u/LectureAccomplished8

I read about research showing how empathy is directly linked to physical appearance: we tend to feel far more empathy and a stronger urge to help an attractive woman compared to an unattractive one. I am isolated and stay indoors but from what I have seen I know this is happening in real life all the time. Men, in particular, are often consumed by the well-being of the attractive women in their lives—whether a partner or a family member.

Often, they will blow a minor problem she has completely out of proportion and do anything to make her feel better. They’ll spend endless hours and days discussing her issues with unlimited patience instead of letting her handle them herself, and they react with profound sadness whenever she cries. Is this something you’ve noticed around you? Do you think empathy is really that tied to physical appearance?

Hey everyone,

I’m currently waiting for a referral to get a SIBO breath test, but I wanted to share my symptoms here to see if anyone experiences something similar.

My main issue:

I ALWAYS feel like I need to go to the bathroom. I never feel completely empty, even when I barely eat. My stool is almost always very loose, bordering on total diarrhea.

Recently, new symptoms popped up:

Constant nausea

Severe bloating

Persistent abdominal pain

Workup so far:

I’ve had a colonoscopy, abdominal CT, and general blood and stool tests — all came back completely normal.

Regarding Imodium / Loperamide:

Loperamide doesn't really fix the issue. I have to take very high doses just to stop the diarrhea for a single day. But since the urge to go never actually leaves, holding it in just makes the pain and pressure so much worse.

Has anyone here with SIBO (maybe Hydrogen or Hydrogen Sulfide?) had this constant urge/incomplete evacuation feeling? Any insight or advice while I wait for the test would be greatly appreciated!

I understand that men—and people in general—are powerless when it comes to raw physical attraction. I get that wanting attractive sexual partners isn't a choice; it’s a purely physical response beyond anyone's control.

But there are things people can control. Groveling at the feet of pretty women is pathetic. Sacrificing your self-respect to chase partners who make you miserable is a choice. I’ve heard men talk about conventionally attractive women (not necessarily their partners) in their lives whom they practically worshiped—doing everything for them, yet constantly feeling like they weren't "good enough" and apologizing to them for nothing, even when those women treat them like dirt. That behavior isn't an involuntary physical reflex like sexual attraction. It is a behavioral choice.

The world revolves around beauty. It sounds like an exaggeration, but when you see that so many men enter relationships, get married, and start families with women based entirely on looks—while either personality they have just doesn't change anything—you realize it’s just the truth. When asked to describe their wives, the first and often only thing they say is that she's beautiful. Even intelligent men fall into this trap and behave like idiots.

It extends far beyond romance. Careers, social standing, everyday interactions, and overall success are heavily built on this universal worship of beauty. And that is something people could actually change if they had the self-awareness to recognize what they are doing.

When I was around 17 or 18, I used to post on old online forums (before Reddit) about how lonely and friendless I had always been. Back then, I didn't connect any of it to my appearance. I recently found some of those old posts, and reading through them now makes me want to bang my head against the wall for being so blind.

Here is an excerpt from one of my posts: "I guess people and I just don't mix, no matter what I do. I see how everyone is off-put by me or ignores me because they just don't care. Everyone I want—and even everyone I don't—eventually leaves. I don't understand what it is about me that they find so off-putting."

It's not that I was unaware of my looks; it was impossible not to be. I even explicitly wrote back then that I was very ugly. But for some bizarre reason, I failed to connect the dots. I failed to see that this was the exact thing people found so off-putting, that this was why they didn't want to be friends, and that appearance affects far more than just romantic attraction.

There was a boy I talked with online for several months. We had nice conversations, and eventually, we met in real life. He never explicitly said he wasn't attracted to me (nor wasn't it obvious that no one can), but bit by bit, after we met, he started drifting away online. Looking back at those forum posts, I see that at one point he told me he wanted to keep his distance "for my own sake." And idiot me still didn't link it to my looks. The funny thing was, when I actually met him in person, I felt zero attraction to him—and not because of his face. I just didn't feel anything. Even as a potential friend, I felt a sense of embarrassment around him. Today, I wouldn't want him as a friend either. He was intelligent and kind, but I just wouldn't have felt comfortable. Honestly, looking back, I didn't even want to be friends with most of the people who rejected me back then.

In those very days when he rejected me, , he started dating another girl from the same forum. She was the classic "my life is terrible and I don't know why so I'll say I hate myself" type. At first, they kept their relationship secret, but eventually, they were open about it on the boards and at forum meetups. Reading those threads now, it's clear he was completely desperate for her—constantly posting about how she was the best thing that ever happened to him and how deeply in love he was. Meanwhile, she played the "beautiful, troubled girl" role, constantly pushing him away claiming she loved him but would hurt him so she begged him to give up on her. while everyone else commented on her posts saying, "We saw how much he loves you—give yourself a chance to be happy!" She was so messed up for no reason and practically begged him to give up on her but he wouldn't. No one literally cares about anything as long as the girl is pretty.

Even then, I'm not sure I fully grasped that the difference was my appearance. Yes, I was that stupid.

While other people on the forum wrote about how much they hated themselves, I was the opposite: I wrote that I genuinely appreciated my own personality, which was why I couldn't understand why no one wanted to be my friend. How is it possible that I didn't realize the one thing driving people away was my clearly visually different face? It's like my brain was missing a p part. I realized that it is something irrational out of my control, I realized my personality wasn't the problem, but I still didn't see the whole picture and kept making a fool out of myself. with people I wasn't even interested in.

I watched a video of a trans girl talking about being bullied in school. All the comments focused entirely on how pretty she is. One person wrote, "She is so pretty, it's a shame she goes through that." A rare voice replied: "And if she was ugly, she would deserve it?" The first person simply answered, "Yes."

In another video, a parent talking about her transgender child admitted that if her child (when her child was a female) weren't so conventionally attractive, she would have no problem "giving her up" as a girl.

Even here, in this sub, you constantly see posts where women share experiences of being mocked or harassed, only for the comment section to respond with, "But she is pretty! How could anyone mock her if she isn't ugly?"—completely missing the entire point.

It reveals a terrifyingly ingrained societal baseline: ugly equals bad, and pretty equals good. Even though it makes no logical sense—since none of us choose the bodies we are born into—the entire world still revolves around this cruel metric. It is so sad.

I often hear that women tend to be more envious and sometimes more hateful with one another than men are, especially when it comes to looks. Because I stand on the outside of these social dynamics, I don’t have a definitive personal observation, and I don't know if that's true. However, from what I have seen, if this competitive envy is real, it seems to be more about tangible achievements—like career or academic success—rather than physical beauty. While a beautiful woman might draw some jealousy, she also draws genuine admiration, which usually outweighs the envy in the end, and eventually they become good friends with her. Of course, when that jealousy comes from the wrong kind of people, it can easily cause some problems.

Do you agree with the stereotype that women tend to envy each other or to be more negative with each other more than men do? And do you think that beauty as a factor can lead to envy, but that the admiration these women have for the beautiful woman they envy usually overrides this envy? Do you think that women's friendships are often more toxic, or is it just a stereotype?

Men and women alike care and notice female beauty but not so much about male beauty. Bad looking men can behave horribly and society doesn't restrain them most of the time, while never taking it from a bad looking woman. Why do think that happens? Is it biological? Social?

It's not all people, but I noticed not-great people (who are not a minority in this world) are only OK with me as long as I look miserable and quiet, and reduce my existence to the minimum possible. The second I raise my head and speak normally, their irritation starts showing up. It's like they can't accept me unless they pity me. It's so messed up.

• I can't think of anything worse than writing something like and get nothing but unexplained downvotes. If anyone can help me understand the downvotes, even in private, I would appreciate it.

I have to remind myself that being avoided like the plague, as if it were the only possible option, is not what other people experience. That it is not normal that no one would even consider to befriend you . That all other people have friends. That other people communicate and reach out to one another all the time, finding connection even when there the others offer them nothing back.

I have to remind myself that when people actively seek to communicate with every single person in my surroundings except me, that is a deliberate exclusion that should surprise and hurt me—instead of being the only thing I expect.

I have to remind myself that when other people go to doctors, their objective medical findings are not dismissed and ignored.

I have to remind myself that the families of other sick people do not keep forgetting about their very serious illnesses, and assume that these sick people don't leave the house by choice.

I have to remind myself that when other people fall ill—even with conditions that pale in comparison to mine—they actually receive empathy instead of irrational accusations and unexplained annoyance.

I have to remind myself that it is not normal to be immediately anonymized or antagonized, and that others do not have to behave flawlessly or remain perfectly quiet just to receive a baseline level of respect.

I have to remind myself that when a doctor looked at me and said, "You annoy me, I just want to slap you," that was a violation that should have shocked and hurt me—instead of something so routine that my brain barely noted it and forgot it the very second it was uttered.

The sheer depth of what it means to inhabit a completely different body is something no book I ever write will begin to describe.

I have to remind myself that being avoided like the plague, as if it were the only possible option, is not what other people experience. That it is not normal that no one would even consider to befriend you . That all other people have friends. That other people communicate and reach out to one another all the time, finding connection even when there the others offer them nothing back.

I have to remind myself that when people actively seek to communicate with every single person in my surroundings except me, that is a deliberate exclusion that should surprise and hurt me—instead of being the only thing I expect.

I have to remind myself that when other people go to doctors, their objective medical findings are not dismissed and ignored.

I have to remind myself that the families of other sick people do not keep forgetting about their very serious illnesses, and assume that these sick people don't leave the house by choice.

I have to remind myself that when other people fall ill—even with conditions that pale in comparison to mine—they actually receive empathy instead of irrational accusations and unexplained annoyance.

I have to remind myself that it is not normal to be immediately anonymized or antagonized, and that others do not have to behave flawlessly or remain perfectly quiet just to receive a baseline level of respect.

I have to remind myself that when a doctor looked at me and said, "You annoy me, I just want to slap you," that was a violation that should have shocked and hurt me—instead of something so routine that my brain barely noted it and forgot it the very second it was uttered.

The sheer depth of what it means to inhabit a completely different body is something no book I ever write will begin to describe.

I’ve noticed that I am consistently met with a bored, unenthusiastic expression, and after reflecting deeply on it, I realize it stems entirely from my appearance. It doesn't matter what I say, what topic I bring up, or how I phrase it—I am always forced to stumble through an unbreakable wall of dead, turned-off faces. Some people project it subtly, while others are overt.

I see it frequently with the children in my family; one niece in particular embodies this perfectly. She avoids me like everyone does, but when we are forced to have interactions, it's always like that. No matter what I say, she responds with a blank lack of enthusiasm. Out of nowhere, she will burst into fake laughter in the middle of a completely normal interaction (when I wasn't trying to be funny) or offer nonsense comebacks to basic questions, all while maintaining completely standard conversations with everyone else. She is, of course, just one example of a universal pattern.

This has led me to a definitive realization: this performative boredom is a half-conscious tactic used to express the structural contempt people feel toward me because of my looks. Actively displaying boredom and deliberately forgetting details about a person is an act of profound disrespect. It functions as a penalty for a manufactured social crime: "You are failing to entertain me. You can not hold my interest." The explicit goal of this behavior is to make the target feel humiliated. For me, this passive erasure is far worse than outright anger. Being preemptively and unnecessarily bored by someone is the ultimate way to enforce a hierarchy—it perfectly matches and reinforces the inferior social status assigned to a highly unconventional-looking person.

I was born into the reality of being completely rejected, and as a child and even later I was always especially concerned of being severely bullied or insulted publicly, that I didn't have the mental space to notice how I have always been so naturally disrespected.

I remember a girl from school. I was her "friend", or though I was, for a while. She wasn't a bad person in general, but she definitely wasn't any friend, and she profoundly disrespected me. She was very indifferent when talking to me, didn't look at me when I spoke. When I tried to call her once in a while after school, she sounded bored and gave me one word answers. And she also made everything about me seem like a joke. When I sometimes told her about insults I had heard regarding my looks, she laughed. She would also sometimes mock my appearance in one on one, making it sound like a thoughtless joke.

At some point, our mutual "friend" cut me off from her life in a harsh and unpredictable way. When I went to confront her about it, this girl I'm talking about just stood there, looking amused. She didn't care how awful what this girl did to me was. It was a meaningless joke to her, something she wouldn't even remember minutes after. She didn't see me as a human.

The sad thing is that because she, as opposed to others, didn't formally cut me off or deliberately stopped talking to me later, I actually considered her my best social interaction. I didn't even think she shouldn't make fun of every bad experience I had or my appearance, or to be so indifferent when we were talking. Only now, I realize it was messed up.

That's just a really minor example. 3 other "friends" from school cut me off completely for no reason other than my looks and my poor social status, in a terrible way. I remember another new girl who was very friendly and immediately became friends with all of the girls, but when once when I stood in the middle of the class she rudely said "girl, move away from the board". Another one, when needed to ask me something, gazed at me with disgust to the point of hate and said slowly, "I don't know your name."

The hostile, disgusted looks, the occasional starrings, the unfriendly treatment from men, the hostile gazes from women, not to mention people laughing to my face. This profound and natural dehumanization. I try to fight it and at least look more confident, but I'm not sure it can help.

I don't know if any of you experienced or witnessed it, but a lot of times people who have an unconventional physical appearance are automatically labeled as "mentally unwell". I look unconventional, and have been told or assumed to be "mentally unwell" (or just 'weird') my whole life, especially by doctors I went to for my physical problems, and who were thrilled to determine my symptoms are "mental" and to send me to a psychiatrist based on the the way I look. The psychiatrists, who are, of course, even dumber, saw me and immediately put me in the system, again, for physical symptoms alone.

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On the other hand, I've known people who look fine and express all kinds of behaviors that others might consider "problematic," and no one sent a physicatrist after them (not that I think that they *should* have sent those people a psychiatrist or rush them to see one). Of course, that's not to say that there are no good-looking people who become victims of physiciatry.

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I think that there is a strong correlation between people with unconventional, unattractive appearance to the likelihood of being wrongfully labeled as having "mental problems, by psychiatrist, psychologists and people in general. I've experienced it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

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In my level of isolation, both because of my looks and also because of my health, every little experience that everyone has seems like living on Mars to me. But sometimes, hearing about simple, basic things gets under my skin.

I used to know a person who had a relative who, for a short while, struggled with a certain mental difficulty. This girl is also beautiful-faced and very beloved and social. Her relative once complained to me on how terrible her struggle was, and mentioned, "I see her eyes rolling with exhaustion after a taxing social encounter."

So there's me, suffering life threatening illnesses that have made my life an unimaginable living hell since my teen years and doctors literally refusing to properly treat me and sending me away, and who never had any friends regardless because of my unfortunate face, and have nothing but utter rejection and doctors' malpractice memories to relive in my head, and then there are people who don't struggle with major, ongoing difficulties yet the world pauses and helps them when they suffer anything minor, and their only problem is having too many people to meet in "a taxing social encounter".

There are other things. When I hear about people sleeping over at their friend's house, it makes me sad. Or hearing about intimate parties. I'm not even sure that the kind of people I'd want as friends exist, but if they do, I'll never get to sleep at their house or go to their intimate parties. And that's sad.

The nerve. First she breaks them up, then when she sees Rory and Lorelai are angry for this minor thing of breaking up her daughter's relationship because the man she chose wasn't rich, she goes to Luke - not to apologize, of course, but to order him to get back with Lorelai so she will keep coming to Friday night dinners. Then, when Luke refuses to follow her instructions, she is in shock, how the "filthy dinner owner" dares to disobey her demands about his own relationship.

She didn't understand what she did wrong. I was happy that Rory was cold to her in the first dinner after what happened and told her she czn't pretend Emily didn't try to break her mom and Luke. And Richard isn't better. Awful.

It's a consensus that he was problematic in season 7, but what did you think of his character in seasons 4-5?

Edit: if you are downvoting, that means you are agreeing with the daughter's behavior? I'm really curious, do you think that is how it should be?

I know someone who has been going through a severe mental breakdown lately. This man has an adult daughter for whom he has sacrificed everything. Throughout her life, he has essentially "slaved" for her in ways most couldn't imagine—worrying himself sick over her smallest problems and making every life choice based on her well-being. He has been preoccupied with her and her well-being every single day.

In return, she has always been rude and indifferent toward him. She never cared about him (and others outside her social circle), consistently prioritizing her own comfort above all else. Because he feared her withdrawal, he refrained from ever addressing her selfish behavior or her rudeness; he knew that if he spoke up, she would stop talking to him, and he couldn't bear the thought of losing her.

Now that she has moved out, it's even more glaring. Despite knowing he is in a serious crisis, she hasn't reached out once even just to check on him. She only calls when she needs something; once she gets it, she disappears. It is devastating to see, especially since he continues to help her even while he is in such a dark place.

Regardless of the father-daughter bond, he is a human being who has cared for her deeply. Isn't it normal to expect some level of reciprocity? He still doesn't realize how unhealthy this relationship is, even feeling guilty for being a "bad father" because he is having a mental crisis, though like I said, he continues to always be there for her. This lack of basic empathy is heartbreaking. Please raise your children to be good people—you may need their kindness someday.

 

There is a profound sadness in witnessing the 'worship' of beautiful people, mostly women. We watch people orbit around them, scramble to protect them and tolerate their worst behaviors, yet it’s clear it is not real: If you were to replace the face, the social environment would shift 180 degrees instantaneously. It reveals that the 'friendships' and 'protections' aren't for the person, but for the image. In the end, it’s a dishonest exchange: one side trades their dignity for proximity to beauty, while the other trades their character for unearned praise.

How does it make you feel? I know how it's sounds, but it's actually sad. Do you find it more annoying or more pathetic?

I had a few examples of people in my past who "gave me a chance" for a somewhat friendly interaction, and I thought we could become friends, but very shortly afterwards they didn't want to interact with me anymore (it's important to emphasize that they were a very few people, the grand majority always rejected me in advance and wouldn't even give me that, without denying that it's because of how I look).

You would think that these few cases prove that with these people, my appearance is not what made them reject my friendship, because if that was the case, they wouldn't have that short interaction with me. But it's not how it is.

One example is of a girl who studied with me.We spoke for like 3 or 4 times, and our last conversation wasn't so fun and fluent and I didn't come up with a lot to talk about. From that and on, she never spoke to me again and clearly avoided interacting with me when we met later. On the surface, it wasn't my appearance that made her avoid me, it's the fact that she found me boring. However, I think my appearance is what made her (and the others I'm talking about) take such a strong decision to avoid me completely for the rest of their lives.

Even if you find someone very boring, you can still have an occasional short conversation with them once in a while. I see people do that. Not to mention the fact that non-ugly people can be boring and not fun in any way to begin with, and people don't avoid them for that. It's like the uglier you are, the little leeway you are given. You have to always be entertaining and upbeat and bring up topics of conversation, and if you don't, that's an excuse to never speak to you again . And if it's not that, they'll hold on to anything else as an excuse for that.

So looks don't only affect first impression. It's a continuous impression, and when you are ugly enough, it's being held to standards no one else does, when the purpose of it is to avoid interacting with you. It's not like most people see me and shout "oh ugly!" and run away. The reaction can sometimes be more complex, but it's essentially the same one.

To anyone who read it:

Did you understand that Julia Snide posed as a boy to Leon too? Or did he know she was a girl? He refers to her several times with offensive names for homosexuals, so I understood that she made him believe she was a boy.

And do you think that the fact the interactions with her father are also written in masculine form is for the purpose of misleading the readers, meaning that the father did refer to Julia as female but the writer changed it, or did her father talked to her as she was a male?