How do you accept that you aren't beautiful?

[000oooh]

I know it really isn't the most important thing in life. But still, it would be great to look in the mirror and not scrutinise myself.
Today my partner and I talked to one of his friend's new girlfriends, she was exceptionally beautiful, far more attractive than me and I'm sure 99% of people would say so. I know my partner loves the way I look and is with me, but I'd be a fool if I said he wouldn't have also found her very beautiful.

Sometimes I'm just tempted to get cosmetic enhancements. I've already had nose filler, but only surgery would truly solve it.

I don't think I am unattractive, but I'm just not beautiful. I get told I look 'cute' a lot, and I saw my partner's male friend smiling sweetly at me as if I were a puppy.

I make the best of myself and try to focus on other achievements/things I like about myself.

I sometimes just wish I could be beautiful.

I'm not beautiful and it's never bothered me in the slightest - I get annoyed by assumptions that it's sad if a woman doesn't think she's beautiful. I'm not bad looking and I don't think I'm ugly, but my looks just don't form part of my self worth.

I think the thing is we're coming out (relatively recently in historical terms) of millennia of women basically being property, where their main worth was 'is she pretty?' - it was your main way of bagging a good husband who would support you, a 'good' marriage if you were wealthy, or maybe even some social mobility if you weren't. Now women do so much more, we don't need to be valued for our looks - but it takes a long time to shake off such long-standing pressures.

I don't give it a second's thought. I have a nice interesting face and a fully-functioning body. That will do me.

I am who I am. I'd rather not be surrounded by people who value my looks anyway. Looks change. I'd hate the weight of expectation to always look flawless.

It's funny to think for many thousands of years before mirrors many people would have had little idea of how they looked, except maybe a reflection in water. Conveniently our eyes don't do selfies. Presumably at some point we chose to look at ourselves and judge ourselves. Not sure it was progress

In the olden days I used to fret about not being attractive enough, but when I look back at photos of me in my youth, I was quite a looker. Some people will always look attractive, though. They're just good specimens of their species, like a fine looking horse or sheep.

These days, I don't give a shit how people look. What's more important to me now is what your skills are and how much knowledge you have. If all someone has to offer is a pretty face and nice nails, they're no good to me at all.

Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing) didn't like her nose and got it fixed in 2 ops after DD. She then didn't look like herself and no one knew who she was even her friends. Her career was never the same. Your nose makes you unique, embrace it.

Many of the really beautiful men I've men have not been people I'd want to be in a relationship with. I want someone cute and funny who doesn't take themselves too seriously.

It doesn’t matter. Make the best of what you’ve got. Talk to yourself kindly and work on building up core resilience

@Echobelly

I'm not beautiful and it's never bothered me in the slightest - I get annoyed by assumptions that it's sad if a woman doesn't think she's beautiful. I'm not bad looking and I don't think I'm ugly, but my looks just don't form part of my self worth.

I think the thing is we're coming out (relatively recently in historical terms) of millennia of women basically being property, where their main worth was 'is she pretty?' - it was your main way of bagging a good husband who would support you, a 'good' marriage if you were wealthy, or maybe even some social mobility if you weren't. Now women do so much more, we don't need to be valued for our looks - but it takes a long time to shake off such long-standing pressures.

Completely agree

Op you need to fix your self esteem not your nose.
do you think men constantly look for flaws in their appearance and compare themselves to others superficial looks?
It's 2022- we have successfull careers, we study, we have social lives away from men. You don't need to be a1950s housewife judged on looks and housekeeping ability.

Down the centuries of history and across the world, "beauty" has been perceived in various different ways. It's subjective, and changeable.

I think it's a shame that you are stuck in a mode of thinking that says only today's version of beauty is valid, and that you are therefore in some way lesser as a result.

You. Are. Not. Lesser.

You are you - and your partner has chosen to be with you. If you need support to help you move past this, counselling is an excellent option. A better option than surgery, I'm pretty certain of that.

I was in a shop yesterday and the assistant had very obviously had work done - lips definitely and face weirdly smooth and puffed up. Her personality was lovely, but I felt that she'd have been so much more attractive if she was 'real'.

Growing older is fab for those who were plain when young. It is so much easier to look 'good for 45', than good for '25', if you're not naturally blessed. I don't want to look 'beautiful', just good for my age.

FWIW - the most beautiful girls at university are not the same as those who have the best relationships. Often beauty attracts superficial men, whereas plainer women can often get the nicer guys you'd actually like to spend time with.

OP, I am not one to push cosmetic surgery but just want to share my experience.

You have to figure out whether it is just your nose (which is fine as everyone has told you) that you focus on when you look at your reflection, or is it some impossible standard of beauty that you are yearning for. The latter is never going to happen and is simply not achievable.

If you do get a nose job aka rhinoplasty, this leads into the question of whether you will then find something else about your face or body to fixate on and start the slippery slope of further cosmetic procedures. You'd definitely want to avoid the nose job if you are in this category.

I was always self-conscious about the bags under my eyes and had a lower blepharoplasty done. Hardly anyone noticed the improvement and I did not get more admiring looks in public. But now when I look in the mirror, I feel neutral to happy (if I scrubbed up) and almost never see the eye bags whereas I would always be drawn to that area in the past and feel slightly disappointed, even whilst out and about catching my reflection in a car window.

From that feature being a focus, it is now a non-event and I can get on with the rest of my life. I have not become exceptionally beautiful but can live with that.

Mine was just a minor unnoticeable procedure. A nose job can substantially change your appearance and depending on what you want done, can be relatively major. So do look for a cosmetic surgeon specialising in this area with patients that have similar noses and the before-after photos.

@Stompythedinosaur

The real question is how you accept that women do not need to be beautiful, and that their value is not connected to their looks.

Once you've got your head around that, the rest falls into place.

Stompy’s right.

Your value isn’t linked to your appearance.

Your partner isn’t with you because of your face but because of your whole self. (Or if he is, he’s a ass and you should get rid)

You need a sense of self worth that isn’t tethered to your looks. Counselling helps.

Your jealousy and insecurity will cause more hurt to you than your looks ever will.

Embrace Radical Feminism! Once you learn how much of our lives are shaped by discrimination against women it's a heck of a lot easier to buck against those expectations. Why is beauty a value that matters to you for example? Because women get rewarded for it and punished if we don't have it, or at least show we are trying to attain it with grooming.

@000oooh

Thanks everyone. I've attached pics of my nose, I know this is going to look ridiculous because objectively it looks 'fine', I just feel that it's not straight enough and it's protruding from the side, plus wide, but I know it's really not that bad and I'm being stupid. It's just that the rest of my features are quite petite and I always felt like I'd suit a smaller nose.

The other thing that gets me down is my haircut, it's a short asymmetric pixie cut, I just regret cutting it and think my face would look much nicer with long hair. I'll just have to wait for it to grow I suppose.

000oooh, that looks like my nose and I'm very happy with it. Okay, it's not straight and not a ski-slope, but it's mine and it looks pretty much like what my family have too.

Very few women are beautiful, make the best of what you have and work on confidence and how you present yourself .

If you think you have a big nose, you should see my conker!

I'd rather people like me for who I am, my personality, humour, intelligence, thoughts etc than how I look. If I were "beautiful" then some people would only be around me for that and then I'd have a whole new layer of arseholes to sift through. I also suspect if you were "beautiful" then you'd still worry about your looks or something else. You seem really insecure and I don't think changing the way you look will ever resolve that.

I don't have the headspace to worry about it. I don't shave my hairy legs and don't wear makeup to hide my spots, so clearly I'm the last person to worry about this kind of stuff.

I agree with PP above who mentioned radical feminism. I was already in the realm of not giving a fuck, but I think reading into radical feminism actually helped me grow confidence beyond this.

I think you could benefit from some counselling/therapy as it is bothering you so much.

I'd love to be / have been beautiful but really true beauty is a rarity - or maybe I'm hyper critical! However, most people are attractive in their own way and you can 'make the best of yourself' though to me plastic surgery, unless for disfigurement, is a dodgy path to tread. If you improve one body part, I imagine it's likely you'll want to do another sooner or later.

Better to exercise, eat well and dress to suit your body shape.

Audrey Hepburn, who IMO was one of the most amazingly elegant and beautiful women ever, believed her nose was too long/big. Gaby Logan has a strong nose in profile but is extremely attractive. Your nose does not make or mar your face.

And confidence is key. In my 20s I had attention from plenty of men as I felt attractive. I was quite pretty and slim but not amazing in any way. Plenty of hang ups about my body before that as a teen.

This thread has helped me, thanks everyone. 99% of comments have been really helpful.

OP you don’t need therapy for thinking it would be nice to be beautiful just as it’s ok to ponder on a lottery win.

This ‘we all lose our looks’ when we get older trope is nonsense & much more problematic than your daydreaming. Actually it’s very rare that true natural beauty ever goes away. Nearly all of the famous women considered to be beautiful are still so. ‘Tweaks’ will not do anything more than tweak, you simply cannot create beauty & anyone who says that’s why these women look the way they do is being bitter.
If youth is the key factor then why are many older women more attractive than younger ones?

There’s nothing wrong with thinking it would be nice to be beautiful, rich, skinny, clever etc. Not everyone is bothered by the same thing but these things are so widely revered. It’s understandable.
You aren’t shallow or anything else you’ve been accused of being.

@000oooh

Sadly I feel like some people are visual, and even if a man is with you and loves you, if someone they deem better looking comes along and whose personality they also like then some will think "Well she seems like a better option." I feel like looks do matter to some extent

Of course physical attraction is part of relationships, but would you really want to be tethered to a man who valued that above everything else? I think even the most beautiful woman would have a miserable existence with someone like that, constantly wondering whether he'd trade her in for a younger or better-looking model. One of my friends is a former model and at 46, she doesn't look the way she did at 21, even though she's still attractive. I actually didn't realize she'd modelled when I first met her, I thought she was nice-looking, but nothing spectacular. Her partner hasn't dumped her now that she's not as gorgeous as she once was, because he loves her for who she is.

Personally, I think there's something wrong with people who value looks THAT highly. They're not likely to be nice people and probably the type who believe that "the grass is always greener." If my DD ever dated someone who seemed like that, I'd tell her to run!

And as PP's have said, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be beautiful, rich, skinny, etc., but don't fixate on it. Focus on what you want from life and go for it.

Op I'm in my 30s and recently had cosmetic surgury.

I've always been considered very attractive however in the past 5 years I've developed some awful puffy eye bags. Not the kind that can be treated with creams or hidden with make up.
I got a lower bleph and I honestly look 10 years younger, I got my teeth done (veneers) at the same time and people have commented on my teeth and saying how much younger I look because of it. Nobody has ever noticed the eye surgury.

The surgury was short and the recovery super easy. I'd seen videos of the recovery process with people being really dramatic about it but honestly it was an absolute walk in the park. My only regret is not getting it done sooner.

Because I was happy with my looks besides my eye bags, I was a really good candidate. If its just one thing you absolutely hate and you can afford to change it, just get it done. Do loads of research first and you will be fine.