Vanity Question: Did you ever consider yourself good looking, or conversely, ugly? [View all]

Last edited Thu Oct 24, 2024, 04:23 PM - Edit history (1)

I had a friend, a real good looking guy - a real friend - who tried to pick me up when I was really, really, really down on myself, who said he wished he looked like me. It was a long time ago, but I remember it because it seemed so weird. I felt - and a part of it was psychological - extremely ugly, extremely unattractive, although if I look at pictures from that time of my life, I was sort of average looking, if unkempt from poor grooming habits.

Anyway, with gentle praise and advice, that guy saved my life. We've drifted apart, but I will never exhaust my gratitude to him for what he did in that time and place.

Lately, as my life winds down and I reflect on it, I've taken to looking at pictures of my wife from early in our marriage, and in one or two, I don't look entirely bad, but to tell the truth, in those pictures that really capture her beauty in which I also appear, I tend to crop myself out using imaging tools. I like them better that way, without me.

Now, when I'm photographed, I feel I look like Mr. Potatohead, which is not to insult a fresh Mr. Potatohead, but one made after the Potato has been stored in the closet too long, left out in the rain, or in the sun.

I had to give a talk on line recently, and I had to ask my assistant in preparing for it with a picture, if we could find any picture that was remotely appealing. (She's a good kid, and managed to get something not entirely indecent by making me laugh when taking new pictures.)

One of the remarkable things about my wife, which I never really understood, was that among women that beautiful in a purely physical way, she had no trace of vanity; knowing her well, I understand that too, was psychological; her emotional state when I first knew her didn't admit to beauty in herself, although it did among us puerile men.

And I do think that many people have experienced, as I have, thinking a person beautiful when first seeing them until something about them focused one's attention on their physical flaws and makes them less attractive, or conversely, someone who seemed plain until they came to be seen as extremely beautiful because of something in their manner.

I'm interested to know how people felt about their appearance and more importantly, how they felt about their physical appearance was affected by their psychological state.