Are people aware they’re attractive?

Yes, because the world continues to tell them. This is true of ugly people to. The only people not constantly told how they look are people who are average in looks. Both the beautiful and the ugly are constantly reminded by everyone.

I am really hung up on my poor looks, I've always felt ugly. Yet I saw some photos of my from about 15 years ago and I can't believe what a fuss I made. I was hardly a 10 out of 10, but I was by no means ugly. Now I'm in my late 40s I'm still being hit on on apps all the time, often by younger guys, so I'm clearly appealing to some people, even if they do all want to call me Daddy.

Yes.

...::.

fuck yeah

I hope so.

Some don't . Candace Bergen has written a great deal about how the world thought she was strikingly beautiful but she never felt that way when she was young;

Sure Candy

They are. Even if they don't feel it, the way other people treat them makes it clear.

But when it ends it is apparently devastating. (I just remember a therapist I had saying he was treating so many women who couldn't cope with not being beautiful anymore.)

Ain't no beauty queens in the hospice center.

Ever walked down the street with a very attractive girl? It's unbelievable. Even mildly attractive girl.

I think most attractive people know they're attractive BUT there are different levels of awareness.

R7 feeling beautiful is different from being aware that the world finds you beautiful.

This is where the expression "beauty is wasted on the young" comes into play. So many younger people suffer from self esteem issues that they fail to recognize how hot they really are-- SO SAD!!

R15 is correct, a lot of good-looking people are so hung up on their minor flaws and insecurities that they either don't think they're beautiful, or don't enjoy it because they're so insecure. They don't wake up feeling beautiful, they wake up "feeling fat", panicking over a zit, or terrified of aging.

And the expression is "Youth is wasted on the young", BTW. Which is true.

LOL R16, sorry I meant YOUTH!

Bump

R16 that's true, but a beautiful person will still be aware that others find them beautiful, because people won't shut up about it. Some comments I see here, and online in general, say that they didn't think they were attractive when they were young, but then they looked at old pictures years later and realized they were. Thats not a beautiful person, because beautiful people are constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY told how beautiful they are, despite how they themselves feel about their looks.

I went through a phase where people told me constantly that I was attractive and sexy. But, this was a short phase. I think this is more common that people going through a more attractive and sexy phase. Maybe it has something to do with the hormones. Did I wake up thinking i was attractive? Not really, I couldn't really figure it out. I like to think that everyone gets a good phase on the attraction scale.

I think kim kardashian was a very pretty when she was younger. But, she went and jacked up her here face, so there is that. She has no ethics or brains either. Will say and do anything for money. This is a very unattractive trait.

Sometimes average looking people tell people in their lives to consistently tell them they are beautiful. What are you going to say to these very insecure people? No, you're average and shallow.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty...it's alarming how charming I feel...

R20, so you're saying that at some point in time, Danny De Vito was attractive? 😂😂😂

I actually had an interesting conversation with a friend who happens to be a model about this topic several years ago. At the time we were quite close so I could ask her straight up if she perceived herself as way hotter than the vast majority of women. Her answer was interesting in that she acknowledged she felt very beautiful when working in the industry, during shoots and shows; but outside of all of that, she actually felt very plain and unremarkable. She had your stereotypical runway model look; tall, very thin, pale complexion which almost made her look something of a blank canvas, dark eyes and she was very striking, especially when she was glammed up for work. But she said she rarely got any attention outside of the industry (e.g. visiting family in her home city). Despite her being a model and being heralded as beautiful by those who hired her and worked with her, her beauty was really only perceived within that small niche of modeling and fashion. Outside of that, no one ever really really paid much attention to her.

Well, models these days aren't necessarily, or even usually beautiful. Tall and thin, yes. Unique looking, perhaps. But not necessarily beautiful.

I knew sometimes. At other times I forgot.

Beauty is very transitory especially for women. Look at Nicole Kidman. She was kind of gawky and had that big hair in the early part of her career. Then around the time of To Die For and Eyes Wide Shut she was just perfection. Then it started to fade and the procedures started.

Some are, some aren't. Men who know they're hot and show it are always very unnattractive to me. Men who are hot and have no idea just how hot they are are the hottest of the hot.

I read somewhere that women have a tendency to underestimate their looks, while men overestimate theirs.

Sorry, no amount of aerobics can help you ugly bitches.

Memo to the Yvonne troll: stop trying to make Yvonne happen. She's never going to happen.

That thing at R31. That's a man in drag, right? LOL

Or a young Yvonne DeCarlo in makeup as Lilly Munster.

R19, when I was in my youth (yes I'm old now!) I would get told all the time how hot I am (I am serious). I was so insecure that all of the compliments made me regress inside myself and hide from it (literally hide from people). When you are really insecure that kind of attention is not welcome at all... I'm fine now and do not miss those days!! :)

I'm aware that you're unattractive.

R35 I'll bet you,have some intriguing vestiges of beauty still.

I would agree that most people have a window. I hated my small, private high school for a multitude of reasons. I ran with a "popular" crowd but was never, ever considered to be hot. The moment I moved away for college - everything changed. I received a lot of attention about my looks. Fortunately, it was hard to really become conceited over the attention; it did feel fake in some way considering that my high school crowd never saw me in that way. By grad school, I was too busy trying to avoid relationships due to being closeted and finally coming to terms with that fact that I was more attracted to men (and meeting my first boyfriend complicated matters as well - we were both hiding from the world). By my late twenties - I started getting attention again. I focused on working out and cared more about appearance (but pretended that I did not - as most men do). Heading into to 40 yoa - I just don't care as much as I used to. Attention comes in phases for sure - but few of us are so consistently gorgeous that we receive adoration our entire lives. God love those that do. Frankly, that is a lot of pressure to live up to and there are other priorities in life. Life goes by quickly enough.

I have a very attractive friend. Whenever are out together I am always aware of how many people just linger on him a few seconds longer. How can he not know?

Years ago I worked at a “hot” restaurant, all the staff were lookers but one busboy from Prague was simply stunning, a perfect 10, he was very aware of his gifts and used his DNA lottery win to his advantage, he’s probably with his fifth sugar daddy by now...

People talk about white privilege all the time, but there is definitely a beauty privilege as well.

I have had similar conversations with models. They seem to think their beauty as something they put on for work, but take off in normal life.

A friend suggested that it is because each of them has one outstanding feature (eyes, smile, etc), which gets them attention as adults but was perceived as freakishly out of proportion as teens. Add to this, the fact that they are all on the tall side, most of them did not do well with boys in high school. So they have a different perspective on their looks.

I have found that a lot of actresses are the same.

I know I'm wildly attractive. It's just that no one else does.

R29 you sound extremely insecure

I did not grow into my looks until maybe my late 20’s. I was so insecure in high school and college - classic late bloomer, very skinny with a baby face with over-sized features. I just accepted that I was not going to be a hottie. But after grad school I moved to a new city and I remember I went to get a haircut at a place a co-worker recommended and the haircut changed my life -on the spot. I saw myself in the mirror and got a taste of confidence I never had before. I started dressing better and taking care of myself better and I started to see the results. I remember I went to a class reunion and I had tat clsssic “who is that????” moment.

Bump

"People talk about white privilege all the time, but there is definitely a beauty privilege as well. "

We all live in a network of privileges and disadvantages. Each human being may have advantages or disadvantages in a million ways - we're all judged on our looks, our social class, our perceived level of education, our race or ethnicity, our sexuality or level of sexiness, etc. An individual may be advantaged in a dozen ways, and disadvantaged in a dozen others.

Anyone who says that race privilege/disadvantage is the only thing that matters in life doesn't get the big picture.

There are definitely advantages to being attractive going back to childhood and infancy. Attractive people learn confidence at a young age and together, attractiveness and confidence, open opportunities to succeed.

Better question- do people know when they are unattractive?

Yes, they do, R49. And when they're young and insecure, lots of people know they're unattractive, even if they aren't!

R47 yeah ugly people weren’t enslaved, wanna try that again?

You weren't enslaved either, R51.

It's the delusional types that I find more intriguing. We probably all knew unattractive girls and/or guys who were still popular in middle and high school (due to a number of factors). They appeared to get a rude awakening after they graduated and real life happened. Once forced to leave that cliquey microcosm, they had to face the reality that they were nothing special. I always found this group more interesting than the obvious "hot" individuals.

What about parents of unattractive children? It doesn't help when they post photos of their pig-faced kids on social media and everyone remarks how beautiful they are.

I dunno what R54 is tawkin about.

R52 The fact you equate YOU being ugly with someone being a POC is wild

Prostitution Whore R55 (flips table)

We live in strange times, humility is the exception. Average looking people are quite convinced they're exceptional looking.

Love is what makes you beautiful.

Lust (hormones) makes you sexy.

Propaganda,, good lighting and plastic surgery makes you look hungry.

R48 has a great point. The positive attention for your looks (most often) breeds confidence, and confidence in and of itself is usually very attractive. So there's a positive feedback loop there.

It's likely a problem, though, if you think all good things in your life have only come your way BECAUSE of your good looks. If you don't develop yourself in other ways, you'll have a harder fall as you age.

This is true to a degree R60, but R58 makes a great point. I can't tell you how many teen 20-somethings that I have come across recently who are very full of themselves despite being short, fat, pizza-faced and literally possessing no redeemable sexy body parts. It sounds subjective and bitchy - but true. This era of coddling one's offspring has led to a great deal of delusion on the part of the kids. It is fascinating for sure but a bit baffling.

My much older sister is like that, R60. A former model, she was stunning in her youth and could get anything she wanted with a toss of her hair and a flash of her smile. She never went to college - never needed to, men just gave her whatever she wanted throughout her 20s. That started drying up in her 30s and she started getting desperate but by then she was an aging beauty queen with no education and no self awareness. Her 40s hit her very hard and it was all downhill from there. Now in her early 60s she has a miserable last-ditch marriage and is completely vacuous, ignorant and bitter and impossible to have a conversation with. Sits around all day wondering why she has no friends and why no one wants to spend time with her. It's sad how shallow her entire life has been.

teen to 20-somethings..

r61 - interesting! On the one hand, I like that these kids have confidence. On the other hand, I want to smack them, too! lol

A nod to the Youth/beauty if wasted on the young idea: I've noticed (being in my mid-40s) that my version of "good looking" is usually defined as "pics of me 20 years ago"! Seeing all the things you took for granted about your youthfulness is very sobering, and I look at my younger self and want to say, "You should have really gotten laid more vs. sitting around thinking you were ugly!"

Annoying to realize that when you thought, "I'm getting there...I'm starting to come into my own" was really when you were peaking and didn't realize it!

*Youth/beauty is

Great comments, R64. I totally agree that we should have "lived it up" more when we were at our peak. I am almost 40 now too. I think that we judged ourselves too harshly back in the 1990's and 2000's. The current younger end of the Millenial spectrum has swung so far the other direction (2% are gorgeous vain Insta-would-be-models and the rest seem a bit delusional to me). That is a good thing all-in-all I suppose. I just find it amusing more than anything.

R26 I do think there has been a transition in the beauty standards of fashion models over the last couple decades, especially towards a more androgynous look. But the model referenced in R25 worked in the late 90s to later 00s. In her day, there were still the big names in modeling that a lot of older people would remember (like the big-name Vic Secret models), so she was in the industry when female models were made to look like empirically attractive ladies. My comment was more so written in an effort to show a dichotomy of how people can look attractive in some contexts, but not in others. Part of the problem for women, whether they're a model or not, is that cosmetics play a major role in beauty. With my friend, she was very pretty without makeup, but she looked stab-your-mother hot while working. So a lot of people would see her work (she was in some major national campaigns) and they'd be shocked at how different she looked in person. My friend told me a story about how she went home for the holidays after being featured in a fashion designer's magazine ad. Some guy from our high school apparently came up to her at a bar and said he wanted to bang the model version of her, but not her in outside the picture. She dealt with shit like that all the time (granted the dude was realistically just being a jerk). Essentially, her job was subjecting her to a standard of beauty that she herself just simply couldn't maintain in everyday life. And if we're being honest, how many women do we think truly look beautiful without cosmetics? I can say I don't know one who truly looks beautiful/attractive without makeup.

For guys, we have it a bit easier because we don't depend on makeup for a stereotypical sexy look. But even still, there are certain levels of physical fitness, hair style, dress, etc. that play into whether we look good to others or not. Just an interesting anecdote: I follow this "model" fitness dude on IG. My friend who lives in CA saw him out and snapped a picture with him and sent it to me. He looked ghastly. It was definitely him, but he just didn't have the polished look he did in his photos. Of course he likely used photo-altering methods and makeup. But the dude was just fug without them.

No, OP.

[quote]Better question- do people know when they are unattractive?

Of course, they do. That’s why you meet so many awesome people who have a ton of personality but are not considered attractive by society. Tina Fey said it best when Oprah asked her when did you know that you were funny. Granted, it’s a really dumb question BUT sorta interesting--depending on the answer.

To paraphrase, she said something like, I learned pretty early in life that I needed to work on my personality.

Some shit the world tells you at an early age, and if you are cognizant enough, you get it.

I admit I never felt so unattractive as I did when I first stepped into a gay club. Oh, man...if you didn't "Fit in." It took me some time to get past that bullshit. Like YEARS.

I have a similar quote attributed to Golda Meir, r69. It seems more believable coming from her.

Tina Fey is hardly unattractive.

Tina Fey is not unattractive, but she's not particularly attractive either. She's decidedly average. Don't forget,, what you're seeing of her is with all the professional makeup, lighting, and editing, so you can imagine the real Tina. She's no Quasimodo, but she's no beauty.

An elderly friend recently told me that when she was in her 20s she would get meals comped in restaurants and would never have to pay for a drink. She just thought that was just how it was for everyone. It was not till she was in her 30s that she realized that it was her looks.

Several women I know have told me how--when they were 14, 15--boys began to notice them and they suddenly became aware of their own power--the power of attractiveness--you walk into a room, and BAM! I'm always spellbound by these stories. I'm pushing 70 and waiting for BAM! to happen.

No restaurant is going to comp meals for a guest just because she's attractive. That's utter bullshit. So your friend lied through her teeth R72. She probably loved telling that lie because it made her feel special.

R64 / R66 I sooooo agree!!

I’m shocked when I look in the mirror and see how old I look. I still think of my self as I was at a younger more attractive age.

R71 I've seen it happen, it happens to my daughters all the time, maybe it's mostly a beautiful woman thing but it's true.

I meant r74.

put it this way, beautiful people are not attracted to unattractive people so they have to acknowledge their attractiveness on some level.

R79 fuggos aren't attracted to fuggos either, so...

"Average looking people are quite convinced they're exceptional looking. "

I really wonder how much of that is bravado. It's now considered polite to tell your unattractive friends that they're beautiful "to build their confidence", and that's become widespread on social media and in real life. And it's become a common reaction to anyone saying anything realistic about their looks, if anyone says "Gosh, this disfiguring acne makes me feel ugly" it's now considered polite (when dealing with the young) to insist that nobody can see the disfiguring acne, and that you're really beautiful sweetie! So it's now commonplace for people to tell the ugly they're beautiful, and the ugly have realized it's not socially acceptable to admit they're ugly. Which doesn't necessarily mean they believe the polite lies.

It's sad that it's now believed that nobody could possibly have any self-confidence unless they're convinced they're beautiful. The fact is that good looks are a freak of nature that's randomly distributed, and the normal state of humanity is to not be beautiful. Previous generations have found ways to live with the knowledge that they didn't win the genetic lottery, now that's a taboo topic for the young.

Tina Fey wasn't ugly so much as plain and unstylish. Just getting her eyebrows under control was a vast improvement.

R81 - I loved that! And it's just so true now.

I'm worried/fascinated how this generation will change the world. They've grown up in such a bizarre culture, although I guess every generation could say that about the ones that come after it.

Here's an interesting illustration of this.

Numbers 1-10 were assigned randomly to volunteers. The numbers were placed on their foreheads so that each person was unaware of his or hear own number.

They were then instructed to try to pair up with the highest number they could. Eventually, those with the higher numbers realized that they were being approached by the most people and therefore had higher numbers. The opposite happened for the lower numbers. Ultimately everyone paired-up with partners whose numbers were very close to or the same as theirs.

It's a broad generalization, but it shows how a feedback loop could inform someone of their relative attractiveness.

^his or her, not his or hear

Plenty of people are attractive, even if they aren't stunningly beautiful. Just through being thin/fit, wearing flattering clothes, having a great haircut, paying attention to details. These can add up to what is seen as attractive, well put together. I made the decision to work on my appearance, because I was lonely, and I thought that the world is kinder and more open to attractive people. It really worked. I met many people, made many friends, dated many handome men, had people approach me due to my distinctive personal style that I developed. I was never interesting, but people suddenly acted as though I was. I had the chance to develop my personality over the years, which I am grateful for. I knew I was considered attractive, because I was told I was, and I got hit on and asked out often. I felt pretty average, but knew the world saw me as attractive. I was relieved when my looks faded, as I did feel worn out by the attention. I always felt like an imposter. I like it when now people like me without the mask.

Yes. They are. In the case of girls and women, I’d say it’s younger than 13 or 14. You start getting stared at from the age of 11 onward.

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[quote]But when it ends it is apparently devastating.

It doesn’t end for ugly people. Instead of being young and ugly, they become old and ugly. Whereas with good-looking people, they may stop being hit on all of the time, but unless they get fat, there are still vestiges of a beautiful person there.

i am quite attractive and it is not all that it is cracked up to be, sure everybody likes to look at beautiful people