attractive people tend to stand out.

However there are some things that can make pysically unattractive really attractive: A twinkle in the eye, crinkly eyes from lauging, people who ask questions and really listen, confidence and not arrogance...and if you are a man - money. There are a lot of unattractive men with stunning wives and girlfriends.

There are things superficially that can be done to make a face more symmetrical. Like getting your teeth fixed, making sure your hair is done professionally, make sure your clothes fit properly, have your nails done and eyelashes. I do all that and have my eyebrows micro bladed.

The majority of people on the planet are pretty average looking. There’s only the odd few either side of that scale. Moreover attractiveness changes depending on the century we are in. I’d have been a raging beauty a few centuries ago....

I have always found people to be more and more attractive if I like them, even if they are at the lower end of attractiveness. On the flip side, I don’t find beautiful people very attractive if they’re not nice people. Beauty being in the eye of the beholder.

Dds friend is not considered pretty. Someone even said something about about her looks to me. But she’s got so many talents that she’s a treasure.

Perhaps you could look at the great things about yourself? You do find couples, where one partner is traditionally considered above average attractiveness and the other a bit ugly. But it works because of who they are and what the other person sees. I remember reading somewhere beautiful women are more likely to be cheated on.

In essence, stop selling yourself short. Even if you are short, which quite frankly is attractive to some people!

Yes, I agree op. I’m no looker and definitely notice that people treat attractive people far better (obviously not in all cases but generally) . Plus I’ve always felt the need to be kinder, funnier, more reliable in order to be liked. I’m intelligent but I’d love to be attractive too.

I am really angry at some of the people who treated me badly because I was pretty. My uncle's wife ( so not family) used to make my life hell when I visited. I couldn't do anything right - she would tell my uncle that I was a really bad person, and that I was always doing bad things. I finally realised later, that it was because I was pretty.

Also, girls at school and women at work made me feel like I was terrible person. Until one nice older woman at work told me that they were jealous of me.

What is bad about being pretty - is the absolute nastiness that you will receive.

It really made me believe that I was a terrible person. These women told me I was awful so I believed them.

Jealous bitches. I am angry at them. They ruined so much of my life and my self esteem.

FWIW I’m “attractive”, well dressed and pretty gregarious and I’m still seemingly unable to get a partner.

I have a very successful career which I do sometimes wonder if is due to my looks and outgoing personality.

I’m quite fat at the moment but when I was thinner I found it much harder to make female friends (maybe a coincidence maybe not). One of my good friends is stunningly beautiful (model type) and seriously struggles to make female friends and still gets treated like shit by men.

Beauty doesn’t solve everything

To the people on here who think that pretty people have it easier. It might seem that way to you.

I can guarantee you - that behind closed doors - they will have had some woman making their life an absolute hell.

As a yo-yo dieter, I can confirm that people 100% treat me better when I am going through a thin phase, a bit worse in a “middle” phase, and (ironically) totally invisible in an obese phase.

I'm starting the stopwatch on how long it is before someone posts the Roald Dahl quote about how having ugly thoughts makes you ugly.