5 ms·

I look a little white, I look a little Middle Eastern. When I was young, I absolutely hated how I looked. I was bullied. Taunted. Tormented. I wanted a nose job

I look a little white, I look a little Middle Eastern. When I was young, I absolutely hated how I looked. I was bullied. Taunted. Tormented. I wanted a nose job. I wanted different hair. I wanted a different build. But as I got into my late 20s, I started to get a lot more attention, and I realized that a lot of people found me attractive. For reference, I look a lot more like Yehuda Amar (an Israeli chef) than Michael Aloni (Akiva on Schtisel). It's true that being conventionally attractive made my life 1000x easier - it's almost like the trees lowered their branches to make the fruit easier to pick. I'm pretty sure it made it easier to get a mortgage and a job and definitely a partner. But I still think about what my life would be like if I had a different nose, different hair, different build. Even in my late 40s, I still get a lot of attention from much younger women. A few weeks ago, a woman, maybe 25, openly flirted with me while she made my cappuccino. This has happened many times before, but I never make a move. All I could think was how repulsed she would feel if she ever saw me naked. Or how fast she would disappear if she saw my crooked upper teeth. Or all my gray chest hair. Or my hairy back. Even if I played ball and gave her my number, even if she thinks I'm handsome, older-and-wiser, I just could never get past how I feel about myself, and see myself, relative to her.

DontchaKnowit 3y ago
[flagged]
- yowlingcat 3y ago
  Are you sure you're saying GP should "work on that" out of a genuine desire for them to improve, rather than a way to puritanically assert a perceived lack of virtue that you think they should mediate? Because if not, maybe there's something /you/ "really really should work on."
  - nequo 3y ago
    It did read like the former to me. Maybe we all should just work on “that,” whatever it is that upsets us.
  - croisillon 3y ago
    i thought it meant "you should work on your naivete if you believe the barista sincerely flirted with you"
    - DontchaKnowit 3y ago
      Definitely not. I meant he should work on his unfounded insecurity. Its a terrible waste and will eat you alive. I know cause im workin on it too.
  - tome 3y ago
    What a thread. None of this sniping about people's personal situations belongs in an HN discussion.
    - lacrimacida 3y ago
      We all struggle more or less with imaginary problems which talked about could go away. I see this a lot on HN and it’s what makes this space more human.
    - yowlingcat 3y ago
      Did you read the article? This is an HN discussion of feminine standards of beauty. The whole discussion is going to run straight into the rocks of people's personal situations and I have no idea how one could expect otherwise.
  - petesergeant 3y ago
    I think by "that" he means the author's: "All I could think was how repulsed she would feel if she ever saw [real me] ... I just could never get past how I feel about myself, and see myself, relative to her" That's not healthy, it's almost uncertainly untrue (we all have bodies!), and it's something therapy could help with.
  - CoastalCoder 3y ago
    I'm confused. What about that is Puritanical?
  - DontchaKnowit 3y ago
    Nah its cause I recognized the same hangups in myself and want them to work on it like im trying to
buran77 3y ago
Maybe it won't come as consolation but a lot of very beautiful people suffer from the same. Like how people who are already skinny can very well be hit by anorexia. Used to being beautiful all their lives, one day there's a chink in the armor: a wrinkle, a white hair, a stretchmark, that same feeling you have starts to sink in. The emotional impact might be worse than for people who had a lifetime to be at peace with how they look like. This seems to be the author of the article [0]. Your first reaction is probably that the real picture doesn't match at all the picture you built in your mind while reading the article. I hope that helps you realize you are not alone in feeling that everyone else must be thinking of you what you think of yourself. They're probably not. [0] https://muckrack.com/grazie-sophia-christie https://muckrack.com/grazie-sophia-christie
aziaziazi 3y ago
Definitely recommend any “nude” cultural stuff you may find. It empowers you with self acceptance and body(ies) awareness. Germans calls it FKK [0] and it’s a think our civilization would highly benefit to incorporate. Also if anyone visit Belgium/ Netherlands, highly recommend an afternoon in a nude sauna garden. (For those wondering, no sex involved neither allowed). Naturist beaches in other places are great too but a bit harder to get when you’re a “beginner” : they tends to be public space that are also frequented by clothed-people and you may find yourself weird to undress among them, the first times at least. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikörperkultur https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikörperkultur
lacrimacida 3y ago
From my experience I found most ‘perfect’ looking people when getting to know them better a bit boring, bland. Perhaps it’s this lack of struggle or soul searching that made then slow down their growth in other dimensions. Many of these folks suffer most when getting older and their looks fade.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  I prefer the company of "ordinary" people. I have always avoided beautiful women, even if they fancied me; I wouldn't want to become jealous. Also, I've found some (not all) of the beautiful women I've known to be be rather shallow, as if "beauty is enough". To be clear, the women I've loved weren't really ordinary; they were intelligent, eloquent, kind, and beautiful in their own way.
- nkjnlknlk 3y ago
  Is it that good looking people are boring or most people are boring and you do not have enough of a sample size?
  - solarmist 3y ago
    Being good looking takes a lot of work and time. Time that cannot be spent doing other things. Grooming, keeping up on trends, working out, shopping, etc. It's takes hours weekly at a minimum. So it's easy to let it take over your personality if it becomes a defining characteristic. Especially for women because often that is the societal expectation. If you're pretty that's enough.
brightball 3y ago
We have a similar path from how we were growing up vs getting better as we got older. One benefit I saw from being an overweight, out of shape, nerdy kid growing up is that I learned not to worry about what other people think or say. "Let it pass like water off a duck's back." became a little bit of a mantra until I truly wasn't worried about it, even as I age. Accepting that, if people wanted to be with me they would. If they didn't, I didn't want to waste my time with them. Trying to get somebody who didn't like me to like me, ceased being anything I was concerned about. Prior to hitting this point, I'd had multi-year crushes in high school on a couple of girls who were nice and friendly but just weren't interested in me. After having this realization, it made it a lot easier to date because you can ask people out without fear of rejection. If somebody said no, great! That saved a lot of time. Don't take it personally. The other thing that young men definitely have to learn is the gossip pipeline. Don't participate in it, but realize it is out there. Word got around in college that I "wasn't looking for a serious relationship" and it made it a lot easier for me to date. Turned out that a lot of young women worry about overly clingy men if they go out one time and then decide not to pursue it further. There's a lot of pressure on women there. People even tried to set me up on blind dates. Eventually, I met my wife of 20 years so far. The act of simply going on a lot of first dates is fairly validating in and of itself. Learning all of this stuff added to my own confidence too. But the absolute first step is simply self acceptance. Control what you can control, don't worry about what you can't. And to be clear, control what you can control means that you can control improving yourself (diet, exercise, grooming, mindset, humility, faith, education, courtesy, reliability, family relationships, etc). A lot of self acceptance advice suggests that you shouldn't be trying to get better. I'm not suggesting that at all. We can all improve and we can all be better for the people we care about. That's a big piece of showing we care.

DontchaKnowit 3y ago

[flagged]

yowlingcat 3y ago
Are you sure you're saying GP should "work on that" out of a genuine desire for them to improve, rather than a way to puritanically assert a perceived lack of virtue that you think they should mediate? Because if not, maybe there's something /you/ "really really should work on."
- nequo 3y ago
  It did read like the former to me. Maybe we all should just work on “that,” whatever it is that upsets us.
- croisillon 3y ago
  i thought it meant "you should work on your naivete if you believe the barista sincerely flirted with you"
  - DontchaKnowit 3y ago
    Definitely not. I meant he should work on his unfounded insecurity. Its a terrible waste and will eat you alive. I know cause im workin on it too.
- tome 3y ago
  What a thread. None of this sniping about people's personal situations belongs in an HN discussion.
  - lacrimacida 3y ago
    We all struggle more or less with imaginary problems which talked about could go away. I see this a lot on HN and it’s what makes this space more human.
  - yowlingcat 3y ago
    Did you read the article? This is an HN discussion of feminine standards of beauty. The whole discussion is going to run straight into the rocks of people's personal situations and I have no idea how one could expect otherwise.
- petesergeant 3y ago
  I think by "that" he means the author's: "All I could think was how repulsed she would feel if she ever saw [real me] ... I just could never get past how I feel about myself, and see myself, relative to her" That's not healthy, it's almost uncertainly untrue (we all have bodies!), and it's something therapy could help with.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  I'm confused. What about that is Puritanical?
- DontchaKnowit 3y ago
  Nah its cause I recognized the same hangups in myself and want them to work on it like im trying to

buran77 3y ago

Maybe it won't come as consolation but a lot of very beautiful people suffer from the same. Like how people who are already skinny can very well be hit by anorexia. Used to being beautiful all their lives, one day there's a chink in the armor: a wrinkle, a white hair, a stretchmark, that same feeling you have starts to sink in. The emotional impact might be worse than for people who had a lifetime to be at peace with how they look like. This seems to be the author of the article [0]. Your first reaction is probably that the real picture doesn't match at all the picture you built in your mind while reading the article. I hope that helps you realize you are not alone in feeling that everyone else must be thinking of you what you think of yourself. They're probably not. [0] https://muckrack.com/grazie-sophia-christie https://muckrack.com/grazie-sophia-christie

aziaziazi 3y ago

Definitely recommend any “nude” cultural stuff you may find. It empowers you with self acceptance and body(ies) awareness. Germans calls it FKK [0] and it’s a think our civilization would highly benefit to incorporate. Also if anyone visit Belgium/ Netherlands, highly recommend an afternoon in a nude sauna garden. (For those wondering, no sex involved neither allowed). Naturist beaches in other places are great too but a bit harder to get when you’re a “beginner” : they tends to be public space that are also frequented by clothed-people and you may find yourself weird to undress among them, the first times at least. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikörperkultur https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikörperkultur

lacrimacida 3y ago

From my experience I found most ‘perfect’ looking people when getting to know them better a bit boring, bland. Perhaps it’s this lack of struggle or soul searching that made then slow down their growth in other dimensions. Many of these folks suffer most when getting older and their looks fade.

denton-scratch 3y ago
I prefer the company of "ordinary" people. I have always avoided beautiful women, even if they fancied me; I wouldn't want to become jealous. Also, I've found some (not all) of the beautiful women I've known to be be rather shallow, as if "beauty is enough". To be clear, the women I've loved weren't really ordinary; they were intelligent, eloquent, kind, and beautiful in their own way.
nkjnlknlk 3y ago
Is it that good looking people are boring or most people are boring and you do not have enough of a sample size?
- solarmist 3y ago
  Being good looking takes a lot of work and time. Time that cannot be spent doing other things. Grooming, keeping up on trends, working out, shopping, etc. It's takes hours weekly at a minimum. So it's easy to let it take over your personality if it becomes a defining characteristic. Especially for women because often that is the societal expectation. If you're pretty that's enough.

brightball 3y ago

We have a similar path from how we were growing up vs getting better as we got older. One benefit I saw from being an overweight, out of shape, nerdy kid growing up is that I learned not to worry about what other people think or say. "Let it pass like water off a duck's back." became a little bit of a mantra until I truly wasn't worried about it, even as I age. Accepting that, if people wanted to be with me they would. If they didn't, I didn't want to waste my time with them. Trying to get somebody who didn't like me to like me, ceased being anything I was concerned about. Prior to hitting this point, I'd had multi-year crushes in high school on a couple of girls who were nice and friendly but just weren't interested in me. After having this realization, it made it a lot easier to date because you can ask people out without fear of rejection. If somebody said no, great! That saved a lot of time. Don't take it personally. The other thing that young men definitely have to learn is the gossip pipeline. Don't participate in it, but realize it is out there. Word got around in college that I "wasn't looking for a serious relationship" and it made it a lot easier for me to date. Turned out that a lot of young women worry about overly clingy men if they go out one time and then decide not to pursue it further. There's a lot of pressure on women there. People even tried to set me up on blind dates. Eventually, I met my wife of 20 years so far. The act of simply going on a lot of first dates is fairly validating in and of itself. Learning all of this stuff added to my own confidence too. But the absolute first step is simply self acceptance. Control what you can control, don't worry about what you can't. And to be clear, control what you can control means that you can control improving yourself (diet, exercise, grooming, mindset, humility, faith, education, courtesy, reliability, family relationships, etc). A lot of self acceptance advice suggests that you shouldn't be trying to get better. I'm not suggesting that at all. We can all improve and we can all be better for the people we care about. That's a big piece of showing we care.