To be beautiful?

[Mindgoneblanko]

Aibu to want to be beautiful and to wonder what it must be like to be beautiful and know you’re beautiful? How does it feel, if you are?
Have you been aware of having more opportunities in life, people being nicer to you etc, based on your looks, or has it been detrimental in any way?
For the record, I’m not hideous, ok I’d say or was when younger, but definitely not highly attractive/very pretty/beautiful

I have a friend who is what I would call a classic beauty. Perhaps less striking now that we’re in our 40s, but she was a real head-turner when we were young women. I remember being really puzzled by the aggressive reactions of some men towards her. We’d be queuing at a bar or standing at a bus stop and a random man would insult her or sneer at her- it happened a number of times. It didn’t really faze her; sadly I assume she was used to it. It seemed these were a certain type of man who were a) fiercely attracted to her and b) knew instantly she was ‘out of their league’. And they hated her for it 😕

Christy Turlington is one of my fave models & I still think she's very beautiful at 50.

@TableFlowerss Mmm, I'm not sure I agree. I thought she was pretty when she was younger, but surgery has done something odd to her features now, IMO.

The people I know IRL haven't had surgery (as far as I know), they're just more confident and take care of themselves.

@rarari

Christy Turlington is one of my fave models & I still think she's very beautiful at 50.

Yes she’s beautiful.

I also believe that lots of beauty comes from self care.

I think only a beautiful person would say that! There is no self-care in the world which is going to make me attractive. Sure, lack of it makes me look worse but self-care does not work miracles.

[quote Cameleongirl]@TableFlowerss Mmm, I'm not sure I agree. I thought she was pretty when she was younger, but surgery has done something odd to her features now, IMO.

The people I know IRL haven't had surgery (as far as I know), they're just more confident and take care of themselves.[/quote]
Do you mean Angelina Jolie or Fearn Cotton?

I meant Nicole, she's had some work done.

Beautiful women turn heads wherever they go, be it entering a room or walking along somewhere. I'd agree that beautiful is something you grow into, without trying. Almost anyone can look pretty or attractive if they try.

I was never a beauty, but my best friend at school was. Stunning like a young angelina jolie. I’m ashamed to say in our group of friends we were a bit mean to her. We used to say dont let your boyfriend meet her, as they would inevitably fancy her instead, being shallow as teenage boys can be. When that happened we would be really off with her even though it wasn’t even her fault. She also used to get depressed as she felt boys never liked her for her personality and just her looks.

@Cameleongirl

I meant Nicole, she's had some work done.

😂 sorry, of course Nicole Kidman, that’s what I replied to you 😂

Yeah I suspect she has had something. I have visions of her looking really plain and plain when she was with Tom Cruise but in Bog Little Lies I thought she was much nicer.

Doesn’t count if it’s surgery though!

I'm greying, plump and middle-aged now but was beautiful in my late teens/20s (people would stop me in the street and tell me so) and I'd say that 90% of the attention it brought was negative, partly because due to my ethnicity I was often treated as a sort of "exotic" curiosity by men, which felt really demeaning (nice guys would be scared to talk to me). At work I got so much shit from women who resented me and men who assumed I was stupid/easy, and I lost count of the number of times I was called aloof, haughty, arrogant, etc, when I was actually just introverted and uncomfortable with the attention I received. Nevertheless, when I aged to shit rapidly in my 30s due to stress/illness I found the sudden lack of attention very difficult to adjust to, so it was the worst of all worlds really!

Totally agree that being slightly above average-looking and confident is the best combination. The most attractive people I know are definitely the ones who exude self-acceptance and I wish I was like them!

Hmm. I’ve been called beautiful although I know it’s quite subjective but I tend to have men flirt with me often, ‘check me out’ a lot. When abroad in Europe I’ve been asked out in the street a lot (British men are more reserved so only get that sort of attention when they’re drunk!) Although I’m not a supermodel/Angelina Jolie! I would say I have probably been treated better by male colleagues than female, and this isn’t some conspiracy theory on my part about ‘bitchy women’ because I’m a complete feminist. It’s probably more that the males have just been more indulgent. However I would say that sometimes, less attractive women have been threatened or not kind, and I’ve struggled to ever have a good ‘girl gang’. All that said I have some very dear close female friends on an individual level — I just sometimes feel left out of groups e.g. at work. My ex was really jealous and thought every friendly man was flirting with me, but then again, dickheads will be dickheads whatever you look like. I’ve often lacked self confidence because of an issue with my body appearance (not visible in clothes, outing so won’t say here) so I feel I have experienced both sides of the coin!

Oh and, I wasn’t necessarily that beautiful as a child, just normal really. I grew into my looks and was called beautiful a lot from around 18-19 or so by others. So I think that also makes a difference to my self perception and how it’s affected me. I got a lot of attention from men throughout my 20s but didn’t really have many successful relationships.

Oh AND I think I’m only really called ‘beautiful’ with make up on which means essentially I am not truly beautiful, but pretty masquerading as beautiful. Which is a different thing I think.

@gingganggooleywotsit

I was never a beauty, but my best friend at school was. Stunning like a young angelina jolie. I’m ashamed to say in our group of friends we were a bit mean to her. We used to say dont let your boyfriend meet her, as they would inevitably fancy her instead, being shallow as teenage boys can be. When that happened we would be really off with her even though it wasn’t even her fault. She also used to get depressed as she felt boys never liked her for her personality and just her looks.

That happened to me so many times in school!

I remember if I just said hello to some one's boyfriend, I would be accused by his girlfriend of flirting with him.

I also remember a friend's boyfriend, when he met me, said to me one time, "If i met you before I met Sarah, would you have gone out with me", right in front of his girlfriend, and I said "I don't know", as I didn't know what to say.

The next day, Sarah got her group of friends to ring me and be really nasty to me on the phone, because I had said "I don't know", when apparently I should have said no. And how could I have been so awful and nasty to Sarah by saying 'I don't know"

Yet none of them blamed her boyfriend, for asking me the question.

Women stare at you, look you up and down and/or give you dirty looks. Exclude you from their cliques. Talk about you behind your back. Back stab. Discuss your appearance with other women. Get protective of their partners when you're around. Other beautiful women are nice to you and become good friends.

Men smile at you, wink at you, stare at you, compliment you, wolf whistle, some get flustered and blush.

Other women see you as a threat and also make a play for your man.

Women scrutinise for flaws in your appearance or personality and discuss them with you or other women.

Women think you are flirting with men, even if you are not, and just sitting or standing chatting, e.g. to a male work colleague.

Beauty and attractiveness are different thungs I think?
I do know someone who is stunningly beautiful, and she really is. Unfortuneately, she is not beautiful on the inside.
On the other hand, my best friend is not beautiful. She is actually quite plain, but has striking (coloured) hair.
She is like a magnet. Men and women gravitate toward her quite naturally.
She is truly beautiful, but not in the physical sense.

Personally, I am neither 😐

Never failing to 'pull' in a nightclubbeen ages since I last went clubbing but always got the guysI realise I'm boasting btw but it's true.

I'm beautiful. When I make an effort I'm very beautiful and turn heads. I've been like this since my late teens and I know I'll always be beautiful - my mother has only become more beautiful the older she gets and I know it will be the same for me. People tell me I'm beautiful and sometimes people really stare at me - I know it's because they find me almost mesmerisingly beautiful. Like others, I have name changed for this because acknowledging my beauty publicly is something I very rarely do.
I really enjoy my body and face. I love everything about my body, I really do. I'm sure that there are things I could feel insecure about if I wanted to but I have always chosen not to focus on those things. I'm not going to live my life like that and distort something I've been so fortunate to have. I don't look wonderful in everything but I do look wonderful in most things and it's a lovely feeling. I love summer because I look so pretty in summer clothes. I notice others worrying about exposing bits of themselves they feel ashamed of and I never feel that way because I always look really pretty whatever I wear. It's very liberating. I am not one for looking in the mirror all the time but when I do I usually think I look some version of lovely. Sometimes I think I don't look great - for example first thing in the morning - but it doesn't really bother me because I know that I have a very beautiful face (with or without make up) and I'll always be grateful for that.
I find that other peoples' response to my looks to be a very mixed bag. It's been used to undermine me a lot; and sometimes I've been very taken aback by how nasty other men and women have been. It's ok for them to say horrible things to me, apparently, because I'm beautiful. I'm on the receiving end of a disproportionate number of very savage put downs, I think. I feel that on many occasions I have been singled out for bullying because I am conspicuous because of my beauty - and those occasions are really hurtful and make me feel so upset. I feel that other people have projected some really extreme and weird things onto me over the years. I have some really wonderful friends, who are similar to me in personality but who are not as beautiful as me and they just don't have to deal with this stuff. I have to be very careful in interviews about how I present myself. When I was younger I was very worried about the assumptions people might draw about me but as I have become older (I'm now 40) I have cared less and just let them get on with it.
I have received and continue to receive a lot of sleaze from men and it has skewed my relationships quite significantly. There are quite a few men in my life who have approached me to tell me how beautiful they think I am but I have to say that these are the sorts of men you can invariably live without. I think that it has put off some really lovely men who simply won't talk to me with confidence or can't be comfortable around me - and that has very much been my loss. At heart, I think most men want a girlfriend they can find pretty but they find beauty quite intimidating and burdensome. I think it has affected job prospects, not in a good way. it certainly affected the approach of many of my teachers, some of whom have struggled to accept that more than just a pretty face. I don't know how much of this is to do with being a woman though.

I think one of the reasons I feel so comfortable with my beauty is because I don't think it makes me better than anyone else. I'm not more interesting or more deserving than anyone else. I've just been very very lucky. I don't derive self worth from my face or body. I think that others place much too high a value on beauty. It's not a virtue, after all.
However, I have chosen to enjoy my beauty and on some level I believe this is why I'm so beautiful. It is an active choice to enjoy the way you look and there are plenty of really beautiful people out there who could chose to feel so much happier about themselves if only they would let themselves. Like I say, there are probably things about my body I could fixate on to make myself feel really miserable but, since I left my teenage years behind, I have never been tempted down that path. I do agree that it's easy to love your body if you like the way you look but what I truly believe is that it's more of a choice than people are prepared to acknowledge. I've been lucky with my face and body but loving the way I look is not luck and only rather loosely connected to the reality of how I look. Ultimately I have chosen to love myself and reject all the sexist shite society puts onto women. My beauty has enabled me to do this but when I look at all those miserable supermodels I realise that beauty has nothing to do with it.

I've often been told I'm very pretty and people do gravitate towards me. However I'm so awkward/don't know what to say that I think any benefits of looks don't last long. Your much better off having good people skills than being attractive. I've noticed friends who maybe aren't that attractive (more conventionally so) do a lot better both socially and professionally as they have excellent people skills/interesting hobbies ect ect. In some cirumstances good looks might open a door but you have to have a lot more going on to keep it open.

@Clementine183

Samantha Brick used to be my boss This was before the days when she went on about how awesomely beautiful she was, I remember her being pretty confident but no more so than anyone else at the company. I'm sure much of it was done with an eye for publicity.

On the looks front, I think a lot of people who are thought of as beautiful photograph very well and look striking but don't necessarily have mass appeal. I did some modelling when I was younger and I would say my looks stood out, but I longed to be one of those bouncy girl next door types who all the boys seemed to fancy. I tended to be more love/hate - some people used to stop me in the street to compliment me but others used to shout insults at me and call me anorexic (I wasn't, which made this rather frustrating). Now that I'm older I look less unusual and it is kind of a relief I have to say. That said, I think I'm still more conscious of my looks - and other people's - than I should be and I wish I didn't place quite so much reliance on it, especially since I realise it's all downhill from here

I always suspected Samantha brick was not being entirely serious and had agreed to write the article with the aim of getting a huge reaction. I've looked at her social media accounts and she comes across as fairly down to earth and not full of herself.

[quote Mindgoneblanko]@BlueBlancmange I honestly thought A.J was natural with no surgery 🤷🏻‍♀️[/quote]
I was surprised when I saw it mentioned too, but then I looked at the photos and it was totally obvious. She was attractive before, but in no way the out of this world stunner she became. I'm not sure her face is even possible naturally. It's certainly extremely rare if it is. But of course Hollywood is all about creating fantasy and illusion. hence we should not compare ourselves to her and other stars. Most of them have had a helping hand from a surgeon's knife.

@FeistySheep

Not really beautiful as such I don't think. But when I was younger men were very interested. Totally pointless as their interest presumably wasn't in me as a person but what I looked like - terrible basis for starting a relationship! It also doesn't help make friends.

I think it's best to be middling, have something attractive about you, but not to be 'beautiful'. Beautiful just attracts a large quantity of useless men!

Yep! Beautiful women have their hearts broken more often than more 'middling' ones.

Men often seem to want to bring them down, I don't know why. Insecurity maybe.