What it means to be truly ugly.

[CenotaphGirl]

Hi CG - From the stats that I've seen and heard, it's something like 1/3 of men in the US (but I'm pretty sure it's no different here in the UK) under 30 haven't had sex in the last year and/or are virgins. Around 80% of men on dating apps are deemed unattractive right off the bat and out of the 20% at the top, women will only initiate contact and pursue 4-5%.

Yes, I am on those dating apps

I'm 49 and I haven't had sex/dated in the last 4 years. I can tell you that's it most definitely not by my own choosing(ish).

*Hmm, I thought I had replied to your comment re. the stats, but it's not showing up here?*

Hey fellow Brit!

Yeahhh your stats are lining up with mine for sure

Hope your luck changes soon though!

 

[kinzeUK]

Hey fellow Brit!

Yeahhh your stats are lining up with mine for sure

Hope your luck changes soon though!

Thank you, my lovely

Ah, a fellow Brit too, eh? I don't know why, but whenever I've read some of your posts, I just for some reason assumed that you were one of our US cousins?

I've done a bit of a deep dive on some videos (I do avidly go down YouTube rabbit holes a lot) and it's an important topic I think. What saddens me is that the divide between men and women is SO much more amped up online, and yet, we truly do need each other. I don't give a toss what some of these MGTOW and Black Pilled Nihilists think or say regarding "Being done with women for good". Been there, done that. I'd like to feel the fair touch of a woman again before I die (I was so going to go for something much cruder originally hehe). And trust me, I've had my own bitterness and frustration demons to deal with in the past. One of the perks of getting on a bit now is the wisdom of hindsight and further introspection.

I certainly would not want to trade places with a 19 or 29 year old in this day and age! I'm a Gen X so I personally think I/we were born at the best time in history. Old enough to remember what life was like pre-mobile phone and internet etc, but not so ancient that I can't keep up!

 

[CenotaphGirl]

Thank you, my lovely

Ah, a fellow Brit too, eh? I don't know why, but whenever I've read some of your posts, I just for some reason assumed that you were one of our US cousins?

I've done a bit of a deep dive on some videos (I do avidly go down YouTube rabbit holes a lot) and it's an important topic I think. What saddens me is that the divide between men and women is SO much more amped up online, and yet, we truly do need each other. I don't give a toss what some of these MGTOW and Black Pilled Nihilists think or say regarding "Being done with women for good". Been there, done that. I'd like to feel the fair touch of a woman again before I die (I was so going to go for something much cruder originally hehe). And trust me, I've had my own bitterness and frustration demons to deal with in the past. One of the perks of getting on a bit now is the wisdom of hindsight and further introspection.

I certainly would not want to trade places with a 19 or 29 year old in this day and age! I'm a Gen X so I personally think I/we were born at the best time in history. Old enough to remember what life was like pre-mobile phone and internet etc, but not so ancient that I can't keep up!

Oh my! Me… a … yank dear god nooo, I’m as British as PG tips!

Men and women aren't actually divided, they are merged. We are now one and the same… this makes women seem like crap… they put us separate from men for a reason, acknowledging we are weaker, and different to men was important… now men dont even want to protect us. Its awful..

Lool I wouldnt see you as a man if you didnt good sir a womans touch should mean more to a man than survival (I joke.. kinda )

I think its sad because we are all caught up in an ideology thats not for male and female couples

 

[Xpendable]

When people are constantly trying to convince you that you aren't ugly.

 

[ardour]

I don't mean this as flattery, since flattering someone else is to lower yourself, and that's something guys especially shouldn't do. But, I find it hard to believe you ever had to "cross over" from "ugly" to only "reasonably attractive". I think you were already there, you just had to change up your style maybe.

Anyway. Yeah, of course the attractive woman is always going to have that sexual pull. But I find that more often that not, that's all there is. The thing that a person can't automatically do, is make me care about them - make me feel affection for them. Sure, there are a lot of hot women out there that I would have a hard time turning down physically. But how many of them would I actually care about and like as people? If I don't like someone as a person - whether it's active dislike, or just a lack of stimulation and indifference resulting from incompatibility - I just don't want to invest time and energy in them no matter what they look like.

I imagine the same thing is true on the flip side - a woman could date a rich man, but maybe he is miserable to spend time with, and impossible to get close to emotionally. I can't imagine that being too much fun, for too long.

On the other hand, someone might not have what society says is conventional attractiveness, but I find that I actually care about the person. I care about what happens to them, if they are happy or sad, I'm curious about them, I have warm feelings for them. I want to talk to them again. I feel affection for them.

Of course, looks help, but it's not necessarily the end-all, be-all.

Adequate looks are the 'foot in the door' required to demonstrate other qualities.

Attractive people often appear more charismatic/confident/likeable having received mostly positive enforcements in youth, developing healthy self-esteem as a result of that. As opposed to the negativity, bullying and rejection an ugly person would be likely to have experienced. That just re-enforces people's prejudice that beautiful = inherently good, fun, interesting, intelligent, etc.

 

[TheSkaFish]

Adequate looks are the 'foot in the door' required to demonstrate other qualities.

Attractive people often appear more charismatic/confident/likeable having received mostly positive enforcements in youth, developing healthy self-esteem as a result of that. As opposed to the negativity, bullying and rejection an ugly person would be likely to have experienced. That just re-enforces people's prejudice that beautiful = inherently good, fun, interesting, intelligent, etc.

I get what you're saying, and can see how that can be true. But in my experience, it's being strong, rich, and/or being good at something that gets your foot in the door. Muscles and money are like pocket aces in poker, if you're dealt those you can pretty much sleepwalk through life and still get your way most of the time. That's when things "just happen" for you. If you weren't born with those, you can still attain "coolness" by being good at something considered interesting and exciting like a sport or art form. I never thought I could do that though.

While I was insecure about my looks, and I used to think that was the reason, I now realize that my issues with self-esteem revolved more around lacking muscles, money, and/or being good at something else to make up for lacking those things. That's why I experienced negativity, bullying, rejection, and mostly just general coldness - only a few people were explicitly, consistently hostile to me.

I'd love to be able to say f*** them once and for all. But to do that I'd need to actually be good at something, better than them at something. Something that's seen as carrying weight. That's one of many reasons why I wish I could be good at something, so that I can prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that I am not the loser that these haters tried to tell me I was. I want to prove that I can be competent and interesting. I always struggled with feeling like I could, though. I didn't feel good at the right things, didn't feel like I had the right interests, and didn't feel like I had the right personality.

But yeah. What people have said about ugliness making their lives difficult, I've found that I can also relate to, but for me it's about not being good at anything/not having a strength. That's what I needed for self-esteem this whole time.

 

[MrLonely86]

I mean why do you even bother with the looks at all? XD You will all die at some point, so then you will look ...... " pretty " . XD

 

[Unsigned]

I'm a Gen X so I personally think I/we were born at the best time in history.

Gen X here as well and I must disagree.
My father/uncles/etc.. had a much better life than I did in every possible way I can think.
IMO, the WW2/Korean war generation had it the best. At least here in the US.

As far as staying on topic with the thread, and this is just IMO of course, I think an "ugly" female has it much easier than an "ugly" male, and quite frankly, even easier than an average male these days. Just take a walk in a Walmart, Costco or Home Depot or something. You will see females who are significantly below average in appearance paired off with a male. The take a look at how many guys you see by themselves. Again, just my take on it.

 

[user 190541]

As far as staying on topic with the thread, and this is just IMO of course, I think an "ugly" female has it much easier than an "ugly" male, and quite frankly, even easier than an average male these days. Just take a walk in a Walmart, Costco or Home Depot or something. You will see females who are significantly below average in appearance paired off with a male. The take a look at how many guys you see by themselves. Again, just my take on it.

My experience with dating apps seems to confirm this, so long as she isn't like really, really ugly.

Gen X here as well and I must disagree.
My father/uncles/etc.. had a much better life than I did in every possible way I can think.
IMO, the WW2/Korean war generation had it the best. At least here in the US.

I agree, from my point of view the generation of my grandfathers had it better than any other else else. The time period spanning the 50s and the 60s is even called "anos dourados" (lit. "golden years") here.

 

[ardour]

Gen X here as well and I must disagree.
My father/uncles/etc.. had a much better life than I did in every possible way I can think.
IMO, the WW2/Korean war generation had it the best. At least here in the US.

So in other words, the time of the G.I. Bill, unionization and heavily graduated taxes in the US (top tax rate of 90%) coincided with the greatest level of social stability.

 

[user 190541]

So in other words, the time of the G.I. Bill, unionization and heavily graduated taxes in the US (top tax rate of 90%) coincided with the greatest level of social stability.

It was also a time when Western economies grew a lot more and a lot faster than they do today. It was the time when several so-called "economic miracles" occurred throughout the world, including the Brazilian Economic Miracle (1969-73), during which the economy grew at an average of 10% a year, peaking at 14% in the year of 1973. A perceived, more recent decline in social well-being no doubt correlates with a decrease in economic growth rates.

A valuable lesson that could be learned by studying this time period (and one that would have prevented several incredibly idiotic theses in more recent years) is the fact that economic liberalism and political authoritarianism hardly contradict each, if anything, the contrary assertion seems to be way more truthful. Historically considered, political authoritarianism has proved to be quite efficient at mitigating the effects (above all the political effects) of the contradictions engendered by rapid economic development. The crisis and consequent collapse of Latin American military dictatorships, for example, was only possible because of the region's economies decelerating throughout the 70s, not because economic progress or economic liberalism somehow facilitate the spread of democracy or instill in the population a desire for democracy. As it is well known, the ideologues of neoliberalism, in a type of rather unimpressive wishful thinking disguised as serious scholarly activity, believed - contrary to all evidence - that economic growth would lead to the establishment of a modern, liberal bourgeois democracy in China, something that obviously didn't happen, and doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon. Those who thought it was really stupid to believe in a worldwide revolution - and in the subsequent coming about of international communism - weren't in any way brighter when they subscribed to Fukuyama's pseudo-Hegelian end of history theory.

 

[Unsigned]

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[MrLonely86]

I am sorry to inform you, but for sure best life wasn't in 20.th or 21.st century.

 

[TheSkaFish]

So in other words, the time of the G.I. Bill, unionization and heavily graduated taxes in the US (top tax rate of 90%) coincided with the greatest level of social stability.

It's almost as if they understood:

- that things getting better and easier over time, having better standards of living, is forward progress, and it's the point of it all
- that taking care of the people is in everyone's best interest, and that government should be the people's advocate, like in a system of checks and balances
- prices need to be kept low enough for people of normal levels of ability to be able to function well enough to have a healthy country

and that if you have all these things, you have a country that's getting more and more civilized, instead of regressing to the savagery of competition. Seriously I feel like we're living in some kind of dark age that's getting darker by the day.

That's the thing, I think a softer, safer world is the point. I remember looking in history books as a kid and seeing how bleak life was before, how cheap life was, and thinking "d*mn, life looked so bad back then, I'm glad I live in today's world where it's safer, more compassionate, and I'm free to like the things I like, you could never do that back then". If it's getting easier to live better, instead of getting harder, then that's a good thing, that means things are functioning. The fact that we don't have to constantly compete to guard our shiny rocks, is why we even have computers to use this forum right now.

I personally feel like most people are not suitable to compete on the world market. Most people are not cut out for this inflation world bullsh*t. I feel like most people aren't smart enough, cunning enough, or good enough at the right things. I feel like most people are like domesticated animals, they don't have the instincts and ferocity necessary to survive in the wild. Most people need the world to be artificially safe, and most people just want to live their lives and like what they like in peace. They aren't suited to be entrepreneurs any more than they're suited to be professional athletes or front-line soldiers, so I don't think they should be forced to be. Life should not be a professional sport or a war.

I don't know. Maybe we made too many people in the decades when things were safe. I think a lot of people had kids just because it was the thing to do when you reach a certain age, like playing house, instead of thinking about if they actually had competitive enough genetics to pass on. People thought life was just life, and forgot that life is a race, like it was before WW2. If eugenics is the goal, then I wish they would come out and say it, and genetically engineer everyone so that no one is born without enough natural ability to be something that allows them to have a good life. No one should be born just to suffer the misery of being edged out, there's no point to that life.

Or better yet maybe eugenics shouldn't be the goal, because it's morally wrong. Growing up I thought the eugenicists were the bad guys, and everyone knew this. Now people act like they were the good guys the whole time. I don't know.

I wish there was somewhere that everyone could move to, who DOESN'T want this eugenics/tech bro world we're being forced into.

 

[user 190541]

It's almost as if they understood:

- that things getting better and easier over time, having better standards of living, is forward progress, and it's the point of it all
- that taking care of the people is in everyone's best interest, and that government should be the people's advocate, like in a system of checks and balances
- prices need to be kept low enough for people of normal levels of ability to be able to function well enough to have a healthy country

and that if you have all these things, you have a country that's getting more and more civilized, instead of regressing to the savagery of competition. Seriously I feel like we're living in some kind of dark age that's getting darker by the day.

The keyword here, as @ardour has mentioned, is "unionization". Depending on who they are, I don't think they necessarily understood all of those things, however they did understand the power of a mobilized working class and of active middle class lobby groups, and that translated into all of the things cited above. Politically speaking, is there any other language beyond the language of power? History seems to answer in the negative.

 

[TheSkaFish]

The keyword here, as @ardour has mentioned, is "unionization". Depending on who they are, I don't think they necessarily understood all of those things, however they did understand the power of a mobilized working class and of active middle class lobby groups, and that translated into all of the things cited above. Politically speaking, is there any other language beyond the language of power? History seems to answer in the negative.

Sadly, I fear you're right, especially about the last bit - that politically, there is no other language than power.

I don't think that it has to be this way though, because I don't think there's any such thing as human nature. I think because we're sentient beings, we can choose our own nature, and we can choose to change the game at any time. That's why it's so frustrating, maddening, and genuinely sad to me, that we're choosing to regress to survival of the fittest, despite all the advances in technology - instead of continuing down the path we were on before. People in the '50s and '60s used to look to the future and imagine that a better world was on its way...I really mourn that world. Even the '90s of my youth...I wish I could go back and never leave.

 

[user 190541]

Sadly, I fear you're right, especially about the last bit - that politically, there is no other language than power.

I don't think that it has to be this way though, because I don't think there's any such thing as human nature. I think because we're sentient beings, we can choose our own nature, and we can choose to change the game at any time. That's why it's so frustrating, maddening, and genuinely sad to me, that we're choosing to regress to survival of the fittest, despite all the advances in technology - instead of continuing down the path we were on before. People in the '50s and '60s used to look to the future and imagine that a better world was on its way...I really mourn that world. Even the '90s of my youth...I wish I could go back and never leave.

I don't think people are choosing to regress in that way (after all, given the choice, who would really choose that?), instead, it's the way society evolves that dictates where we're going as a collective, simply because society evolves according to its own internal laws, not according to our will. According to Marx, "men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past".