To wonder what it’s like to be really attractive…

[ToyPoodles]

Just that really. I often wonder what it would be like to be attractive and have someone really lust for you, the way you see it on really popular beautiful instagram women.

Anyhow, back to the dog walk 😂

I had the relentless harrasment, even with my children. I also had the jealousy from other women and people thinking that I was thick. On a recent thread about starting to compliment strangers I was called sad because I saw I'd that I didn't want to be publicly critiqued, but I'm glad that it is fading. Unfortunately I have big boobs, so at 55 I still get the looks. If pretty privilege is now a thing then I'm glad, but it wasn't 20+ if you wanted a career. In fact because you wouldn't flit, date, shag the men in power, you were gone.

I think you've made the right call. To be fair, though, even very good looking men are not valued for just their looks in the way women are.

No, I get you. It's really hard to talk about because it's automatically assumed that you're being conceited. But yes, I am genuinely scared of aging.

Turning 40 was really hard emotionally. And it was especially difficult because no one could relate to what I was dealing with. I remember trying to talk to someone about it and all they took from it was that I was upset that men wouldn't fancy me anymore. It's not that at all. I feel like I'm on the precipice of losing me.

Knowing you look good is a comfort blanket. It's security.

My DD is absolutely beautiful. She has been groped, assaulted, followed, grabbed, shouted at and a lot worse which someone went to jail for. Men seem to have felt entitled to her since she was about 14.

Now she is older (mid thirties) it has lessened. She doesn't go out at night, even to the car by herself due to risk but it is reduced in the daytime.

I am plain at best and have never had any attention unless they were insults.

This made me chuckle 🤭

Fair enough, she wasn't. But I stand by that, all the attractive people here who "hate" it, live one day being plain and you'd hate it.

I'm sure they would. But I'm sure it can be a bit if a curse at times, and imo one of the really bad things about being very attractive is that middle age probably hits you very hard. I was pretty ok-looking in my twenties and thirties, in an average sort of way. I don't give a stuff that I look 52, because that's my age. And I don't hanker after the modest, normal amount of attention I got when I was younger, because I'm glad not interested in that now.

Life as a rollercoaster of feeling hugely desirable and ugly/past-it doesn't sound very appealing to me. The only time I recall feeling angst about my appearance or worrying about not being attractive enough was between about 14 and 16. Once I was over that, I realised you didn't have to be stunning to attract potential partners, and once I was happily married I didn't really think about it any more anyway!

As an unattractive 30 something year old I naively assumed that if I looked like that, had that hair, had her figure etc I would then be the perfect imagine for someone to want.

After reading through the posts it saddens me to know how awfully many women have been treated over the years by sleazy men but even more so to be hated on by other women?! Insecure of my own body and looks in comparison.. yes but never a dislike to someone because they are beautiful 🤦‍♀️

I've experienced the absolute opposite of what you have. It's really interesting.

You would definitely get men chasing you. But they wouldn't want you for the right reasons.

Genuinely, if there's one thing I could change, it would be not attracting random men with bad intentions. Or even clumsy intentions where they wholeheartedly believe they like you, but actually a gradual disappointment becomes evident.

I don't think it's conceited at all. I don't envy you. Not having any looks to lose is a bonus when you age. I think it must be harder to have had it and face the possibility of losing it.

My sister, who got all the looks, is 5 years my senior. She still looks miles better than me at my absolute best without even trying, but from her point of view, something has been lost.
Without a doubt I can understand it must be harder to age when you are a looker.

I was fairly striking when I was a late teen/early twenties. It did a number on my self worth. People regularly complimented me on my looks and I gradually started feeling that my self worth was tied into how attractive I was/how I looked. I dated some horrible people as well.

thankfully I’ve managed to unpick that particular thought and now don’t feel that way, but it took a while.

I used to turn heads when I was younger. There are definitely some advantages. You get better customer service, people are more likely to offer to carry things for you, hold doors open and go out of their way to help resolve minor issues. People smile at you.

The downsides massively outweigh the advantages though in my opinion.

From when I was around 12 or 13 men would harass me and grope me in the street. I had male Teachers, neighbours and friends Dad's make inappropriate comments about my looks as a teenager. I became very anxious in social situations.

Many men who have seemed harmless have rapidly become nasty and aggressive when I've turned them down. I've been inappropriately touched by university lecturers, a driving instructor, then work colleagues and more strangers than I can count. Public transport still fills me with dread due to so many awful experiences with men, and unwanted male attention has ruined many nights out. Men I dated would become jealous and obsessive and would harass me (and in one case my family and friends) when I ended things.Twice in my life I've had men who I genuinely believed were among my closest friends, men who I'd known for years and loved like brothers, make unwanted sexual advances towards me. On both occasions they waited until a vulnerable time (the first immediately following a breakup, the second a bereavement) to make their move which was incredibly hurtful.

At work you can never be sure if people value you for your ability, your ideas and your experience or if you're getting special treatment because of how you look. People also tend to underestimate your intelligence and women are suspicious of you.

I've had friends get annoyed with me because their horrible lecherous boyfriends or husbands have flirted with me in front of them, despite me being clearly mortified. You can never admit to even the slightest insecurity or self doubt because if you do it will be met with eye rolling and sarcasm rather than empathy. There's an assumption that because of the way you look life must be easy and perfect.

My DD is always being told by adults how beautiful she is. She is only 10 but I worry for her.

But I'm sure it can be a bit if a curse at times, and imo one of the really bad things about being very attractive is that middle age probably hits you very hard

I think aging hits most people hard though. Even if you are plain/average/ugly when younger, it's still difficult to see wrinkles, grey hair and a saggy body in the mirror. You feel like you don't look like yourself anymore.

There's a young woman at work, early twenties, and the men treat her so differently because she's attractive

Doing her favors etc that they don't do for any other's

I did modelling in the past - hair and beauty (make up that is) and while I had some good looking boyfriends, and received nice compliments (I was compared often to Vanessa Paradis and Twiggy!) I also had problems with stalkers and all I can remember now are the creepy men. Though men were often very helpful too. I didn't like people, men and women, staring at me, and would pretend I hadn't noticed.

I'm nearly 40 now so probably invisible to the younger men, but it's the last three years I've encountered some of the worst stalking of my life, which I had to report. These were older men 40-50.

It does give you a sort of inner confidence, if anyone can relate, but I don't think that's a good thing to be linked so.

So mostly not good.

@Wildflower2022 the trouble is, when you get the opposite, you still feel your worth is tied to your looks. I thought I had no value because I regularly heard how ugly I was.

The moral of the story is that we are all more than our outward coverings, and it is so sad that this is how we are still, as women, being taught that our value lies in how we look.
Our beauty is in who we are. All of us are worth more than this and it is so sad that all of us, whatever we look like, are telling the same story of value based on looks.

I want to believe it's better for our children, but this thread suggests it still the 'same old'. Teens getting ogled and judged as 'just a pretty face' and, it stands to reason, kids suffering as I did, with horrible remarks about ugliness still prevalent.
What's ugly is that we can't get away from this judgement of the superficial.

I'm almost 40 still get looks from men 20s upwards. I think if you're genuinely good looking you won't suddenly lose it in your 40s. If anything I'm better looking than I was in my 20s. I find people trust me easily as I look very pretty and sweet. I can't say I've felt much hatred from other women. I'd say I'm an 8 or 9 out of 10 on a good day.

I think it helps I look younger though

I look at photographs of myself as a teen/early twenties and feel so sad. On the outside I was really pretty. And attracted a lot of the same horrible attentions and behaviours that people have described. I was constantly harassed and then called frigid and a snob because I didn’t respond appropriately to male or female attention. But if I wanted to, I could sleep with any man I wanted.
Underneath the surface, I was so broken from an emotionally neglectful and abusive childhood. The scapegoat child. Desperate for love and affection. I was so vulnerable to the abusive man that I married. And I spent years recovering.
When I look at those photos now, I could cry for the fragile girl that I was then.

Do some of the posters on here not think that ugly women get harassed, assaulted, raped? Because of course they do. Ill-treatment by men isn't the preserve of pretty women.

I know three women who are genuinely head-turningly stunning- a colleague, a family friend, and one of my sister's best friends. All could have been models if they'd been a bit taller and so inclined. They all had an absolute nightmare dating and some truly horrific boyfriends, despite being lovely and intelligent. Why? Most men didn't have the confidence to approach them. The only ones who did were egotistical nightmares who ended up treating them like crap, cheating on them, ghosting them. They all eventually made the great matches you'd expect to wealthy, successful and thankfully decent men (one to a famous sports player, one to a wealthy Old Etonian lawyer and one to a successful businessman) but these 10/10 girls had a harder road to get there than their 7-8/10 friends who were considered more approachable.

I'd hoped it would stop nearing 40, or later, but I think you're right. I agree that it's the men who are worse, by comparison.

There have been some incidents with women (if their boyfriends/husbands have been friendly, for example) but nothing comparable to hassle from men.

@fugu I think it is worse on a daily basis for pretty women though. I have gone on nights out with good looking friends and whilst I was given a wide berth, the men home in on my friend and just assume they want to be kissed and groped.

Mind you, some real sleazeballs do think ugly girls might be 'desperate' and rape certainly isn't the preserve of beauties.

I'm the same. I am terrified of losing it, though.

As Ive got older I have stopped wishing or wanting or regretting that Im not beautiful because Ive realised that if you have something and lose it, its worse than never having it at all

So as I age and look worse and worse, at least Im not losing good looks or beauty, I can totally understand how people become obsessed with not losing their looks, imagine if you're stunning and then you see that changing and slipping away.

Thank god for fat and ugly!!!!