Can I just say that life as an ugly woman is horrible.

[SundayMorningTeaForOne]

I’m going to get very personal, so I’ve name changed for this one.

I hope we can be grown-up about this topic and no one’s going to hit me with the ”everyone’s beautiful in their own way” or claim that I have self-esteem issues.

Anyway, when I was younger boys really wanted to let me know how ugly they found me, so often made comments when I walked by.

When older I was loading some stuff in the car and men walked by and made those truck in reverse beeb-beeb-beeb sounds, you know letting me know I’m fat.

When out, men don’t talk to me, I’m not saying they have to be interested in me - this isin’t even what I mean, they complitely ignore me, talk to everyone else around us/ table, I’m air apperently.

I’m turning 40 next year. Never been on a date, never even been asked out on a date. So if anyone here want to argue my ugliness must be in my head, what more proof do you need.

Getting older has woken me up to the fact that I’m not going to have kids, I don’t have enough money and only family members I have I my prent and the way that they are, they are not going to support me with a child, so I can’t have a child on my own.
I don’t have enough resourses.

I can’t ger over the fact that I’ve went through life and never been loved.
No one’s ever cared about me, no one saw me as someone they’d (at least try) want to share and build a life with.
Always doing everything on my own, how tired I have become, I didn’t even notice it until I felt totally broken.
My cat died almost two years ago, she was the only one I’ve ever said good morning and good night to, now I just say to an empty room.
How sad is that?!

I honestly don’t know what keeps me here, why did I stay here for all these years. To still be alone.
Everyday I get up and go for a walk, no matter the weather, and feel like an idiot for doing that.

And in case someone wants to jump and say I must have depression, I just want to remaind that this is my life, had been always.
I’m just getting it all out. I think anyone would be very extatic if this is how their life had gone.
I had hope when I was younger / was happier, years / decades roled by and it wore me down.
That’s it.

I’m not sure that’s my take, I’ve not seen any poster down play it. In fact most have agreed on the issues, the only “downplay” or dispute is over the word itself, ugly. Which as I stated up thread is , I think down to what the word means to different people. For some it means simply unattractive, for others hideous,, unpleasant, repulsive, and they don’t see people like that physically.

most have tried to explain the perception of attractiveness can often, but not always obviously , be about the whole package, hair, weight, dress, make up, basically how we present, and less about our faces alone. Not always but often.

we can take one woman, add several stone to her. Dress her in illfiting clothes, give her a poor hair cut and colour, no make up,dull skin, and she can present as unattractive. Her face will often look puffy, with visible fat, double chins, hooded eyes due to the weight.

take the same woman, knock the weight back to a healthy one, give her a good hair cut and colour, dress her in great clothes, give her subtle make up, and a good skin care regime, and she would present as attractive.

people are just saying these things can often make a significant difference to others perception . Rightly or wrongly. But whether we like it or not, there is truth in the fact personal grooming and changeable elements on how we present, those we can control. does often change the perception of our level of attractiveness.

people are just trying to help the op as she comes across so unhappy.

Quite to the contrary I’ve seen several posters downplay it with comments such as (to paraphrase)
”Beauty is within” - I think we tell ourselves this to feel better. I think it is true but it is not how the world treats you
“Most people are not models” - this does not mean most people are ugly
”Most people are not very attractive” - this doesn’t mean most people are ugly

I agree how you present yourself can help it hinder you however a few posters who say they have ugly have mentioned they are slim, use makeup and are still ugly. They mostly went ignored. It is human nature to want to fix things but we should acknowledge that is a hard position to be in. There is a Korean drama called “my id dis gagnam beauty” where the protagonist has drastic plastic surgery to fit in with society, she actually lost weight before and realised she was still treated badly because of her face.

If most of us had OPs experience we may be unhappy too. I’m not saying she should not try things she hasn’t already tried only that it is natural to feel as she would, in her position. She has lived almost 40 years facing what some people will never really understand.

We only have the OP's version of what is happening and of course this would be by their thoughts only so is there a case of she is actually treated differently because she is 'ugly' or is it her thinking it only?

@SundayMorningTeaForOne Are you still reading?

I doubt you will respond which is quite telling (as another poster pointed out recently.)

I wonder if this is how you behave in real life?
People here have tried to help you.

Did you want to offload, but not change your life?

If you do want to change it, why not think about your job for a start?

I have a part time job. It’s a small, very small, business, only few workers and often in different shifts, so mostly I don’t even see them. Or I/they work at home.

How can you at 39 afford to work only part time? Is it a well paid job?

Most 39 year olds who are single cannot afford to think about p/t work .Most are struggling to pay rent or a mortgage.

If you are on low earnings, it must surely impact on the rest of your life.
Can you afford holidays? Overseas? Can you afford to do things socially where you meet people?

You seem very isolated. If that's down to money, can you change that? Get more qualifications ? You're not too old and it could open up a whole new life for you!

And- your refusal to engage in your thread where you are being challenged a bit says a lot. Either you are happy and will carry on as you are, or you have to make the effort to make your life different. There are plenty of suggestions on these pages that are nothing to do with looking pretty.

I guess it’s how you Read it. I don’t see that as downplaying it, the statements are true.

and none of us have seen the op. No one knows if this is a case of how she presents, or if it really is she has unattractive facial features. Other than effectively alluding to being significantly over weight, she’s not told us anything about her aappearance other than she says she is ugly.

The OP doesn't appear to want to engage in anything here, so it's not surprising she is isolated or unwilling to change her life.

In almost every thread on this platform we have only the opinion of the OP. I usually try to take them at their word. Why in this case are we unhappy to take her at her word? Does it make us feel bad that we (in general) might treat a person like this? Yes there is a chance she isn’t ugly at all but there is a chance she is. If she is then I’d rather not deflect and undermine her experiences, some of which are terrible.

What a ridiculous comment @SouthernLassies. This is mumsnet, a place some people just use to vent and offload. When it comes to emotional issues, no one in their right mind would come here for advice they could act on given that you're engaging with anonymous strangers all who see life through their own lens, with their own biases.

Imagine you were starving, no access to food and highly malnourished and a bunch of people answered with “everyone gets hungry sometimes”. To me it is obvious downplaying. It doesn’t mean the statement isn’t true ( we all get hungry sometimes) but it isn’t useful to a starving person - it is trying to equate what should not be equated.

We don’t know if OP is right, like every thread here.

I agree how you present yourself can help it hinder you however a few posters who say they have ugly have mentioned they are slim, use makeup and are still ugly. They mostly went ignored. It is human nature to want to fix things but we should acknowledge that is a hard position to be in.

I know a few people, very few, who are genuinely very unattractive. Wonky features, bad hair, bad teeth, not just one of those but all of those. However, I know many people who are either attractive or just fairly ordinary looking who think they are ugly and who have been called ugly at some point by somebody. Heck, as a child Uma Thurman was bullied for her appearance. And I'm not minimising that experience. Being bullied for my appearance has adversely affected my entire life because although objectively now I can see that I am quite pretty, I had so many years of being told the reverse that deep down I don't really believe it.

So I'm not minimising what the OP is saying but I am retaining a degree of scepticism, because the odds point to her thinking she's ugly rather than actually being ugly. And I'm really wary of advising her one way or the other whilst I don't really know which it is.

I'm similarly sceptical about other stuff people say on this site, and adapt advice accordingly. But I'm doubly careful in this case because if it is about the OP's perception, I don't want to encourage that problem.

I understand.

My view is that their is research showing lack of attractive impacts how you are treated, how you do in job interviews etc etc. This is nothing new and not highly contested. I can appreciate a degree of scepticism but it seems many don’t even believe that if others find you unattractive they don’t treat you well.

Perhaps as a black person who has been in the receiving end of racism I just don’t find the OP that unbelievable.

I don’t think anyone is saying they don’t believe the op is “ugly”. What’s being said is that presentation impacts the perception of attractiveness. Which we keep pointing out to those saying yes she must be ugly

if this is years of abuse, negative feelings, low self esteem, self loathing, loneliness, introversion, poor presentation, then telling the op yes you’re ugly is just feeding her insecurities and is not the right approach. It’s compounding it.

So pointing out that few people are naturally attractive, nearly all a lot of take work, grooming, weight and body management etc. is the decent thing to do, as it’s the truth. No one wants to validate the ops feelings if there is a chance she is not ugly, and that chance is looming large.

The OP has never come back.

She didn't want advice, or to help herself.
She just wanted to moan.

That's fine but it's also a way of ducking out of trying to make any difference to her life.

She didn't reply again. That doesn't mean she isn't reading or absorbing.

Hi OP, your post is heartbreaking to read.

I agree with a PP that 40 is a difficult age if you are single and childless - been their myself and understand exactly what you say about your parents - mine would have disowned me if I had a baby on my own.

Years on in actuality relieved I never went down that route as having children is tough l, I imagine, and not the be all and end all in life.

You are still grieving for your beloved cat, it’s early days. Getting another one may help fill that void.

As for your looks again as PP have said there are many things you could do to look better - weight loss, hair, skin, clothes etc - life is not all about appearances but no reason not to make the best of yourself (if you want to).

I do think you sound a bit depressed, and your self esteem seems very low, so maybe a chat with your doctor too.

Sending you hugs, sounds like life is tough for you right now ❤️

Think the OP needs more than anything good female friendships. Maybe a mate she can train with, walk with, yes maybe lose some weight as a consequence of that. Weight loss puts you in the frame of mind for new clothes, hairstyles - it's a natural confidence booster. What it does absolutely not have to be is creating some version of yourself that appeals to men or somehow buys you the 'approval' of society.

The friendships I had as a teenager/early 20s with other offbeat/unconventional girls were the happiest times of my life. They beat any relationships with men hands down. And I think that the happiest marriages sound like the ones where the couple are also friends who share the same outlook and are able to laugh about things.

So what I also wanted to add (pressed Post too soon) was that she might benefit from searching not online dating or those godawful meat markets, but from sites where people of similar outlooks or situations are lonely and isolated, and looking for company of people of the same sex. Do such things exist?

@SouthernLassies I think that's a bit unnecessarily harsh. You don't know this person or her life only what you have read on here. There are over 30 pages of comments now so she potentially got overwhelmed or is maybe still reading and is taking on heard what people have said, there are also plenty of unkind comments on here like yours that may have put her off coming back

That's repulsive. As if the measure of a woman's worth is her ability to get and keep a man.

Casual misogyny like this is still very much alive, sadly. And that's an indictment of society (patriarchal) in itself, not those individuals unable or unwilling to live up to its narrow, superficial, vapid standards.

After my mother got rid of my awful father in her 50s, even my loving grandpa felt sympathy for her because he felt she had a lot of love to give and 'deserved' a good man. Like she deserved a hole in the head! My mum revelled in her singledom in her later years. She was free and having a blast. Not a snowball's chance in hell would another man be getting his feet under the table and expecting her to be an unpaid maid, when the only person she now had to 'look after' was herself. It also bugged us both. She was a whole and complete person without a man by her side - and an independent, fun and admirable one at that.

The hairdresser's been sucked in by the patriarchal dream, which is often a sight dreamier from the man's side of the equation than it is from the woman's. Just check out any of the myriad MN threads about lazy, useless DHs whose wives are overworked, undervalued, unappreciated, and at the end of their tether.

Her comment says far more about her than it does about you.

My view is that their is research showing lack of attractive impacts how you are treated, how you do in job interviews etc etc. This is nothing new and not highly contested. I can appreciate a degree of scepticism but it seems many don’t even believe that if others find you unattractive they don’t treat you well.

Perhaps as a black person who has been in the receiving end of racism I just don’t find the OP that unbelievable.

Yes, I see what you mean. The trouble with privilege is that if you've got it, you don't want to admit that your position in life might be down to privilege, not work. You want to believe it's off your own bat. And the thing is, attractive women are given more opportunities but also often they are talented as well, although the assumption can be that they've 'slept their way to the top'.

Plus, if your life hasn't gone as planned you don't want to be sitting there thinking 'bloody hell. If it's this bad with privilege, what the fuck is it like without it?' And then yes, there's the realisation that you probably are also carrying around those prejudices and may be just as guilty of treating people badly because of how they look.

As a redhead, I've been told that my skin and hair colour are disgusting and repulsive. And people seem to think it's perfectly OK to say this. There's no comeback. It's prejudice but it's not something that's legislated against. And so what I've told myself is it's a handy way to weed people out. If they're going to act like that because I've got red hair, they're not people whose good opinion is worth having.

But I get that if the OP is having to do this all the time, it must be bloody exhausting.

There’s a common theme here isn’t there. And it’s men’s actions that have made you feel like crap.

if you’d gone through life people not saying those things and people telling you you were beautiful you would think you were beautiful.

such a shame that these men have such an impact on us while not giving a shit or looking at themselves. I guess a lot of these men don’t still think about these
comments. And actually it says more about them than it doesn’t about you. I’m sure you have a lot to give as a friend, and partner if you wanted to x x

I wish you all the best x x

She has replied once. Click on all posts by OP.

I know. I read it.

I meant she had never come back again although there are now 29 pages.

You sound like an intelligent and thoughtful person who is able to talk about their own emotional life.

Have you thought about writing? Have you tried writing down what you feel, just as you have here?

I would say if you're unhappy about how you look take steps to look better.

You say your overweight - can you join a gym? Do you eat healithy food? Do you need to lose weight?

Is you hair well kept? Can you invest in a good hairstylist for a cut and colour and get some olaplex conditioner to ensure it's kept shiny?

Do you look after your skin? Can you go to a makeup counter or space nk for some advice?

Do your clothes fit well? John Lewis does personal stylist sessions for free.

How are your teeth? Do you need braces? Have you thought about teeth whitening? Go to a dentist if you're not sure.

Being attractive takes work (unless you're really luckily!) but essentially if someone has good skin, we'll fitting clothes, works out and has good teeth they are deemed conventionally attractive.

Do you smile a lot? A smile with eye contact is very attractive and makes you feel better too!

Some people have the X factor and just are attractive and confident in the own skin but for most attractive people, there is some investment and time behind the scenes to look that way.