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ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady
Now everyone keeps saying, "looks matter," and a person must be "physically attractive." Only a few seem to have the sense to add, "to me," to that last statement.

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ORIGINAL: GreedyTop
Hmm. The THEN me was also the one that was concerned about how I appeared (physically) to others!

(not saying ANY of that applies to anyone else.. just something I twigged to just now about myself...)

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ORIGINAL: GreedyTop

I've BEEN the girl that folks say "why the fuck is he with HER?? She's ugly!/not arm candy/etc" about. Several times. Obviously, the guys I was with at those times found SOMETHING about me that was appealing, and as they all said at some point or another, it was as I said earlier: the longer they knew me, the better they got to know me, the more attractive I was to them..

a couple of the guys said what got them about me wasnt so much my looks as it was my sense of humor/intelligence/and such. There was SOme physical attraction, obviously (and, tbh, I think it was that I found THE GUY attractive, and let them know that).

oh, and I have a great ass ;)

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ORIGINAL: LillyBoPeep
How much do you want your looks to matter to people you meet?

Not much. If i were hot chick, i might feel differently, but i like to believe i wouldn't. When i was little i used to feel really bad about not being pretty. i still feel that way sometimes, but other times i feel like i lucked out. Pretty people often don't know who their friends are, and i never doubt. Probably would have done something for my self esteem, though. It's more like: i wish i lived in a society where looks didn't matter so much, rather than i really wish other people thought i was pretty.

You want your partner to be attracted to you, but not to the point where they would leave you if you were disfigured, or as the natural aging process takes a toll -- how do you determine the balance?

Pick people who are attracted by a wide variety of looks, and not just one.

Have you ever found yourself associating something negative with an unrelated yet undesirable physical attribute?

i don't think so, not consciously at any rate. Unless you consider being uncoordinated to be a physical attribute. i do tend to associate lack of coordination with lack of intelligence. For the rest, i don't think so. Actually, i think i'm far more likely to make the opposite mistake, and make negative judgements against people who are dressed too well, or are too good looking.

Do you think there is a difference between the genders in the way this comes out? Like you hear "well men are visual creatures," but I've known plenty of very appearance-minded women who say that looks don't matter to them, and yet they do. I'm not sure there's all that much of a difference, really.

Oh, i think there is. i believe that men have a stronger visual component to their sex drive.

The majority of people aren't the top 1% of super attractiveness, I think it's okay to accept that about yourself, but like the first article says, people do swoop in to "rescue" you from that kind of thinking -- that somehow thinking you may not be the hottest thing on the block is wrong and destructive to you, even if you really aren't. It doesn't mean you aren't still awesome. =p

That's what bothers me about ultimate makeovers, What Not to Wear, etc. The implication that if you're not good looking, there's something wrong with you, and you really need to do something about it.

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ORIGINAL: Kaliko
I love "What Not to Wear." I don't watch makeover shows per se, but that show has a little more depth to it, I think.