Even once you become “attractive” people will still be horrible towards you, just in different forms
I’m really sorry if this is a hot or shallow take, and I promise I have nothing but good intentions writing this, but I would like to offer some of you a new perspective.
I grew up pretty average looking, but as a young wasian teenager in a predominantly white state, I wasn’t seen as attractive. I was constantly rejected by boys I had crushes on in school, and I had a very hard time making friends. I started trying to improve my looks in various detrimental ways, such as hitting my face with a hammer, laying upside down from my bed so my facial fat would “redistribute,” listening to appearance altering subliminals, starving myself, etc. In my free time I would go on .org forums or research extremely invasive plastic surgeries that I wanted I basically had an entire surgery wishlist.
None of what I did really worked, considering I was a young girl whose body and face were still developing, so I became hopeless. My parents and I moved to a new state because I was facing bullying in my old one, but the relocation didn’t help much either. I went from living in a predominantly white area to a predominantly Hispanic area, and a lot of wasians tend to look Hispanic iykyk, so I thought maybe that would change how I got treated, but I didn’t notice much of a difference. Men still ignored me and women still bullied me. I became very depressed because of this. I stopped eating, showering, brushing my teeth, etc. It felt like there was no point.
Fast forward a few years later, I’m a young adult now, my body developed, my face matured, and I’m finally seen as “attractive” by some people. Men pay attention to me, beautiful women want to become my friend, and even my now boyfriend was once a complete stranger who traveled over 500 miles just to meet me because he saw my Instagram account and thought I was beautiful.
However, as much as I try to embrace the few rewards of “looking better,” my mind is still stuck in the state it was in when I was a 14 year old girl. I barely have any genuine friends, and most women at my college tend to overlook and ignore me. Before I met my boyfriend, I was on a lot of dating apps and men only really wanted me for sex. I get a lot of weird looks in public, especially from middle aged women and men, which I assume is because of my bust. Men are so much creepier towards me, I once got followed around in a convenience store by a middle aged man who kept making sexual faces at me, tongue movements and all. And with all of this blackpill stuff becoming trendy and mainstream, I get a lot of negative attention on social media, particularly Instagram and TikTok. I had to delete a TikTok account with 2,000 followers because these blackpill people were telling me to end my life, that I’m “sub3”, etc. There was even one guy in particular who went out of his way to harass me for supposedly being a “0.1/10.” He threw multiple slurs at me because I’m half Asian, insulted my boyfriend for being a white man dating a half Asian girl, etc.
I think what all of this has taught me is that cruelty doesn’t magically disappear once you become “attractive.” People will tear you apart whether they see you as ugly, average, or beautiful. The standards just shift, and the insults change form. I genuinely believe a lot of people online have become so obsessed with ranking human beings by appearance that they’ve forgotten there’s a real person on the other side of the screen. I’m not saying looks don’t affect the way people treat you, they absolutely do, but I also think a lot of us are chasing this fantasy that if we just become attractive enough, we’ll finally be safe from rejection, loneliness, or cruelty. In my experience, that isn’t true. And a lot of the times, it doesn’t only come from being unattractive. Neurodivergence, race, even just being a woman makes you subjected to cruel behavior, so no matter how you look, be kind to yourself and cut yourself some slack..