Am I very ugly?

[Simmoka]

I can’t recall a time when anyone ever complimented me on my looks. Not even my husband says I’m pretty or beautiful. I don’t mind if I’m average looking, but I wonder if I’m actually very ugly?
you know how when someone posts a photo of themselves on social media their girlfriends tend to compliment the photo and say they look gorgeous or stunning? That’s never happened to me, not that I post a lot and not that I’m fishing for compliments - it’s just something I’ve noticed. Even in my wedding day I don’t remember anyone complimenting me. When I was at school, a teacher joked that I looked like Dot Cotton from Eastenders. There’s nothing wrong with dot of course, but no 15 year old girl wants to be compared with an older, chain smoking soap character.
I dress nicely, am well groomed, am hygienic and my teeth are crooked but not dis coloured, they are clean. I know it shouldn’t matter, and that this all sounds very shallow, but I must be very ugly if not one person that I can think of has ever said anything positive about my appearance? My mum has never complimented me. My Dad, who is no longer with us, used to call me short arse (I’m 5’2”) but not in an unkind way. How does a person know if others find them very ugly? And why does it matter to me? But it does. I’m not putting a photo on here, but wondered if anyone else feels like this? And does it bother you? I wish it didn’t bother me, but it does .

I've had body dysmorphic disorder for a lot of my life but its not as bad now after a lot of therapy. Is that a possibility for you?

Hmm. I was the speccy, mousey, kid with braces. My mother didn't let me wear pink because it was for pretty girls. I blossomed at about 16 but my self esteem was well fucked. I am old now and becomong invisible.

Your DH must have been attracted to you. I imagine you are thankfully not a posey so and so.

Be your best self: good hairdresser, make-up lesson, have your colours done and see a personal shopper at JL.

Considering you're only 2 inches shorter than the average, it's really nothing to worry about. I wouldn't generally tells friends they look good because looks are subjective and definitely nothing to be concerned about. I would rather my friends say I'm kind, funny, bright, caring or whatever. Same with a partner, they should value their wife for something other than looks, as they will fade anyway.
I am sorry you feel this way, please only worry about what you're like as a person. And every woman is better than just something to be called good looking- a man who is only after a trophy wife and only comments on how she looks is worthless.

Why not just ask someone you trust if you’re that keen to know?

Straightening teeth is pretty easy with Invisalign nowadays and June Brown (Dot) was not unattractive in her youth. She was somewhat striking with wide eyes and high cheekbones.

I hope you wear pink all the time. Forgive me but your mother sounds like a cow and a half.

I'm ugly and it used to bother me a lot. I have accepted it now. I have been married for nearly 30 years and my husband loves me, I am not ugly to him. He loves the person that I am.

I cant tell you whether you are or are not ugly. I dont know that. I know very few people are genuinely ugly. (Minority me yay 🤣) Most are average, unremarkable, absolutely fine. Nothing anyone would do a double take over.

I can tell you that what matters is who you are, not what you look like.

I’m below average looking.

i don’t remember being complimented on my looks when I was younger but I look back at photos of me in my late teens/early twenties and I definitely was good looking.

and I always had a boyfriend and got married no problem!

Honestly OP I doubt very very much you are ugly at all.

What it does sound though is you are very much lacking in confidence. And I think the world we live in now takes norltice of confident people. They are the ones that get themselves noticed whereas more diffident people such as yourself get looked over.

And honestly if your friends are always posting photos of themselves and fishing for compliments then I woukd be wondering why they needed the validation of others all the time. Perhaps try to stay off social.media and try mixing with people whose values don't centre around physical looks.

Yep. In my first house, I had a pink kitchen. Best colour ever.

I truly think beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

My ex husband never called me beautiful. I think I was more of a wife-appliance to him.

My new partner of two years has love hearts in his eyes when he looks at me. And I believe, genuinely loves who I am.

Even ugly people get complimented by someone at some point and even attractive people get likened to unattractie characters sometimes, so I feel like you aren't being objective and are misremembering or ignoring compliments because you have it set in your mind that you aren't attractive like a body dysmorphia fixation. You might be below average but I can't believe you never ever had a compliment.

I could have written your post word for word.
i try to look at beauty the way i see it in other people. To me, beauty is different to pretty. Pretty can actually be quite ugly once you get to know someone but not conventionally pretty can be beautiful. I honestly think about beauty as a whole person and not just their looks.
But if I’m entirely honest, I’d give anything to be pretty. I think my life has been a lot harder because of the way I look. I’ve been called ugly more times than I could count. I’ve never been called pretty. I’ve been called striking and even stunning - but the stunning was a hidden dig at being noticeably ugly and it wasn’t as if I didn’t know that striking was also a concealed insult.
Both of my children are conventionally pretty. My daughter is objectively beautiful - everybody comments on it (probably because they’re surprised she’s mine). And I notice how much easier school and life is for her. I know some pretty people have a hard time too…

I dint think they say they are ugly because they are 5’2” 🙄
they are asking if they are ugly full stop.

and I suspect they are very normal looking

Are your friends and family complimenting other people's looks? Do you give compliments to people who look good?
Some people just aren't inclined to comment on the looks of others, positive or negative.

Whether a woman gets told she's gorgeous and beautiful, especially in response to SM posts, is more to do with the culture of her people than her looks.
The plainest of women can post a dressed up on the town post and get told "You're beautiful Queen" if that's how their friends talk.
Conversely, if you're part of a group that doesn't think the most important thing about a woman is her looks, they're not going to think its appropriate to comment on them.
Maybe you give off the vibe of a woman who wouldn't want this sort of comment. I work with one of the most beautiful young women I've ever seen, but the idea I'd tell her is beyond ridiculous. She'd think I'd taken leave of my senses because the important thing for her is that I respect her work.

June Brown. Not ugly! You need to reset your filters, OP.

Perfectly written.

OP you will not be ugly. I certainly believe no one is. If you do not believe you are as attractive as you could be, do something. We can change everything about our appearance if we need to. The same Charlie Theron that stuns on the red carpet played Aileen Wournos.

I didn’t say June Brown was ugly. I said a teacher compared 15 year old me to a 70 something soap character - a character. Not the actual person.

Genuinely I’ve never met an ugly person unless we talk personality. I think I use the word in it’s true meaning where as others mean not very attractive,

I also see it quite often on here posters saying never compliment your child on their looks. And I find it heinous, I have always told my daughter she’s beautiful, and I also told her how smart clever kind and so many other things, she is. And she is,

ignoring a child’s looks and focusing only on other abilities always leads to the child questioning as you do.

you won’t be ugly op. You’re just not surrounded by good people.

My mum was stunning, simply gorgeous when she was younger. Someone once said, when I was in my late teens, that I looked like mum. She didn't just disagree, she got really pissed off about it. To be fair, no I never looked like mum, more like my grandma from dads side, not a good look. So I hear you over lack of family complements. To be honest, my family would never complement anyone on anything, it was always focussed on the more negative, pee-taking talk.

I don't believe quite frankly that anyone is ugly, especially when they are young, youth is beautiful no matter what they look like. To be honest, I think most people are just plain old average here in the UK.

I looked like Dot Cotton from Eastenders

But she stood out from the rest because, no matter what, she was poised, elegant, and immaculately groomed. Are you sure this was not intended as a compliment?

I had a teacher tell me they hated me once. Some people shouldn't teach! Take no notice..

Someone posted some lovely pictures of the late and wonderfully elegant June Brown. Nothing remotely ugly there or in any variation of human appearance.

Beauty standards are completely messed up and largely about telling us all to aspire to resembling a doe-eyed teenager. If we take up too much space, we’re judged. If we are older, we’re ‘invisible’. Barely adequate men post ridiculous on line critiques of gorgeous women. Enough! OP, it sounds more likely that somehow early in your life you got nominated for a certain role in the family. Did you have a sibling who was ‘the pretty one’? Did you grow up in a family who engaged in a lot of put downs supposedly ‘affectionately’? People who get lots of compliments on appearance quite often have an aura that ‘tells’ people they expect and deserve compliments - it’s nothing to do with objective good looks and everything to do with their expectations and manner. And some people carry an aura that almost says ‘don’t notice me’ because they have learned it’s safer not to be noticed. Those might be the questions to ask yourself because, rest assured, whatever else you are, you are not ‘ugly’.

I also don't believe you are ugly. I never used to ever get compliments on my looks and I realised later on that it was because my boyfriends were either neurodivergent or just not really into that sort of stuff and assumed it wasn't important to me as i never really mentioned my looks (they also assumed that it was obvious they thought i was pretty). I basically didn't know how to speak the language of "girls" as I'd never really put much weight on appearance myself. I never really complimented other women on their looks either as it didn't occur to me. Now I know that if I want to be told I'm gorgeous I just need to send a photo to the group chat of me in a new dress and some make up and say something like "got this in the sale but I'm not sure, what do you think girls?" I'll be told I'm beautiful multiple times over. I also consciously remember to tell my friends how amazing they look now too as it doesn't come naturally to me.

I think it’s 100% this! you’ve explained it better than I could.
i think in my group of friends we’re all at least average and a few are very pretty/attractive. But we’re not gushy ‘slay queen’ type girls. We don’t focus on looks when complimenting each other as there’s more to us than that!
I think that tends to be a certain type of character