u/HmmVerrryCurious

The context:

For anyone who didn't see the original post, this is a response to anonymous, who posted the following question along with some photos of himself and then later deleted it.

I completely respect the decision to delete the post. I also felt his question deeply and what it suggested about the things he might have believed to be true about himself. At least, it spoke to things I have believed to be true about myself, in the past, and to some extent, even now.

If you're OP and you would like me to delete this, please reach out and I will happily delete the post. In the meantime, I do hope you see my response and I deeply hope it means something to you, or to anyone else who is feeling similarly about themselves.

I am not speaking to the experience of feeling ugly, but to the experience of feeling like your value as a human is dependent on something you feel is inherently and inseparably part of who you are.

With compassion and respect,

u/HmmVerrryCurious

The original question posted earlier today.

"(30M) I know I'm ugly and below average, I'd like some advice on how I could gain confidence and worry less about it"

My Response:

I feel like people in the comments are saying two main things that aren't very helpful. And (possibly) even a little destructive even though I think they all have the absolute best intentions.

The 1st thing:

"You just need to lose weight and gain muscle" the top comment.

The problem: This validates the thing you're feeling, and also does you the kindness of saying it's not a problem with you inherently but a problem with how you are at the moment. It does, also, unfortunately say that it agrees that your problem is your physical appearance.

The 2nd thing:

"You're not ugly".

The problem: This is nice! But also just invalidates the thing you're feeling. You basically said 'I don't feel confident, but....' while asking a question here in r/self compassion. I think that means you already don't think that how you look is the whole answer to confidence. Being told you're not ugly, while probably really nice to hear, is also not helping solve for things that are making you feel ugly which, if I were to take a guess, might has to do with feeling like the people around you don't value you or feeling disconnected from the kind of connection and intimacy with those around you that you need as a human being to feel safe and happy.

Again.

The fact that you're asking this question in the self compassion sub reddit I think means that you already know that being confident, and feeling below average or ugly isn't entirely about how hot or chopped you are, or are not. But, you're also totally right that we live in a world where physical appeal is VERY wrapped up in confidence and can obviously help with confidence.

So, real quick, why I think I might be able to help with your question:

I'm also 30M, I'm overweight, broke as fuck (I'm trying to start a business, don't at me), but I also have multiple thriving friend groups (made up of both men and women, of different socioeconomic status, and culture.) and a happy relationship with an incredible woman. I also have done a LOT of self compassion work over the last 18 months specifically using the work of Dr. Kristin Neff and a DBT approach to the therapeutic self learning and growth process. I also have a background in communications and marketing which actually helps here.

So, here's my take:

I'm not going to try to say physical attractiveness or aesthetic doesn't matter. It does, obviously. But I think that the thing that the looks maxing team just doesn't understand is that aesthetic, attractiveness, etc is not one thing. Aesthetic and beauty and hotness can be attained in a buuuuuunch of different ways and the fact that a lot of people think of being attractive as one final goal is over simplifying things in a way that makes actually becoming both attractive and confident, way harder than it needs to be.

So, if I were to say "you're not ugly" (which I do believe to be objectively true), being told the thing you fear is actually true, is not true, is nice and all but it doesn't really help you with what you're feeling. Especially if it's being said by random people on the Internet who you don't have a super deep relationship with.

My argument is basically that attractiveness (i.e. being a version of yourself that is able to access the kinds of care, connection, and intimacy that will make you feel the way you want to feel, wether that's loved, powerful, or even just.. safe.) is not physical aesthetic, it's literally just aura, and physical appearance is just an ingredient.

I think the feeling of being ugly or below average is working off the assumption you can accumulate aura JUST through becoming more physically attractive. Becoming more physically attractive helps but the question I think we're forgetting is 'attractive to who?'. The easy answer is basically everyone. Who doesn't want to be universally attractive? Okay, valid but don't forget, when you're 'for' everyone, you're for no one, in particular. And don't get me wrong, it can be charming to have a cheerful 80 year old woman think you're hot but I'm going to guess that's probably not your main target audience.

If you're trying to eat

- Walmart is for everyone.

-A three Michelin star fine dining experience, is not for everyone.

-A hot meal prepared for you perfectly by someone you love, who knows your tastes, on a day you're sick in bed when you need it most.... is not for everyone.

Now, if I were to guess, I suspect you're probably not trying to be Walmart.

Now hear me out on this last bit:

If attractiveness is aura, then what is aura?

It's not just generally ''charisma". That's also part of it, yes. But again, not the whole story.

Aura is connection. Aura is 'a relationship' in it's most fundamental and basic form. When someone who is incredibly attractive walks into a room, they don't turn heads because they're attractive. They turn heads because they walk in the door with a promise.

If you interact with me, you might get something you want.

And to be extremely clear I am not talking about sex, or not ONLY sex. Our culture's relationship with sex is complicated because our culture's relationship with desire is complicated. Just like our culture's relationship with closeness and vulnerability (especially true for people raised as men) is complicated. So when an attractive person walks in the door and starts turning heads, people aren't only thinking about sex. Sure, some are, but even then! People who tend to focus solely on sex usually aren't actually focusing on just the physical gratification of sex. Usually they're focusing on is what having sex means about themselves. Does this guy fuck? Can he? Is he valuable enough to have access to the sexuality and intimacy of others?

All that still comes down to how we feel about ourselves and how others see and understand us. So when a hot person walks in the room and becomes a center of gravity. They're not promising the potential of sex, they're promising the potential for *you* to be more of what you think is valuable.

Maybe that's sex and everything that comes with it (and what it says about you). Maybe that's being someone who people want to be around, who people admire, and who people respect. Maybe that's being the kind of person who people will fight for and stand by through all kinds of shit and uncertainty.

We understand the world through the stories we tell ourselves about what is true... And we understand Ourselves through the stories we tell ourselves about what is true. Well also take bits of the stories other people tell us about ourselves and write them into our own.

Attractiveness, aura, is the story someone starts telling themselves about you, when they are around you, and how that makes them feel. I'm smart, I'm dumb, I'm adventurous, I'm scared, I'm strong, I'm incompetent, I'm attractive, I'm ugly, I'm below average.

If someone who you find attractive gives you attention, you're probably going to feel a little bit more valuable, a little bit more confident.

It's the story you're telling yourself about what is valuable, and what interacting with that makes you believe or feel about yourself.

My theory:

The fact that you don't feel confident, I don't think means you're below average or ugly. I think it just says that there is something you want or need that you do not have.

If you had people in your life who, who you valued and respected, who saw you as attractive and told you so on a consistent basis, I'm going to take a swing and say you'd probably feel a lot less ugly.

Like with most things, 80% or more of every solution is just in finding the right question.

So when you say you want to become more confident, I think that buried inside that, buried inside the version of you that wants the answer to the problem you're trying to solve is a better question.

The question you asked here is basically:

I have a goal. 2. I have a thing I believe to be a blocker. 3. How do achieve my goal, with the blocker in my way.
I want to feel more confident. 2. I believe I am ugly and or below average. 3. How do I feel more confident when I feel held back by how I look?

So if we look at the question from a different angle, it might start to suggest a way forward:

I want to value myself more and/or have the people around me value me more. 2. I feel like my lack of ability to feel and perform confidence is blocking that, and I believe that my physical appearance is (at least partially) responsible for that. 3. How do I feel more valuable, when I'm worried that's not possible given my physical appearance?

So I guess, I would ask you:

Why do you feel like physical appearance is the thing in your way?

And you can only really answer that by understanding how you got to feeling the way you're feeling now.

The questions that might help:

How does being in a relationship with you feel to the other person? (I mean like any relationship: Friendship, romantic relationship, family relationship, teacher/student relationship, etc.)

Is there a way you're forming relationships, or treating, or interacting with the people around you that makes them feel like physicality is the only thing you could have your value judged on?

Or is that something you have only decided is true for yourself, nevermind what they think?

Have you decided that the only way you can feel valued and respected by yourself or others is based on your physical attractiveness or fitness?

Are there friends or relationships you have that are telling you the only way that you can be valued is physical?

Is there something in the culture of the place you live that's telling you your body is the only way you can have value?

Note: If you live in the United States or Europe you're probably dealing with a little bit of a stacked deck here, too. Odds are decent you live in a culture that depends on the fact that you don't feel valuable to make sure that we don't advocate for ourselves, our rights, the value of our labor. The world many of us live in depends on the fragility of the friendships, and relationships, and the community around us. All relationships made fragile because we now measure each other with a ruler someone beat us with and then handed to us, then told us to measure those around us based on what *it* has decided is valuable.

Conclusion (where confidence comes from and create it for/in yourself):

(Reddit says this comment is way too long (facts) and so I have to drop the last bit in a reply to this comment, sorry!)

Confidence comes from the relationships in our lives, how they make us feel and how we make them feel. Confidence comes from the trust we have in ourselves and our ability to be what we believe is valuable. Confidence comes from the relationships and beliefs that have shaped our understanding of what is valuable in the first place.

I think the real solution for what you're struggling with probably exists in the questions above, and taking the time to think through them, reflect on them and ask them of yourself now, 6 months from now, 6 years from now as you change and grow as a person and your relationship with yourself and with others also changes and grows.

But one final thought. If you want a little bit of a shortcut to feeling confident?

Find someone around you, a friend, a grandma, literally a person at the checkout at the store or IDK. like a librarian or a teacher or something. And figure out how to help them feel like they matter, like they have value, even if it's in a tiny way. Look for the things in others that make them uniquely who they are, through their choices, and tell them you think that has value. Look for things that are true about other people, even small things, and help them tell themselves a story about themselves that helps them feel like more of what they believe is valuable.

You gain confidence by believing a thing you think is valuable, is also true about yourself. And proving to yourself repeatedly that is an intrinsic part of who you are.

You clearly feel like feeling confident is valuable. If you can give that feeling of confidence, of belief in their own value, to others. That certainly could help.

If you want to hack confidence, even if you can't be the kind of confident you want to be for yourself (yet), practice helping other people feel that way.

In that practice, with time, I think you'll eventually figure out how to give that to yourself.

Re: (30m) I know I'm ugly, want advice on being more confident. (A response)