What's it like to be beautiful?

[ThisFluentBiscuit]

I was watching a film last night, and I guess I haven't watched one in a while, because I was struck anew by how good-looking all the actors and actresses were.

Which set me thinking: I wonder what it's like to be really good-looking. To wake up each day and just look good. To have gorgeous face staring back at you in the mirror. What's it like? Do you always or mostly feel good and happy? What are the pros and cons?

Speak up if you're gorgeous. Don't be shy! Enquiring minds want to know what it's like to go through life as a stunning person. Am curious.

I have a friend who is an actress / artist who is absolutely stunning, even now in her mid 50s. Everywhere we go, waiters and service people fawn all over her.

There's no denying that her beauty has enabled her to live a very charmed life. She weaponised it from a young age and has used it to gain every advantage. Outside of her painting & 'acting' and several attempts to write plays, etc, she has never seriously worked (she doesn't stick with stuff and is more of a pleasure seeker). She has a group of wealthy men (patrons) who have supported her financially, generously gifted her things like a house, jewellery, cars, etc, take her on holidays (she travels often) and basically pick up after her. She's never married as this enabled her to have more than one relationship simultaneously. I have no idea how she manages it all but this is how she lives. She has quite a lot of money put away too as a group of us friends once met with a financial consultant and it turned out that she has around £800K floating around in various bank accounts, which was totally mind boggling. She's a habitué of the Mayfair arts scene, she she regularly comes into contact with men who are wealth managers / investment bankers, million/billionaires.

I think extreme beauty is like being born into nobility/royalty - people go a bit silly when meeting them.

I’m glad I look like I do and I love to look good, but whatever you look like you still have insecure days, have had hair, bad skin, compare yourself to others etc etc. Plus I’m very shy so my looks are like a shield to help me get by in social situations. I wish I didn’t feel my looks were so important sometimes because the most confident people I know have loads more to offer, whereas my confidence rests heavily on how I look. I working on this though. On a side note women can be so ridiculously nasty when they feel you look good.

I know that objectively I am very pretty, perhaps beautiful, facially. I have bright green/blue almond shaped eyes and a very symmetrical face. I have long fair hair that I know how to style well. I'm 35 and generally like what I see in the mirror despite getting puffier around the eyes over the last few years.

However....

I have thick ankles, sagging boobs, lines on my neck, a deep c-section scar and a rolly belly. There's lots I can find to focus on, on those days when my brain is looking.

Just because they are beautiful doesn't mean they see it, are happy or have a good life. There are women who used their average looks very well and got far in life despite not being stunningly beautiful, I won't name names because it's unkind. It's actually quite repulsive how well men treat women based on their appearance.

This is a mumsnet thread that has asked a question so I answered as best as I can. Obviously, I do not go around IRL telling everybody how pretty I am. Is it a crime to be beautiful? Perhaps I see the ugliness in their characters that's why I say they are ugly. Both cheated on their husbands and both been single for over 15 years, they are just nasty to everyone they encounter (like you really) one is even estranged from her children. I could go on but no point. My point is, this is an open thread and feel feel to voice your opinion and do not criticise others who do.

I have two friends who are extremely beautiful. When I've spent time with them I just feel relief that I'm not as beautiful as them!!
Friend A, I've known since childhood. I witnessed men praying on her as a teenager. When I go and stay with her, it blows my mind, the amount of attention she gets from men. She can walk down the street on a Monday morning in baggy trousers and a hoody and she still gets so much attention. Men beeping their horns, men stopping her in the street to say "You're beautiful" etc. I remember being at a club, and she was sitting down. There were several men just kind of circling her. Not saying a word, but circling her. There was something so animalistic about it. It reminded me of lions circling their pray. I could not cope with all this attention!
Friend B, I met at work. She seemed to mesmerise men. They were completely enchanted by her. I genuinely saw grown married men in tears over her. Because she was nice to them, they thought they were in love with her. Again, this was mind blowing to me!
I am very grateful to be normal looking. Nice enough, but nothing special.

My mother still carries herself as a beautiful woman and still looks attractive for her age which is 88. She still cares about her hair and clothes. She trained as a ballerina, danced professionally and modelled. She had exceptionally good bone structure and it shines through, notwithstanding the wonderful thick hair.

I think it's because you appear insufferable

Such an interesting thread, OP. Thank you.

I was still thinking about it as I went to sleep! So came back to have another look. I realised that I had never, in more than sixty years of being ‘aware of myself’ , really understood the effect of my physical appearance . I certainly never valued it as much as my intelligence - which is probably why I have been (justly) accused of intellectual arrogance far more often than vanity! So this resonated

’But I also unconsciously got used to being treated nicely
So for example - I used to take a particular coach service. I took it usually on my own but once with a friend - she went to put her bag in the storage,.and I was like "what? The driver gets out and does that for you" and she laughed and said "no, he does that for you because you are beautiful" I had somehow completely failed to notice this before..
Similarly, whenever I took a train, several men would jump up and offer to put my bags up..’

Now I am old, my mental decline ( memory lapses, name blindness) is far more distressing than losing my looks. So I would say it was nice being beautiful, but maybe not as nice as people might think, or as I noticed.

I was regarded as beautiful. however a slight asymmetry of my face, not noticeable during the animation of real life, but captured in photographs, kept the ego mostly in check! Pre digital cameras I was approached a few times for modelling until they saw the photos 😀

I was bulliied as a teen, by school friends who I now recognise as jealous. At the time I genuinely thought it was because I was ugly, and that insecurity stayed with me through to my 30s.

Being beautiful doesn’t stop you from being bullied, having an abusive husband, or neurodiversity, or insecurity, or any of the curveballs life throws it does get you better service, and I think a presumption that you are wealthier than your bank balance, particularly if you have an older husband.

Being one of the most beautiful women in the world didn’t stop Iman being a victim of horrific fgm, but it did help give her a platform to speak out against it.

One benefit is that I feel better about ageing, and am comfortable with natural ageing, greying hair and wrinkles. I don’t feel any less beautiful growing older. There was no need for artifice when I was younger and I feel no need for it now.

There does seem to be a narrower definition of beauty for the women born since 1990 - those of us born in the 1960s and 70s benefitted from a wider perception of beauty.

It’s interesting on this thread that we are somehow being made to feel apologetic for knowing we are beautiful? It’s just luck of the draw, the same as brains, or being funny, or wealthy. Why are we not allowed to just accept that some people are blessed with beauty, recognise we are lucky, and move on?

Being beautiful makes you lucky, not a better person.

Not me but a friend, non stop attention and men hitting on her, I've walked along the street with her and saw a man approaching us walk into a lamppost he was staring at her so much. Phone numbers and messages regularly left under her windscreen wipers. She is beautiful but also very intelligent, highly educated and earns well. She has her head screwed on and finds it bizarre men ask her out when they've never even interacted or had a conversation. Years ago when backpacking I travelled for a bit with two girls I made friends with along the way. One was beautiful and as above got non stop attention and invites from men. We joked with her she was our bait and we all got a nice day out on a boat from a man trying to woo her.

Looking back there was another thing that I remember not so fondly - my best friend was a lovely person, attractive but not beautiful.

There were three guys she had crushes on at university. All three hit on me instead - two of them right in front of her. I am sure it was worse for her but it was also awful for me too. I didn't even like any of them, I didn't lead them on.

Even her now DH hit on me first but I have never told her.

My aunt was a great beauty. She was like a young Bridget Bardot in the 60s. I have to say that she attention she received really pissed her off. She would immediately start rolling her eyes when she started getting compliments. I was out with her and her sister once. Let's just say her sister was not a beauty! A man in a shop started saying to her "Do you know, you're one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen?". She'd heard this hundreds of times before. She just snapped at him "Oh so what?? What does it matter? My sister here is the kindest and most intelligent woman I know. Am I a better person than her just because of how I look?". That shut him up!

Not me, but my dd whose looks means whenever she steps out of the house men (of all ages and physiques) think that her beauty is an invitation to them.

It really is a bizarre psychological dynamic where they get puzzled and aggressive as to why she’s not interested when she clearly lured them in with her beautiful existence. This has been since she was about 14. Men have stopped in cars and told her to get in, they look even when they’re with their wives. She hates it.

What it means is that she is lonely. She has a few girl friends but lots of girls don’t want that ‘competition’ and comparison when they’re out. She can’t trust any unfamiliar men and thinks they only see her for her looks.

Thankfully she knows that namalt as the men in our family are lovely. Imagine if they weren’t, and all she’d ever known was that men are shallow entitled cunts? What price is beauty if that’s your entire world?

In essence, everyone's reactions are more extreme:

Kind and helpful people will be more kind and helpful.

Friendly people will be more friendly.

Generous men will be more generous.

Jealous women will be more jealous.

Pervy men will be more pervy.

Contrary to others on the thread, I feel I'm often underestimated in terms of capability/ intelligence.

Age 35, one day I looked in the mirror I saw plump plain and pastey faced. I had changed my life by divorcing the man who told me this about myself. I dieted and watched myself become quite pretty . I used my new looks and not so plump body and learned how men would look at me, and women would stare that second longer. With make up I could enhance my prettiness but I always knew under the make up I wasn't all that . My body prone to plumpness fought me all my life so I dieted and tried oh so hard to be slim or even skinny because I saw slim and skinny as nicer / more attractive . Being pretty attracted men but in my nativity I thought they would love me forever but just being pretty didn't give me a better life .

Now I'm old in my seventies I smile when I look back at the girl who enjoyed being pretty , I look at photos and say to myself " yes I was a pretty girl " but it didn't get me anywhere in life . Now I'm alone and old and the body plump again and the face fading but I'm OK with that . I look at the pretty girls and women today and how they can enhance the prettiness with make up clothes and hair products and I smile and hope they enjoy the attention because one day they will look back as I do and smile at who they once were .

I was considered the clever pretty one and my sister the plain naughty one in my extended family. To balance us out my parents stamped on my self confidence and painted me in a bad light to others . This really kicked in around puberty.

I was actually told my sister would trump me in every aspect of in life because she had get up and go and confidence . She was also encouraged to take my belongings and use them or destroy them , especially if they were gifts from others.

My parents had to sort out all her fuck ups throughout her life because she thought she could do whatever she wanted and fuck others.

Much later in life I was told by my parents it was because she had to stand in my shadow because people compared us . So once again it was all my fault .

It seems to me that ballerinas age beautifully. They all seem to have amazing facial bone structure, which really flatters in the aging process. It’s as if they all came out of an Audrey Hepburn mold or something. I love it.

That is awful. I can’t imagine being that stupid, thoughtless and toxic to my own child. I hope you have had a good life despite them.

Yes. I think that poster missed the point of the thread.
There are some really interesting posts on here about the different ways beautiful women get treated by men and women. It sounds as much of a burden as a blessing. I don’t think beautiful men face the same challenges but maybe they do?

Thick hair - crap when you are young but amazing when you are older as your thick hair has probably reduced by half and so looks incredible.

Whenever I see anyone older than 50 who looks great it's usually because they have thicker hair than the average man or women at that age. After that it's just a bit of grooming and clean clothes.

To me grey hair isn't aging at all compared to thin hair. I'm not remotely grey yet, but I'd estimate my hair, although in good condition as I don't have to dye it, is half the volume of my 20s

@BigBlueRhino

www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5084392-is-it-easier-to-be-the-scapegoat-or-the-golden-child

its both a curse and a blessing I find x

JK, I look like the back end of a bus.😂

There are volumising products for fine hair though and even a bit of hair spray can give the illusion of thicker hair. Keeping greys covered is a nightmare and costly.

Thank you x I believe my mother was a narcissist or had narcissistic traits . She was extremely spoilt as a child .