Sorry, but I've never seen anything like this happen after high school. Attractiveness is respected, especially if you can keep or improve it as you begin to age.

>Please dont mutilate your face like a south korean teenager.

If you're referring to the eyelid surgery, it's not THAT kind of eyelid surgery.

My intuition is that at the deformed end of the spectrum, any improvement is going to be 99% positive and that it starts to become more of a mixed blessing as you approach perfection.

(For the record, I try very, very hard to treat everyone equally, since the influence that attractiveness has on human behavior is something that I'm aware of and think about constantly. Hence this discussion.)

I myself consider to be really intelligent and even attractive, although my interest in relating with people is really low and thus it's difficult for me to interact with strangers. I'm bad at this kind of intelligence that makes you good at human relations.

After reading the article, I can sort of see where the problem lies. Judging people does no good. =D

These two sentences are all the evidence required to conclude that your issue is not your looks. They reek of a superiority complex, victim mentality, and a complete lack of understanding and respect for other people and their life experiences. Very unattractive. No wonder people want to tear you down.

You can keep blaming your looks and other people for your failings, or you can do some serious reflection and tackle the very uncomfortable truths you've been avoiding about how you show up, interact, and perceive yourself and others.

Wake up. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

One of the ugliest men I know is also the most attractive to others (yes both sexes): confidence, warmth, a dash of rascality and a great sense of vitality and fun.

People want poetry in their lives...not to admire each other's perfect eyelids.

Being fun and energetic trumps 'attractiveness' any day in social situations. Of course, good looks help, but it isn't the only weapon in the game.

I'm actually really interested in why you feel this way, if you could go into more detail.

- There's the stereotype that attractive people are boring/dumb/narcissistic since they can use their attractiveness as a crutch. I am definitely guilty of passing this judgement on people.

Heck, millions of people met at work and finally got married.

And, no, flirting is not the same as harassment.

I worked in hospitality (bars/restaurants) for a decade before moving into tech. Working behind "the stick" you get to witness a lot of human interaction. @jaequery may feel more comfortable around people who are not Brad Pitt look-a-like because he/she doesn't have judge them (that much) and, hence, does not have to worry about their conversant judging them back.

Attractiveness, in general, is really useful in the beginning of meeting a stranger. Most folks will judge another within 3-5 second and create a mental model of that person. As the model forms, there are basic assumptions that take place, such as: "they are a threat", "wow, she is attractive", "he seems cool", etc. Most will use simple adjectives as concreteness to anchor the stranger to something familiar.

Usually, after the initial assumptions are made, you move on. However, if you decide to talk to the other person, then, other mental models start popping up.

During the initial introduction, both parties are constantly judging each other, starting with the most basic (are their eyes clear, is their hair cut, are their shoes polished or clean, watch, jewelry, etc.). Once both parties are comfortable, the model changes. Most people will start using adverbs to describe the person (he has an exciting life, she's traveled everywhere, the couple is very friendly).

As all of this occurs, we are also judging ourselves; this is what sets folks apart from being comfortable with speaking to others (or in public) while others loose their shit.

It seems, from my experience, that while this whole social game is playing out, some folks just don't give a crap about the other person's "top-level" traits and attempt to engage the other person's actual personality. This particular quality is found in people who are "cool" or friendly with everyone. The engagement becomes very personal and disarming. I believe this is why @jaequery feels comfortable around certain people: he/she is trying to get to this point and engage the "inner-onion" of the person, instead of the top skin level stuff.

What's even more interesting is that the single separation of why women are way more comfortable meeting people then men is because of their mental model of people. Women are socially approached from a young age: being asked to the school dance, movies, then dates...while still in JHS or HS. By the time they graduate college, they've seen hundreds or thousands of guys and have built strong mental models of people. On the other hand, most guys are terrified of approaching another person because of rejection and hence do not have enough "hours" in developing mental models.

I believe this is also a major part of "Mother's Intuition". That intuition is built upon a large cache of real world models that they apply and can see through the BS.

Anyway, sorry for the long post.

In any case, most girls are not approached from a young age by hundreds or thousands of guys thou. Only few very super popular girls are like that. Tomboy girls also have a lot of experience of talking with guys, but only in their group of friends, hardly hundreds. Both groups are not even close to being majority of girls.

Less then super popular girls exist, really :).

A very small fraction of the guys may be doing the talking with the majority of the girls.

Adding to it, introverted and shy girls exist too and those often end up not talking to hundreds of guys even when those attempt to approach them. These girls will likely hide themselves in a room when such thing may happen.

Now, if we are talking about opposite sex, then that's a whole another type of conversation.

So, with that assumption, if you were able to wake up tomorrow morning and be on par with a "Brad Pitt" lookalike, how do you think that your reaction to interacting with them would change? What about with the other group of people that you currently prefer to engage with? After thinking about that, would you still prefer that things remain as they are?

>Now, if we are talking about opposite sex, then that's a whole another type of conversation.

This matters too, of course, unless you don't plan to interact with them at all in a professional environment :)

It is usually much more important to carry yourself as attractive than to be beautiful. Confidence, honesty, friendliness, integrity, etc all can be assumed by a picture of a beautiful person, but in practice it's body language that portrays these qualities better. In addition, things like humor and other tips in the article can control someone's impression much more than looks.

Make yourself hot if you want. But if you're still insecure or unhappy inside, it's going to come off as unattractive. (Unless you then act more alpha as a defense mechanism to this... Behavior is complicated)

What makes you think that I'm insecure or unhappy to begin with? I see this as an investment in myself.

And both your personality and your face get used to these mental dispositions and settle into them. So eventually we all get the face we deserve.

And in terms of speech, I think it's much more how you say it than what you say.

For example, it took me a lot of years to realize why men where constantly bragging about their lives when I first met them. Initially I thought that this is common, that everyone does it. But it turns out that they do it because I'm good looking and they feel disadvantageous, even if I downplay the way I look. Imagine how it feels if pretty much everyone you meet comes with you with a fake personality. It wears you down and makes relationships too difficult.

Where is this coming from?? I'd argue the opposite of this, if anything.

(I'm certainly not claiming that this bias is valid.)

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/04/04qfunhouse.phtml

  Be Handsome..
  Be Attractive..
  and Don't Be Unattractive.

1. attractive is relative. Many, of not most people who are not considered attractive are also not considered unattractive. Just average, like most other people. Being average in looks can be compensated for in many other ways. I know many people who think they're unattractive when they're perfectly average. 2. I believe a strong confounding (or mediating?) variable is confidence and 'niceness'. Pretty people experience less bullying, more positive interactions, etc., which in turn makes them more confident and 'nice' (no need to hate the world, so to speak), which then makes them more attractive. Some of the most popular, nice, successful people I've known were far from attractive, but they were confident and nice. Or even just confident.

On a separate note, I'd warn people (as someone to whom people have always freely talked) it can be a bad thing! You might not see this, and I understand that a lot of people here struggle socially, but it can be terrible to be a "go-to" person. If it's your friends and family, it's a good thing most of the time, but how about in a large or casual group?

The old, the infirm, the lonely... they're the first to realize that I'll be polite, listen, and engage. Sometimes they latch on, and it can be exceedingly difficult to shake them off without hurting them. Then, the crazy people and the broken people sense compassion and an ear, and they come running.

To paraphrase a comedian's description of cleavage, being someone that people love to talk to does not discriminate. Sure, you attract the people you want to attract, but you attract EVERYONE ELSE too. It can be exhausting...

But all this just doesn't fly in much smaller places such as a small town. Other factors rise to be at least equally important, such as both semantic and emotional honesty.

Don't buy it off Amazon, you're likely to get counterfeit product, and it's also much cheaper in stores.

I personally left shortly after that, but I spent a lot of time wondering why two obviously superior solutions to real problems were ignored. The dev in question was charming, handsome, spent a lot of time worrying about his looks and was a smooth political operator.

Look and impressions matter more. This is just one of many stories, and it is the primary driver behind me setting up my own shop years ago. I cannot stand this kind of idiocy.

> was a smooth political operator

This is it right there. It doesn't matter so much how attractive he was. If he can do politics, it's game over for everyone who can't.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/17/candid... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/opinion/sunday/health-beau... http://web.mit.edu/polisci/people/faculty/documents/Lawson%2... http://www.macleans.ca/society/science/the-mysterious-power-...

Objectively, its a big advantage to being good looking, once you get past your own biases of not wanting to believe it.

I really got a strong dose of truth in highschool. I got tired of getting picked on and being out of shape in freshman year. I was a loner and a punching bag for kids having a bad day.

I started exercising to stop people from bothering me. I still kept to myself and maintained my outsider status at first, but it didn't last long. The swimming and wrestling coaches wouldn't leave me alone by junior year, and soon after they noticed everyone else did to.

The attention I got from being in shape and attractive was extreme and foreign to me. There was maybe a year lag time that I associate with everyone consciously forgetting who I used to to be. After that, shit got real.

I started getting attention from the popular kids even though I maintained my "loner" friends. I suddenly had several groups of friends that didn't want to be seen around each other.

I was asked to join several sports, and in my senior year I gave in. Once I broke through to sports my popularity was official, and I started getting invites to the richest most popular people's parties.

The craziest part of the attention was the girls. I got groped by women all the time. Women would openly comment on how attractive I was fairly often. Sometimes women in public would catcall me. My mom's friends would openly try to set me up with their daughters. On more than one occasion while drinking, girls I knew but had never touched would literally jump on me and start making out.

And before you think I'm too much of a douchebag, I'm overweight and rather old now. A lot of people will say "it's all confidence" but I'm just as confident as I ever was. Now that I'm not attractive and older it's just called "disgruntled".

It's hard to tell anyone that has been attractive that attractiveness is not important. I've seen it for myself.

I also had a similar story as you, except when I joined the football team and hung out with the cool kids, I didn't give a shit what anyone said about my old friends and went back to hang out with them. They were good people and their company never accompanied snide remarks about your choice of clothing, music, etc.

One thing I've learned is being the cool guy give you this amazing ability to actually conversant with many different groups and bring people together. That particular ability will earn you way more social browny points then anything else. It will also make you happy, because people will be happy to see you because of you, not because of how you look or who you hang out with.

Just my 2 cents. Who knows, I could be wrong.

> I also had a similar story as you, except when I joined the football team and hung out with the cool kids, I didn't give a shit what anyone said about my old friends and went back to hang out with them.

I'm not sure what you think you did differently to OP.

You don't think the same shallow people judging your looks will judge your plastic surgery?