u/mecthrwaway

There was a thread in this sub titled something along the lines of "I only feel inferior and anxious around people who look better or seem more confident than me".

To anyone who relates to that sentiment, my question is:
How do you guys deal with those situations to suppress that feeling?

How I (unvoluntarily) deal with it:

Ever since I learned about facial anatomy, facial harmony and halo effect, I'm now able to analyze people's faces and can tell why they look attractive or unattractive (or average).
I can also predict how someone will look like in the future as they age.

Most of the time however, when I perceive someone more attractive than me I do this:

If it's someone taller than me, I will solely analyze their facial attractiveness to avoid the halo effect of height. Same thing for muscularity.
If it's a woman wearing makeup, I will imagine how she would look like without it since makeup often emulates attractive features and enhances facial harmony.
If it's a man with a beard, I will imagine how he would look like without one since beards can give off a more aggressive demeanor and hide a weak jaw / chin.
To me, a bare face without makeup/beard is your "true face" for the lack of a better term.

It gets even worse that I will also imagine how people would look like if they were bald because hair can frame your face in a way that completely hides flaws in your upper facial third or changes the perception of all facial thirds.
After all, hair is not essential for survival hence I don't consider it as part of your "true face".

When it comes to people (particularly celebrities) who look more attractive after cosmetic procedures or a general glowup, I will always remember their former appearance.

All of this sounds so cynical or even narcissistic / toxic but basically, I'm trying not to fall for the halo effect and as a result, not to feel inferior and anxious around people.

There was a thread in another sub titled something along the lines of "I only feel inferior and anxious around people who look better or seem more confident than me".

To anyone who relate to that sentiment, my question is:
How do you guys deal with those situations to suppress that feeling?

How I (unvoluntarily) deal with it:

Ever since I learned about facial anatomy, facial harmony and halo effect, I'm now able to analyze people's faces and can tell why they look attractive or unattractive (or average).
I can also predict how someone will look like in the future as they age.

Most of the time however, when I perceive someone more attractive than me I do this:

If it's someone taller than me, I will solely analyze their facial attractiveness to avoid the halo effect of height. Same thing for muscularity.
If it's a woman wearing makeup, I will imagine how she would look like without makeup since makeup often emulates attractive features and enhances facial harmony.
If it's a man with a beard, I will imagine how he would look like without one since beards can give off a more aggressive demeanor and hide a weak jaw / chin.
To me, a bare face without makeup/beard is your "true face" for the lack of a better term.

It gets even worse that I will also imagine how people would look like if they were bald because hair can frame your face in a way that completely hides flaws in your upper facial third or changes the perception of all facial thirds.
After all, hair is not essential for survival hence I don't consider it as part of your "true face".

When it comes to people (particularly celebrities) who look more attractive after cosmetic procedures or a general glowup, I will always remember their former appearance.

All of this sounds so cynical or even narcissistic / toxic but basically, I'm trying not to fall for the halo effect and as a result, not to feel inferior and anxious around people.

How do / will you guys deal with aging?

Soon, I will turn 30 but still feel like a helpless and awkward teenager in most social situations.
Due to my BDD, social anxiety and abusive/overcritical parents), I avoided a lot of interactions with other people which ultimately led to self-isolation throughtout my 20s.
I would have been more accepting of aging if only I had socially developed more normally.

As far as I remember, growing up, people always assumed I was younger than my age which flattered me and took off some of the pressure to act like my actual age (even though I've always acted more serious than my peers). I even remember 8-year-old me saying to my father "I wish time would stop now" as I wished to stay a kid forever.
I never understood why my peers in middle/high school/university wanted to appear older.
The last time someone guessed my age (2 years ago at age 27), they guessed 24 which is still technically younger by 3 years but felt like a shock since I was so used to my teenage image.

The biggest regret I have was to please my parents to study a major at university instead of taking the apprenticeship where I had already laid my interest on as I had done an internship there before.
You can imagine, I struggled as a uni student, both academically and socially, which gave me so much stress that I've visibly aged in my mid 20s.
During the pandemic (in my mid to late 20s), I was able to reverse some of the aging with consistent skincare, cutting out fast food and regular exercising (still need to fix my sleep schedule).

Currently, I'm unemployed which makes me avoid social interactions even more than before.
I fear if people perceive me being my age or older, they will expect me to be a mature, experienced, confident, well-spoken and full-time employed person.
Ironically, I had that same fear back when I turned 18 but now at almost 30, it's more reasonable and inevitable.

Since my late 20s, I do everything I can to appear younger (such as avoiding the sun, wearing sunscreen everyday, wearing only long pants and sleeves in public, avoiding wearing clothes millennials wear, keeping my hair long enough to cover my sunken temples, retinol against fine lines).
Thankfully, I never smoke or do any drugs and don't drink so that also helps I guess.

Nonetheless, as I will enter my 30s, I fear the social expectations and pressure will increase as it will also get harder for me to reverse the aging process.
It sounds super pathetic but realistically, I will never look 18 again but still try to come off as 25 at most.

As a sidenote, I live in a German-speaking country. In the German language, there are two honorifics for "you" which are "du" and "Sie".
When people address you as "du", they are either close to you or they perceive you as someone under 25 (otherwise under 21 / 18 depending on context and people).
When people address you as "Sie" (more formal), it's because they aren't close to you or they perceive you as older than 25 / 21 / 18 (or they aren't sure so they use "Sie" by default).

I still occasionally hear people (cashiers, salespeople) addressing me as "du" (you can imagine I feel flattered when that happens lol).
When someone addresses me as "Sie" my heart always sinks a bit (even more so when that happened when I was still 15-17).

Does anyone else relate?

How do / will you guys deal with aging?

Soon, I will turn 30 but still feel like a helpless and awkward teenager in most social situations.
Due to my BDD (besides social anxiety and abusive/overcritical parents), I avoided a lot of interactions with other people which ultimately led to self-isolation throughtout my 20s.
I would have been more accepting of aging if only I had socially developed more normally.

As far as I remember, growing up, people always assumed I was younger than my age which flattered me and took off some of the pressure to act like my actual age (even though I've always acted more serious than my peers). I even remember 8-year-old me saying to my father "I wish time would stop now" as I wished to stay a kid forever.
I never understood why my peers in middle/high school/university wanted to appear older.
The last time someone guessed my age (2 years ago at age 27), they guessed 24 which is technically younger by 3 years but felt like a shock since I was so used to my teenage image.

The biggest regret I have was to please my parents to study a major at university instead of taking the apprenticeship where I had already laid my interest on as I had done an internship there before.
You can imagine, I struggled as a uni student, both academically and socially, which gave me so much stress that I've visibly aged in my mid 20s.
During the pandemic (in my mid to late 20s), I was able to reverse some of the aging with consistent skincare, cutting out fast food and regular exercising (still need to fix my sleep schedule).

Currently, I'm unemployed which makes me avoid social interactions even more than before.
I fear if people perceive me being my age or older, they will expect me to be a mature, experienced, confident, well-spoken and full-time employed person.
Ironically, I had that same fear back when I turned 18 but now at almost 30, it's more reasonable and inevitable.

Since my late 20s, I do everything I can to appear younger (such as avoiding the sun, wearing sunscreen everyday, wearing only long pants and sleeves in public, avoiding wearing clothes millenials wear, keeping my hair long enough to cover my sunken temples, retinol against fine lines).
Thankfully, I never smoke or do any drugs and don't drink so that also helps I guess.

Nonetheless, as I will enter my 30s, I fear the social expectations and pressure will increase as it will also get harder for me to reverse the aging process.
It sounds super pathetic but realistically, I will never look 18 again but still try to come off as 25 at most.

As a sidenote, I live in a German-speaking country. In the German language, there are two honorifics for "you" which are "du" and "Sie".
When people address you as "du", they are either close to you or they perceive you as someone under 25 (otherwise under 21 / 18 depending on context and people).
When people address you as "Sie" (more formal), it's because they aren't close to you or they perceive you as older than 25 / 21 / 18 (or they aren't sure so they use "Sie" by default).

I still occasionally hear people (cashiers, salespeople) addressing me as "du" (you can imagine I feel flattered when that happens lol).
When someone addresses me as "Sie" my heart always sinks a bit (even more so when that happened when I was still 15-17).

Does anyone else relate?

FACIAL HAIR

I can't stand my (sparse) facial hair and only go out in public when clean shaven because when my "beard" grows out it instantly makes me look older and unhygienic (I always wanted to look younger than I am - even when I was 8 I remember saying to my father "I wish time would stop now" because I wanted to stay a child forever).
Since my mid 20s, I fear some people might also think I'm a drug addict or something if they saw me with facial hair because I'm perpetually skinny (can't gain much weight despite eating at least 2500kcal a day).

When I was 13 (now almost 30) my facial hair started to appear. It began with a sparse moustache and at around 18/19, my chin area also started to grow some hair.
Even back at age 13, I couldn't stand my "beard" and would shave it as soon as I saw those tiny hairs in the mirror.
The next day after the first time I shaved, a classmate asked me straight up out of nowhere "DID YOU SHAVE?!?" while laughing in front of my other classmates and I felt so embarrassed that she noticed. I tried to act confused and said no because I myself still couldn't accept the truth of having facial hair for the rest of my life yet from now on.

At age 16, I discovered K-Pop and seeing the male idols with their perfect, smooth, hairless skin and neotenous faces reenforced my desire to appear youthful for as long as I can.

Fast forward to my 20s and today, my "beard" is still sparse but unfortunately, the individual hairs have become thicker and grow out faster.
This means I now HAVE to shave daily when I go out everyday (I could get away with shaving every 3 days in my teens). The problem is at around afternoon or evening, the stubbles become visible and I feel so disgusted when I see myself in the mirror.
Just recently, I was trying on sunglasses in a store under harsh lighting and was so shocked to see the stubbles very clearly in the mirror that I wanted to leave the store and go home immediately.
(after buying the sunglasses, I wanted to put them on right away to hide my face but realized this would actually emphasize the stubbles even more lol).

I hate that the only way to get a really clean shave without visible stubbles the next day is to let my beard grow for at least 3 days. When I shave daily the skin around my mouth can't recover quickly enough so it's not as smooth as when my skin had enough time to heal.

I know there is a laser procedure to permanently remove facial hair. However, I learned that the philtrum gets longer and flatter with age (even more noticable when the lips get thinner as well, I noticed that with my grandparents and now also my parents).
The only way (for men) to conceal that is to grow a moustache or at least have some stubbles hence I feel the need to keep my facial hair in case my philtrum gets longer with age even though I hate my "beard".

At the same time, I wonder if my beard was more dense now, would I be more comfortable with it grown out to appear more mature and be able to let go of the pretty boy look? (since a more dense, maintained beard always looks better than a sparse one and ironically, my sparse beard makes it easier for me to go for the pretty boy look)

BODY HAIR

I always felt weird about my body hair since I have (thankfully) almost no hair on my upper body (except sparse, thin hair on my arms and armpits) but (sadly) a lot more hair on my legs since the age of 17.
As mentioned above, I've been striving for the pretty boy look since my teens so I felt that body hair didn't suit my neotenous face.
Until two years ago, I used to trim my leg hair with a hairclipper to keep them short but still look natural. I had first tried to shave but I found it super exhausting and the stubbles made it obvious that I shaved, not to mention the bleeding wounds.

Nowadays, I stopped trimming my leg hair after I got traumatized by two mosquito bites on one of my legs which got infected so badly it spread through the whole leg and also affected the other leg and my arms and took about half a year to heal.
I learned that leg hair makes it more difficult for mosquitos to bite and since I always wear long pants and never reveal my body in public anyway, I decided to keep my leg hair (even if it doesn't match my desired pretty boy look).
The thing is I've been single for a while so I will most likely feel pressured to trim my leg hair again once I get intimate with a woman in the future (if at all).

Here's what makes me curious... How the hell do people shave or wax their legs (or body hair in general) on a regular basis???
I'm already bothered enough by my facial and pubic hair, I simply can't fathom how people deal with even more hair.

There are so many other aspects of my body that trigger my BDD but let's just keep this post about facial/body hair.

Does anyone relate to this?

I've been struggling with acne since I was 13 (am almost 30 now) and it took me until my mid 20s to figure out how to get it under control for the most part. Avoiding dairy and irritating skincare ingredients was what drastically improved my skin.

Nonetheless, I still have some hyperpigmentation and some scars from when my late teens and early 20s. I used to scratch off huge cysts on my nose because I was tired of everyone I came across mentioning them. I had no idea about skincare and was so desparate back then.
As a naive skincare beginner, I started off with irritating products making my skin even worse.

My family has been ignorant about my struggles. My parents called me ugly while blaming my acne solely on lack of sleep due to me staying up late doing homework. My late grandma couldn't comprehend that dairy and excessive sugar were the main triggers for my acne. She would insist on me eating her meals and snacks containing a lot of milk and sugar. And when she finally did comprehend, she would then lay another ignorant bomb "So that's why you're so skinny." The truth is I've always been skinny (another BDD topic for me), even back when I was eating a lot of junk food including dairy and sugar.
On another note, my toxic father would also nag "You always take so long in the bathroom! A boy shouldn't spend so much time with cosmetics!" whenever he saw me applying moisturizer / sunscreen.

Nowadays when I see people with clear skin, I can't help but compare my skin texture to theirs.
Why couldn't I learn about proper diet and skincare a lot sooner? Why was I so stupid falling for marketing claims of skincare products back then?
If I had been able to figure out those things in my teens, I could have lived a completely different (as in happier and more social) life since my acne/scars were a big reason why I've been isolating myself for so long.
But even then, I will still live with the anxiety of getting stubborn cysts and scars if I'm not careful enough with my diet and consistent with my skincare.
To this day, I still feel uncomfortable seeing myself in the mirror, especially when the lighting emphasizes my scars and hyperpigmentation.

As a person of Asian descent and living in Europe since birth, I notice how particularly Asian tourists and more recent immigrants have such clear skin that it makes me feel embarassed whenever they walk past me on the streets (even if my skin has improved a lot compared to a few years ago).
Doesn't help when they also stare at me because they didn't expect another Asian person at that place. At the same time, I want to ask them about their diet and what sunscreen they use because I have to resort to cheaper but shinier sunscreens from my local supermarket.
At least, I stopped comparing my skin to celebrities' skin because I realized they have access to all those procedures and wear makeup most of the time.