Letters to the Editor
-
Finally! the aged beautiful get ugly!!!!!!!
Oh please stop whinning about loosing your beauty! From a woman who grew up with a disability that made me look like a freak, Ha, no sympathy for all you physically beautiful people. I had to find my inner beauty...that's what all you swans turning into turkeys will have to do. Get over It and welcome to the cruel real world! You just might find that as your beauty decays and crumbles before your eyes, you just might become a more complex and interesting person, Probably not if your rich and get plastic surgery.
-
Remember yourself at 28
You mention that when you were younger, you used to be afraid of older, powerful women.
Remember that feeling - and then be that person that you were intimidated by. As we age, physical beauty is augmented by confidence, kindness, patience and charisma. You can still be beautiful, but it's a different sort.
-
Am I the only woman who found losing her beauty a bit of a relief?
I'm nearly 40.
I once had the kind of beauty that does *not* help a woman in the workplace or anywhere else, the busty, overly sexual kind that makes so *many* men assume that I have no brains and so *many* women assume I'm after their husbands if I say hello without scowling.
I crossed the 35 line, gained a little weight and a lot of gray hair, tacked on a few crows feet, and suddenly I'm treated like a normal human being!
I kind of feel like, for the first time, if a man likes me, he likes *me*!
-
A male with a similar experience.
Well, I am a man and I have a similar experience than that of LW. But not regarding beauty, but its male equivalent: success, wealth, money ... (you name it).
I have lived for nine years in a Latin American country. I was a very successful expat: I worked as a Director of a University, as a Director of a ministry and had very lucrative jobs. I had this big house and this amazing lifestyle. I received a lot of attention from women -not only sexual attention but all kinds of attention- and admiration from men. So I think that, for a while, I felt the same way that LW has felt all his life.
Eventually I found “the one”, the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We dated and we were engaged for three years. So, since the country was very unstable and we were planning to marry and have children, we decided that I would go back to my developed country, I will got a lifetime civil servant position as a high school teacher and then she will join me to marry me. At the time, this seemed a sensible plan.
OK. So I did all that. I have always been good in studies (a Ph. D and a master) so it didn’t take me long to pass the public examinations and have my lifetime job. After four months of separation, my girlfriend came to my country. We were planning to marry in six months. When she saw that I am an average guy in my country (with a good job, but not rich), she became less and less affectionate with me. I saw the disappointment in her eyes with me and with the country (in developing countries, most people think that developed countries streets are paved with gold). After two months, she dumped me and returned to her country (now she is in France with another guy). Since our break up (a year ago), I entered a deep depression and I have been under antidepressants. I still love her deeply.
The thing is that I am 37 and I am an average guy in my country so I don’t get any attention from women. I am not ugly but I think I am not successful enough to attract single women (women of my age are married because divorce have not touched my generation in my country). I am invisible and, although I have tried to initiate relationships with some women -I try to choose the average ones-, they all have rejected me. But the most striking difference is the way I am looked. Most women don't see me at all and some of them look at me with despise (and I was used to be looked with admiration, hehe).
The thing I miss most is not sex (which I really miss) but company and affection. I am a very affectionate person and I long to have a girlfriend to give all the affection I have, but it seems I have returned to the dark times of the adolescence, when I daydreamed of having a girlfriend.
So, while men categorizes women into a. Beauties like the LW (who get all the attention) b. Average women and c. Awful women, women’s categorization is a. Rich and successful men (who get all the attention). b. Average men and c. Poor men. The book “The Red Queen” explains about the reason for that but it is not any consolation. It's tough to fall from a. to b.
So I will say LW that she should be grateful for her boyfriend. Perhaps she will not get random attention like so far but she has a man who can give her all the love she needs (although more concentrate, hehe)
-
Beauty is Bliss
You (LW) could almost be my sister. She would literally stop traffic--not in a Kelly Bundy sort of way but more like a Beauty and the Beast sort of way. And when I say literally, I mean, men would literally stop their cars in front of us as we were crossing the street to tell her how beautiful/stunning/
magnificent she was. I, the invisible younger sister, did my best not to fume about my seeming transparency but instead waited for the day her beauty would pass.
I think I've always had the prettier face, but as we've grown up, I've grown out. She was a size 4, I was a 14. She dated millionaires and had $500 haircuts, I married my high-school sweetheart and had $30 haircuts. She stopped traffic, I stopped so that I wouldn't get run over by traffic. This is the way life goes. And even though it really sucks that you're losing something you value and something you took for granted, it's really just Karma paying everyone else back for their patience in being in your presence. I know that sounds really harsh, and it's not meant to be, but at some point, the little sister in the shadows gets to have her day in the sun, and the only way for that to happen is for everyone to get onto an even playing field.
Now my sister is married (not to a millionaire), has a muffin top, and is looking older, thanks to her endless days in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, I still get carded (I'm 29, she's 31), people are shocked to find out I'm married with baby and have seemingly come so far in short, short life, and those extra pounds are just extra pounds. Since we're both past the party stage and the husband hunt, they don't seem to matter as much. And now that people can see past her, they see me, and it turns out, they like me better. I'm more down to earth, and they can relate.
So without sounding too harsh, try to get past this and value what really matters in life. And I bet you can even find someone in the shadows you didn't notice so much who has a lot more to offer than you realized.