To want to become glamorous and internationally successful in my mid40s

[Fragmentedbrain]

When I was at uni I did a year abroad and made loads of friends from Singapore, Australia, HK. They were amazing women and it was a great time. I had a lot of optimism for the future (ah the noughties)

We've since lost touch really. Now I'm a grey and sensible and medium successful professional in the UK. Firmly domestic horizons. I was catching up with them at the weekend and they are glossy glamazons in international arbitration, banking, all that stuff.

I realised that young me would be gutted by the dullness of adult me (don't get me wrong I feel grateful to be this level of dull it could be a lot worse but).

Anyway the fact is they're all beautiful and I'm not and I don't really see any internationally successful women who aren't beautiful. Men can look like they were grown by accident in a discarded petri dish and it does their prospects no harm while we are only as interesting as our looks to a lot of people (male and female tbh). It's long been a source of annoyance.But young beauty is God given while middle aged beauty can be bought.

So aibu to try to think it's feasible to quit this small grey realm and become someone who arbitrates internationally (whatever that is) at my age? (I do have the basic skillset and qualifications to do things a bit differently it's the face, genuinely, that has held me back all these years).

Or you could just stop with the pretentiousness.

I'm really not sure what you're asking...but if anyone is capable of arbitrating internationally it's definitely someone who comes up with the phrase :
Men can look like they were grown by accident in a discarded petri dish and it does their prospects no harm 😂
I'm howling.

Good Luck on your Arbitration Goddess journey OP.

All sounds very shallow and vacuous.

You think international arbitrators and bankers are uniformly beautiful? 😅

You can be whoever you like dollface 😍

I have a lot of successful women friends (not entirely clear what you mean by ‘internationally successful’ — do you mean they work outside the UK, or do you mean they travel a lot for work?) from various countries, and they vary widely in terms of conventional attractiveness and self-presentation.

One of the most notable is probably a size 22, has a bleached undercut and wears a ‘uniform’ of black top and trousers. Another, in finance, runs ultramarathons, doesn’t colour her long greying hair or wear makeup. Both are at the top of their fields, and are in fact gorgeous, but certainly not ‘glossy Amazons’. Any more than their male colleagues at an equivalent air of seniority whom I’ve met are.

The kind of people who choose to study abroad tend to also be the kind who are willing to move countries regularly for work and be somewhat more rootless. They are also often the people willing to delay or not bother having kids, or who are happy to use nannies etc to facilitate working long hours, and move their family around to follow their job. Its no coincidence that international students go to on to seek globally mobile opportunities.

Its not the only way to be successful. I have never been willing to emigrate or move my family around and I have an excellent job in London.

I think you should go ahead, buy that beauty and quit this gray realm for a dazzling international career.

OP, I think it is probably a lot of hard work to maintain that level of glamour. too much pressure. I also think that international travel is over-rated and exhausting, esp at this age.

Is there any way you can make your life a little bit more exciting and glamorous here?

I am in my early 50s. But still feel pretty glam and live in London so we have plenty of evenings out etc.

I work in the NHS and don’t do any ‘international arbitration’ so my work life is far from glam😂. I still feel youngish and exciting inside, however delusional that is!

I can't go past "glamazone"

But maybe in OP's world, things ARE shallow and vacuous.....

I did it!

It's not unreasonable to want something. The question is what can you do about it. If you both want and CAN then why not, who is anyone to judge?

Not quite the same in ambition but H and I have full plans to grow old disgracefully, not illegally, but expect the unexpected

I charity shopped my heirloom knitting/crochet collection a couple of weeks back because I don’t want to knit, or crochet, if I could knit like my mum instantly then fine but it would take the rest of my human life to be able to knit what I want (and a village friend has offered to knit me anything I like if I provide the wool)

So knitting is out

So go for it @Fragmentedbrain
Get yourself glammed up and see where it takes you (it’s not the beauty as you see it but the confidence and perhaps you need the glam t gain the confidence)

Men can look like they were grown by accident in a discarded petri dish and it does their prospects no harm while we are only as interesting as our looks to a lot of people (male and female tbh). It's long been a source of annoyance.But young beauty is God given while middle aged beauty can be bought.

So misogynistic and wrong I dont even know where to start.

it's the face, genuinely, that has held me back all these years

Wah-wahhhh! It's the perception of the face, not the face itself.

Sort of
good looking, toned, taller, head of hair, nice teeth men do get opportunities in work
but there are more men who are rich and successful who can let themselves go, because historically they inherited the family businesses

I'm mid 40s too and I just want to retire tbh.

There are v successful women of all types out there, some glamazoning and others not. But they probably all have confidence and it’s hardly news that middle aged women in particular lose their confidence a bit and I’d hazard a case it’s that, and not your face, that’s held you back. Absolutely nothing wrong with a middle aged glow up! But you are not going to accidentally become an international arbitrator…

And interesting isn’t it that the first responses were accusations of pretension and vacuousness. I’d rather be working on myself somehow than trying to kick other women down to make myself feel better

Yes, you can become "glamorous" by throwing money and time at it. If you really wanted that, you'd already be doing it though? If I had enough spare cash I'd definitely spend a lot on my appearance, but in reality I'd rather have holidays and family experiences than weekly spray tans etc.
Internationally successful, not so easy. Business travel is very overrated imo and not at all glam once you've been doing it a while. If that's what you mean by Internationally successful.
Maybe your friends made a massive effort to look good and cherry pick the highlights of their lives for your meet up? Maybe you have a more meaningful life? Maybe they envy your rootedness?

Isn't it possible to be a female 'international arbitrator' with grey hair?

You are still really young, in your prime in fact. Go for it! 😊

Erm, I hate to break it to you….

😆

It’s not your face. It just sounds like they had ambition and you didn’t.

If you want to try and do it now, go for it. But it’s we energy and enthusiam and drive you need. Not a makeover.