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.

I’m a bit confused with your post. In the one breath you say that the woman you knew wasn’t beautiful in your world (thoughts) yet she was adored by her ‘beauty’ by others? and that ‘beauty’ saw her through

I didn’t/don’t think she is beautiful tbh. However she fits the stereotypical beauty that many men/women find attractive - long blonde hair, blue eyes, slim, athletic. I’ve known her for a long time and in school she was popular and the male teachers cut her a lot of slack. I always thought it was because she was sporty/team captain 🤣 I have just remembered something from school.
I have a memory of her sitting on one of our classmate’s laps before a class started.

I could see why the second woman was beautiful. She had brown hair, sallow skin and huge eyes. I remember she told me she was offered a job as a manager by a big company who had seen her when she went to the company to meet a friend. They wanted her to be the face of their company. She thought it was funny and declined their offer. She models part time these days.

I suppose we don’t see beauty in the familiar.

Have you thought about her trying to coast through life on her looks? She isn't bright, competent, or have other attributes to carry her through life.

I hope you are saving a large part of your wealth. If you are, you will have it when your looks fail.

The woman you admire so much will not have her looks forever either, especially if she cannot afford nourishing food. If she fails to get a good job, then she will have no money and no looks and men will gaze upon younger women.

Why is it so important to you to have men appear to bow and scrape, when you know full well why they do it?

Jeez. Poor woman. For all you know she's completely oblivious to her own looks. She can't help it if she lacks ability elsewhere.

Why are a subset plain women always so catty with this "coasts on her looks" nonsense? There's nothing in the OP that suggests that at all.

I bet some men feel that way OP as there's so much pressure to have the right image these days. Here's my two penn'orth. DH's brother is taller, more handsome, always seems to fall on his feet, my sister is similar, prettier, has better hair. Here's the rub. When things just fall into your lap they are taken for granted and it's expected that things will always be that easy.

Looks fade, personality only gets better. Because those of us who have had to work for the things we get we appreciate them more. Beautiful types sometimes have no personality and can lack the grittiness to cope when things go wrong. Then they really fall apart.

So don't envy others OP. I always thought my beautiful sister had it all, but she really hasn't. She hasn't really developed as a person since she was a shallow teenager and can be narrow minded and cruel. Comparison is the thief of joy so just be yourself, I'm sure your'e lovely.

There's also a strong undercurrent of anti tall slim and blonde bias at play I think. Women very rarely acknowledge beauty in this look, very frequently citing the opposite as their ownI ideal. It comes up so often that women don't admire these looks that I think there's an element of push back involved. I mean if this woman was 'truly beautiful' with the looks you describe, it's hard to see how you 'couldn't see it' unless you didn't want to. The look gets rammed down women's throats as the ideal so it's a rebellion to not like it. But a bit harsh on tall slim blonde women that their looks can be underrated with impunity by other women.

Everything you seem to value from your posts (like attractiveness, financial security, career success) is just stuff on the surface, though that may be a difficult concept for you to accept. Once you can connect to and embrace the deeper ‘you’ that lies underneath all the superficiality you will feel better about yourself, less concerned with other people’s attention and approval, and more compassionate towards others. It may sound a bit hippy-dippy, but once you are able to get in touch with your true nature you will feel much happier.

There's also a strong undercurrent of anti tall slim and blonde bias at play I think. Women very rarely acknowledge beauty in this look, very frequently citing the opposite as their ownI ideal. It comes up so often that women don't admire these looks that I think there's an element of push back involved. I mean if this woman was 'truly beautiful' with the looks you describe, it's hard to see how you 'couldn't see it' unless you didn't want to. The look gets rammed down women's throats as the ideal so it's a rebellion to not like it. But a bit harsh on tall slim blonde women that their looks can be underrated with impunity by other women.

TBF "beauty" is largely facial. There are a lot of slim blonde women with plain faces, but they're attractive because the face isn't the be all and end all of attraction.

I can remember hearing a big discussion in a group of women twenty years older than me, when I was on my gap year. They were taking issue with a description of Princess Diana as "beautiful". They weren't being snide or catty, they were analysing her look and clearly fans. Their general theme was that it was a male journalist who had missed the point.

*Oh they do.

To a degree.

They don't confer life satisfaction, it has no correlation to the quality of a persons life, except in the rarest of situations where you could argue luck also intervened.

It's an advantage only in some contexts and can be undermined and mitigated by any number of life variables.

Money is a far stronger advantage and predictor for success than looks alone are*

Totally agree with this. Of course looks help to a degree- it would be madness to say otherwise. But thinking they are a guarantee of self esteem and happiness is simply not true. Of my friends, the most beautiful ones have struggled to find a decent partner, and are very insecure about their looks. Yes, they may get random men's attentions but what use is that if it's all leery and never solidifies into a lasting, caring relationship? By this rationale, supermodels should be the happiest people on earth and actually studies have shown that catwalk models have lower life satisfaction and greater personality maladjustment than control groups. Having worked in psych, I've also worked with people who self harm and have attempted suicide and plenty of them were objectively attractive.

So, yes, looks certainly help in life but dont make the mistake of assuming that if you resembled a supermodel your life would be perfect and amazing because I can tell you that is absolutely a lie.

Wtf? Unless I need new eyes, none of those women are remotely ugly!

I disagree. Some women with these features are beautiful, not necessarily all of them are just because they fit a certain mould.

I also don’t find blonde men particularly attractive or men who do body building. We all have different tastes thankfully.

Of course they aren't. What these women often have is that unusual, slightly other worldly, quirky beauty about them, like Anya Taylor Joy. Or they are just not exceptionally pretty or exceptionally beautiful, which is what we are accustomed to seeing as 'normal' on TV, especially in America. They are merely 'normal looking' which in Hollywood terms is practically considered 'ugly.'

If they were actually ugly, or even just less attractive than average, they certainly wouldn't be getting lead roles in big TV shows.

That is so well expressed! And true, I fear.

Beautiful types sometimes have no personality and can lack the grittiness to cope when things go wrong. Then they really fall apart.

I hear this a lot, but I've known a lot of people who lack resilience and they really haven't all been stunners.

Because it's permissible to be intelligent and plain, or very attractive and stupid. Even this thread is evidence of the fact that society can't seem to compute a woman who is both at the same time. It's a possibility some posters upthread haven't even considered.

I'm nearly 6 ft tall and was, until recently, quite athletic (until a serious riding accident put paid to that). I'm not a classic 'beauty', whatever that means, but I was fortunate in my genetics. I had a horrible time in the jobs I took on after school, with people calling me a bimbo and assuming I was completely gormless. I am, in fact, extremely good at English and unlike some of the other secretaries could spell and construct a grammatically-accurate sentence. At school, before I blossomed, I had a reputation for being the clever one because I was bookish. I was bullied for being the 'geek' and, because I was a late-developer, for having a flat chest. I also took shit because of my height: to the extent that I never wore anything but flat shoes. The sexism was off the scale.

And when I did fill out and develop? At fifteen I was raped twice, once being a gang rape, the other non-consensual sex (ie also rape, but I didn't realise it at the time) with the boy I thought I loved. I've fallen for plenty of would-be partners who haven't wanted me in return. I've been in relationships with men who treated me extremely badly. I studied from BA to PhD because I was bored witless with the tedious office jobs I'd taken on (to earn a salary as quickly as possible, leave home and escape my abusive father). I then discovered sexism in universities is absolutely rife. I've been the target of sexual harrassment by an older male colleague who continued stalking me after they fired him. I had to involve the police.

Riding on the back of looks? Not a bit of it. Did looks give me an easier ride in life? Did they hell. Did I earn my position and academic status on merit? Every bit of it. And now I'm likely on the cusp of that oft-lamented age of invisibility which apparently affects women but not men.

I can't wait. Bring it the fuck on.

It's funny you should say that, because an ex family member of mine once actively discriminated against a very competent, and also very beautiful, woman whom she interviewed for a job, on the grounds that she would create too much of a distraction for the men in the office! This was about twenty years ago. I was astonished at that revelation, but she (ex family member) was quite matter-of-fact about it.

Yes, it's a bit of a cliche. I'm not sure being beautiful makes you any more likely to be born with a shit personality or a weak character or a lack of intelligence any more than an average looking person. Although I suppose if you are told you are beautiful your entire life by everyone, not just your parents, then it will become a huge part of your identity and perhaps shape your character in ways that might not be positive.

You could lack confidence in your ability to do anything other than merely stand there looking lovely. You could question whether you ever got that job on merit or just because you looked nice. Your peers in school and the workplace might make accusations that you get preferential treatment from a teacher or better pay rises or whatever, because of your looks and whether that's true or not, it's hard to defend yourself against. And even if it is true, it's not your fault.

You might find yourself shunned or distrusted by envious women. You might find that the men you like daren't approach, assuming you are out of their league. If you ever dare speak to someone that is in a relationship, even in the most casual or platonic of ways, you will be watched like a hawk but their partner.

You might find you are treated like an object or a trophy and that all anyone wants to talk to you about is your looks, not about who you are or what you think about anything. It might make you arrogant and entitled. It might make you simper and bat your eyelashes to get people to do things for you, because you've learned from an early age that it works. It might make you shallow and insecure because you obsess over staying beautiful and fear ageing. If it's such a huge part of your identity that must be scary, especially if you've earned a living on the back of your looks and your looks alone.

Why did you direct that rant at me @SerafinasGoose?

I was taking exception to the idea that the woman was "coasting on her look".

When the Barbie film came out, there was an epidemic of men online declaring Margot Robbie to be "mid", and an awful lot of posters on here declaring that they couldn't understand why she was considered to be so very beautiful.

I can accept that she might not be everyone's preferred type, but anyone claiming that they literally can't understand why she's considered a conventional beauty is frankly lying.

Because I was agreeing with you, and saying why.

Oh I thought you weee telling me off.

Apologies that this didn't come across as clearly as I meant it to in my post.

No it's my fault @SerafinasGoose - I'm off work with a bit of a fever and clearly need to slow down & read more carefully.

Walkingaroundjardine your comment about your daughter struck a cord with me. I met an old school friend the other week (not seen in nearly ten years) and when I mentioned my daughter (who is a highly skilled professional after studying for years to progress in her career) all this friend could comment on was how beautiful she was! Yes she is attractive, but that is the least important thing about her and she has struggled with many issues despite her looks. I live by Judge Judy's maxim, as I watch wrinkles increasing on my own face "Beauty fades, dumb is for ever!" Men may be attracted to beautiful women, but it's a shallow and self serving attraction. My Mum used to tell me to be proud of all I have achieved, as what I look like will get less and less important as I and all my contemporaries age. This was one of the best bits of advice she ever gave me!

You cannot be serious! Give your head a wobble