I'm not so great at getting what is in my head onto paper, but I try! So, sorry if this doesn't make as much sense as it should.
It's all in your head. Confidence that is. What's the difference between girls who wear tight clothes and bikinis? You may say weight or attractiveness.....but I'm thinking you'd be wrong-the main difference is confidence. There are tiny girls covering up and curvy ones rocking itsy bitsy bikinis, some people have enough confidence to say 'I deserve to be here' and it goes from wearing a tight dress or enrolling in a high ranking school or trying out for a sporting team-and that attitude goes a long way. Of course there are pretty girls who know it and take full advantage of it as well, perfectly made-up, hair tousled artfully posed on a beach showing off their pretty tans and perfect bodies, taking instergram photos in the car on the way to work, tagging themselves in facebook pics, happily mugging in holiday snaps and posing in family photos-confident they'll come out looking lovely with no fear of not recognizing themselves or even worse hating what they see. I'll admit I'm extremely envious of these girls, the ones who are confident enough not to care and the ones who are beautiful enough to never know how it feels to hate what you see in the mirror. Lately I've realized I may never escape this feeling of dissatisfaction I have in myself, in the way I look, I compare myself to my sisters and come up short (or so I think, I've been told we're all of equal attractiveness but I just can't believe it), it's painful, like a dark cloud following you around all the time. There's a list of things I don't generally do because I don't feel I look right, there are things I feel I'll never deserve or be entitled too or have a chance at having because I don't look right. I don't even know how I look, it scares me.
I've been trying to get a handle on it but I think thinking about it has just made it worse. I posted on a site asking how I looked (no makeup selfie, the first photos of my self in about the last 10 years) and got a mixed response (2 below average but not without hope, 7 average and 6 pretty) far from helping that just made me wonder even more-which is it? Are people lying to make me feel better? Or lying to make me feel worse (I find this unlikely-what does that say about me?)? Or do they all just see something different?
I think that never having had a relationship plays into this a fair bit-you start looking for things that are wrong and appearance is an easy and obvious one to focus on. All I can say for sure is it sucks. I'm sick of thinking about it and I'm sick of myself for needing to think about it. Why does it matter? All I know is that it does. I feel like I want to retreat when I feel like this, just hole up in my room and not speak to anyone ever again. Which is stupid and won't help.
But I guess the take away message from this has to be that this has more of an affect on someone than you might at first imagine. It affects how you see yourself in the world. A world so heavily based on how we look-I'm sure many girls would choose being beautiful over being smart or funny or any number of things because it's the highest rated commodity of all.
Maybe I'm just seeing it all wrong. Maybe I'm seeing myself all wrong. I just don't know. I do know I'm sick of it.
Vanessa
Different people find different things attractive - it sounds like a cliche but it's true. For most of us, there are some people who find us attractive and some who don't. I don't know what you look like (I can give you an opinion if you want me to, but it would still only be one person's opinion) but I bet that plenty of people would find you attractive, and for some other people you won't be their type, and that's just how it will be. Your stats from that "how do I look" website suggest that you'll do fine looks-wise.
ReplyDeleteSure, there are a few people who look a certain way that most people find attractive (and then we see those few people splashed all over the media and it seems like they're everywhere) but the other 90% of us get by with being somewhere in the middle.
I think that at least some of your doubt over this could be because you haven't been on dates and things like that so you haven't found out through experience that sometimes you'll like each other and sometimes you won't and that's OK. I was the same once - I thought that dates would be like in the movies or something. But then I went on a few and realised that it was OK that I wasn't Brad Pitt, because they weren't Elle Macpherson either, we were both just somewhere within the range of non-supermodels. Then we could decide whether we still liked the look of each other and whether we got on as people. Another tip: it's much easier if you mainly concentrate on whether You like Them. Let them figure out whether they like you - you don't have to figure it out for them, and it's their decision to make anyway. And if you're not the one for them then that's still OK because there are loads of others out there. Just need to get out there and sift through some of them!
(Last bit - turning into long comment!) - I'm not trying to trivialise your worries about your looks. As well as being normal to look somewhere-in-the-middle, it's also normal to worry about how you look. It seems like most women (and quite a few men) worry about this these days. Certain companies make a lot of money out of these worries. So I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with you for having these fears - I'm just trying to offer a different way of looking at this.
Hi Matt,
DeleteVery true :) I may just take you up on that one day! Yeah I thought the result wasn't too bad considering I was makeup free, hair pulled back and had my resting bitch face on LOL
Again true.
Yes, I think so too. It's hard to think you appeal to anyone when you've never had someone say 'I think you're cute lets go out!', and it's good advice about it being okay not to like someone-that can be hard to grasp but is totally normal and acceptable.
I actually wish I worried less about it.....it affects my enjoyment of life and my confidence in approaching people-even as friends-I want to be happier about it. I always imagine how many companies would go broke if women (and men) the world over woke up and said 'I'm happy with how I look'-a hell of a lot eh?
As always thinks for commenting :)
Vanessa