I would swap with her in an instant

[Cookiecrumblane]

I am a sort of clever woman, financially secure, good at what I do. I have lots of friends and family around me, despite being single.
Today I met a woman through a friend, ten years younger than me. She was upset at losing her job last month, she had tried but made a serious of errors and was eventually sacked.
Even as she cried, she looked beautiful. She told me about her various problems, not being able to pay rent, her debt, her self esteem.
And I thought how much I would love to be that pretty. She was distraught, but even with all that was going on, she was served first and efficiently in the bar. Men held doors and beamed at her. They crossed the street to walk closer to her.
I have never had that. And so what good is education, my job, my success. Because ultimately she'll end up ok. She is more likely to get a job and when she does people will praise what she does much more than they praise people who look like me.
Is that mad? That I would swap with her in an instant, even to be jobless and at risk of losing my flat, just to feel visible?
I'm sure men don't feel this way.

She said she was hairy. Not the hair on her head!

I'm talking about others on this thread

Being fancied by all and sundry is over rated and quite anxiety inducing (younger days only, certainly not now lol).

I agree with a pp who has suggested why not work on yourself physically (hair, make up, exercise, clothes etc). Think about how many celebrities etc are really quite plain (as seen by their before famous photos) but have had the make over treatment and now look attractive.

You say you’re financially stable so why not invest in improving the things you can?

@Wendycoping how did you work that one out? I have met many beautiful talented intelligent women in this world, many who have been my managers, friends, relatives, colleagues.
It is a fact that if there's two candidates, one who is beautiful and one who isn't, the beautiful one sticks in their minds. Employers overestimate the capability of beautiful people, I see it every day. I'm in medical HR. I see it.
In terms of this girl, I can only imagine that previous employers letting her off has allowed her to develop this idea that oversleeping, going home, working from home even when she has meetings which are set up as F2F, cancelling last minute is acceptable. Pretty privilege have set her up to fail. As have instagram mantras about well-being and resilience being a dirty word...

Yes there’s a certain amount of pretty privilege but that doesn’t stop you getting ill, losing your job, being dumped, unable to pay your bills, being cheated on etc.

When it comes down to it being very wealthy trumps good looks every time. There’s not an unattractive billionnaire in the world that can’t get a partner physically more attractive than them.

I agree OP that beauty ideals are a bit shit and definitely Eurocentric.

However, you keep mentioning "the most beautiful" but how many women actually look like that? supermodels in the media are freaks of nature - I dont mean that nastily, I just mean that, that kind of stunning photographic look is freakishly rare and only represents like 0000000000000000000.1% of the population. Most western women dont look like that either. The reason we see them plastered all over the media is because it's very, very, very unusual to look like that- they have been selected out of millions of others specifically because they have won the genetic looks lottery.

You dont need to be the most beautiful to find a partner who loves you and fancies you. As PP have said, you see all kinds of couples together who adore each other and neither one of them looks like a supermodel.

Of my friends who are in good relationships, none of them would be considered to be of an ideal standard of beauty but it hasn't stopped them finding someone they genuinely connect with.

You do have a choice here- you can choose to be weighed down by it all but that will only make you feel miserable and bitter or, you can decide to be the best version of yourself you can be (both physically, mentally and spiritually), enjoy your life and be open to the fact that there is someone out there who is ideal for you. Now, neither choice is guaranteed to get results but at least the second way will allow you to enjoy your life rather than spend it feeling bitter and lonely.

@Cookiecrumblane you're rather vicious in your takedown of her, for someone you've you've just met you seem to know an awful lot about her...In terms of this girl, I can only imagine that previous employers letting her off has allowed her to develop this idea that oversleeping, going home, working from home even when she has meetings which are set up as F2F, cancelling last minute is acceptable. Pretty privilege have set her up to fail. As have instagram mantras about well-being and resilience being a dirty word...
If this nasty streak shines through in your own life, maybe that's why you're doing so badly?

Oh honestly OP. Do something about it. You've got money! Go to a really excellent beautician and get some work done. Make the best of yourself. You say you've already done that but you are overweight with blotchy skin, so sort it.

Do you do an exercise that you enjoy?

So your friend is sitting in front of you crying because she lost her job, cant pay her bills and has low self esteem, and your first thought is that she looks pretty and you’d rather be her ? Come on, think about it !

She may be beautiful at the moment, but she will not always be. It is what is in your heart and how you treat people.

How do you know she won't always be beautiful? All the women I know who were beautiful in their 20s are still beautiful now in their 60s.

I was a bit annoyed by your post when I first read it and Jane Austen would definitely have described me as 'pretty' rather than beautiful/handsome, so it wasn't in the sense of being in a similar situation to your gorgeous friend.

Rather than a discussion about being upset with how you look and the horrible way you are treated because of it, it's framed against her. She hasn't stolen anything from you, she isn't cheating her way through life. She is just living her life, the good and bad.

By framing it as 'she wins, I lose in life' you are falling into the trap of women competing with each other. It isn't her fault. And while you might not be consciously blaming her, it's still in your mind.

I'm not blaming you either OP. We live in a patriarchal world and we have been taught to tear other women down rather than face the real problem in front of us - a society made for and fundamentally still governed by men.

@Wendycoping I'm not changing myself. I don't want to have straight hair, or a smaller nose or be a size six to compete with a 27 year old, 5"8 white woman with green eyes. Plenty of men I know who are similar to me, even some who are much fatter and much more tedious to talk to, have women lining up to date them. Can I not just moan about how unfair that is?
Many men like to take care of women. Many men like women who shine in a room. Not that many men care what a woman is reading or their credit score. Even academic men will race across a room to unpop a cork for a 30 year old blonde woman.

I believe that this post is genuine. I believe it because this is the way women are socialised to value ourselves, and also that we value entirely the wrong things in society. Looks are a complete accident, and they don't necessarily do us any favours. In my earlier years I was reasonably blessed genetically, but I took constant shit in my workplace, was always being put down for being a 'bimbo', and automatically assumed to be unintelligent. Beyond my own idiosynchratic style I wasn't overly preoccupied with how I looked, and at about age 19-20 I was hauled over the coals by a very fashion-plate PA and told that I must wear make-up in the workplace. (I ignored her). But I became so sick of this general attitude that I did change my hair colour (blonde to dark).

Fucked off with these soul-destroying attitudes and tedious, menial jobs I went back into education to prove once and for all to myself that I was not stupid, and that I could do better. I earned a Class 1 degree, the highest honours degree of my graduating cohort of 120 students, a Master's with distinction, and a PhD. If I'm fortunate enough not to develop a cognitive impairment later in my life, all these things won't fade with age, and what I've earned, I've done through my own efforts. It's guaranteed that as we hit middle-age our looks will fade, and if that's all we've valued in our life we may indeed feel 'invisible'. I don't. When I stand up in front of a room full of delegates, students, peers, and colleagues, people listen to me. They want to hear what I have to say and I'm respected. This means everything to me. It's what I've worked for and what I value. I don't and have never needed validation of my superficial physical appearance from complete strangers.

If this sounds smug, apologies. It isn't meant to. It's an observation that so-called 'pretty privilege' doesn't carry you very far through life, despite what people may think, and that aging is a very great leveller (and will come to us all). This woman is 10 years your junior. One day she'll be the age you are now.

You have a lot going for you so why not focus on that? Life's short - we're all going to be old soon enough.

You need to get out more. There are plenty of men who think sex appeal is in the grey fluffy stuff between your ears - that’s a direct quote from my husband, by the way.

@GelatoPistacchio she's not winning in life. I know that. But my shortcomings (attractiveness) are certainly harder to overcome in comparison to her workshy qualities. She could pull herself up by 5% and employers would call it a transformation, whilst could have a full facial transplant and still be thrown to one side by anyone who might date me.

Please take this with a pinch of salt, as I’m sitting here in my mid 50’s wearing a bobbly nightie and a beard. I’m trying to grow box dye out of my hair and look like a demented badger.
Up until my mid 30’s I would have been classed as a bit of a looker. I can remember being at a wedding with a friend, 10 years older, and her DH. He was absolutely devoted to her, every time she moved he lit up. She had a career, a happy family, and was so stylish and attractive. I had been stood up by yet another idiot.
We were in the ladies, drunk, both in tears, and she said…
Since we met I wished I could look like you for just one day. And I said I wished I could have your life every day. Now I realise she was going through the perimenopause I needed to grow up and stop going out with idiots who treated me like a trophy.
Don’t feel bad about how you feel. It’s a human feeling to wonder what life would be like if we were more beautiful, intelligent, clever, stylish, wealthy/whatever.
I now have a friend who is ten years younger who looks like Claudia Schiffer and I’m slowly turning into Whatever Happened To Baby Jane. I’m not asking for sympathy believe me it’s just getting older and it’s fine.
I was hardly Cindy Crawford to start with, but I can appreciate now what I looked like then, as I didn’t at the time.
I was the most insecure person in the room and now the lack of attention and becoming invisible has given me a weird kind of freedom.
Love yourself, and your mate.
Understand you are just human, as women we are programmed to compete for attention that’s worth nothing. It adds nothing to our lives, and often harms.
If being the most beautiful woman is a prize, look at Elizabeth Taylor’s response to it - yes, it brought her fame, but she was often passed over for roles, it often meant men used her as a trophy, and eventually age and ill health took their toll. I think she actually looked at her best in an image with her head shaved, showing scars - she glows with something different there.
Appreciate the glow in you that others love.

The thing I notice most is when I look back on old photos and realise that I looked great. I never thought that at the time, I always thought my friends were much more attractive. I wish I looked like it now, but looks don't stay the same and a life of stress worrying about money is rubbish. She might wish she could trade with you. In my opinion though, it's personality that can make a person shine or not.

Very few people are beautiful. Even fewer, if any so beautiful that everyone who looks at them will agree. No one is so beautiful they are 'ok' on looks alone.
Almost every woman disregarding a few outliers has the ability to range from plain to attractive depending on the amount of money, time and skill she is prepared to throw at it.
So if as an intelligent woman with everything going for you, you're still convinced your appearance is the missing piece of your life, then you need to stop wallowing and resenting other women and put your back into elevating your own looks.
Diet and excercise your way to a figure you'll be happy with. See a good hairdresser. Get work on your skin. See a stylist. Obviously you'd be better off trying to change your attitude, because all that is really papering over the issue, but if you can't, then go for it and see if the link with happiness is as strong as you think.

Read Tess of the D’urbevilles, sometimes beauty is a curse if you’re not born in the right place at the right time and given your friend’s misfortune, it sounds like she wasn’t gifted luck along with beauty.

Yes, because that's the message she'd be giving everyone. 'Focus on my fatness and plainness please, and sympathise with me over how shit I feel about myself. Let me wallow in bitterness and lack of self esteem over it. Let it be the main part of my identity because I am nothing without slimness and beauty.'

If she let it dominate her every mood and every conversation, allowing self depracating comments to tip over into relentless negativity that was fucking depressing to be around, then that is all people would see.

It works in reverse too. If someone is beautiful but a total bitch to everyone, then they will soon cease to see her as beautiful. An ugly soul with shine through.

I do understand the point you are making though. I once went to a black tie event with a very slim, very beautiful woman I knew quite well. A very overweight woman walked in, in her sequinned, sleeveless evening dress and my acquaintance said something like 'Wow! Look at her! Doesn't she look fabulous! I really admire her. She just doesn't care, dressing up and really going for it. Good on her.'

I found it offensive and incredibly patronising. For a start, how the fuck do you even know that she doesn't care? How do you know what it took for her to do that? How do you know that she doesn't have a raging anxiety attack every time she needs to attend something where it's expected that you'll dress up and it's hard to be around woman all looking slim and amazing when you might feel shit about yourself? How do you know she wasn't in a ball on the floor an hour before leaving the house tonightm saying to her husband 'I can't go. People will pity me, or patronise me, or secretly think I look ridiculous and say 'what was she thinking, wearing that?' But what was she supposed to wear? Sackcloth and ashes?

This woman who has never been over a size 8 in her entire life thought she as being supportive but all she did was show me that she felt such fear and revulsion and alienation at the thought of being a plus size that she thought any very large woman who could walk into a fancy event, in a fancy gown with her head held high deserved some sort of bravery medal? Well fuck you.

I'm plain and fat. I have two beautiful sisters and brothers who are handsome too. I basically look adopted.

They are always treated better by everyone. Men and women alike.

Pretty privilege is very very real. There's no point pretending it isn't.

I'm happy with who I am and I don't have low self esteem. However I've spent a lifetime of being treated as less than despite being the highest earning, most educated sibling . I've had people outrightly laugh at the idea that we are related.

Even within the family I am ignored, I've had one proper family birthday celebration in my life. My siblings left to party together in a trendy club without saying anything. They don't want a little brown haired lump spoiling their glam. A family member told me recently how they all made fun of my academic success behind my back and referred to me as the boring swot.

Looks are still super important in society. Look at Instagram. So many girls and women falling over themselves to be attractive as that construes status.

The OP is right that this phenomenon exists but ironically I'm glad I didn't inherit the 'good dna' as an in law once termed it when comparing me to the rest of my family. It's made me a much more grounded person who had to focus on traits that are far less transient than looks.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger after all.

Can I not just moan about how unfair that is?

Ok, life is super unfair to you, your life will always be shit because you dont look like your gorgeous friend and you'll likely die miserable and alone.

Feel better?

I'm not really sure what you want out of this thread tbh. People have suggested ways to improve your own self esteem/adopt a different perspective and you've ignored it, then you've said its due to your appearance so people have suggested ways to improve that and you've said you dont want to change.

Fair enough, but then, what do you want OP? Telling you that you're doomed is hardly likely to make you feel better either 🤔

So a man then.

I can see your point OP and agree with some of what you say. I agree with another poster in that age is a great leveller and when looks fade it’s a much more even playing field.

I think most people given a choice would chose to be more attractive as opposed to being unattractive all things equal but I don’t think being particularly attractive comes without negatives, many of which have been described on this thread.