11. According to u/trufflebuttersale, when people continue to show interest despite you ignoring them, you’re hot.
I’ve had to put less and less effort into conversations over the years.
10. u/HazelNightengale‘s story is the purest thing I’ve ever read.
When I was 16. Had a case of ugly duckling syndrome imposed mostly by external environment. My high school boyfriend was legally blind. He could read text by wearing a thick lens and plastering it to his face, or get up real close. On a date he went almost nose to nose so he could see me…and when he did, his eyes just LIT UP. No faking that. It was very sweet.
9. It’s definitely just you being self-defeating, u/jklingftm.
As a more serious answer to the question, getting my first girlfriend helped a lot. I had no idea before that what about me would have been even remotely interesting to other people, but she was incredibly sweet and affirming and knew exactly what to say to make me feel better about myself. Because of her I started seeing how much progress I’d made socially, how much some of the things I’d been trying to do to get myself in better shape physically were actually paying dividends, stuff like that.
Now that that relationship has ended, I find myself doubting some of those things again from time to time, but I also realize that that could also just be me being self-defeating.
8. u/anonymous_pete never looked like a potato:
When a few of my female friends told me “I used to have such a crush on you in high school. In fact, a lot of girls did.” I never knew about it so I never made any passes at them and went through high school thinking I looked like a potato.
7. Very frank confession from u/amaluna:
So for the purpose of clarity I’m gonna have to do away with any kind of humility.
So I realised I was kind of attractive when people that I thought were attractive seemed romantically interested in me. I wasn’t a good looking or cool kid but when I hit 16 I started getting way more attention from girls that I thought were hot.
When I hit 19 I knew I had become really attractive because (and this is something that I was only able to recognise because I’d seen it happen with a buddy of mine who had always been a good looking guy) people would talk about it (my good looks) as if it were fact or a foregone conclusion. I think that’s when you know someone’s really good looking. When you go out to the club and other guys assume that the hottest girls are interested in you, or girls assume you’ve got a long list of other girls lining up for a date or people say things like “You should be a model”
Another big one from when I was younger (early twenties) was older women and gay men will just straight up say it. I think it’s because they know you’re probably not interested in them so the uncomfortability of rejection is taken off the table so they can be very open but yeah they’ll just blurt it out like it ain’t a thing.
6. u/robotfluff‘s story is another movie plot:
When a guy who incessantly bullied me as a kid for being fat tried to hit on me as an adult. He didn’t recognise me. Turned him down in front of all of his friends. Best feeling ever.
5. This…is depressing…sorry u/Mr5wift:
When I wasn’t attractive any more.
4. Realizing grown men are staring at you as a very young child is unnerving, as u/Tanzanite169 realized.
When I was a kid I never thought of myself as attractive. The boys at school (and the girls!) made it very clear that I was a bucktoothed freak.
We went on holiday to Cape Town December 1998 (I was 13 then) and we were in a restaurant one day after a few days of sun and swimming and I went to the bathroom.
As I was washing my hands I looked up into the mirror and suddenly my face looked different. Guess the tan paid off well against sun-bleached blonde hair. I just stared at myself and wondered if it really was me, I didn’t recognize myself.
Shrugged it off and went back to my family, but I then started noticing that grown-ass men were staring at me. It freaked me out. Boys started wanting to hang out with me on the beach. It freaked me out. I was never HOT, and I never wanted to be. But that was the day I realized that I wasn’t a total troll.
3. Gonna need a follow-up post, u/AlphaAgain:
Very recently.
Was out at a trivia night with a group of randoms from Meetup. The waitress was super hot, and literally ignored the rest of the table whenever she came by.
Asking dude at the end of the table what they wanted to eat while still looking right past them at me, for example.
And then made a point of coming to sit down with me while I finished up my drink after they all left.
That was a nice feeling.
2. Inspirational tale via u/Asmo___deus:
Well, I’m not hot or anything, far from it. But when I got out of a depression, I took a look at myself in the mirror, and said, “Asmodeus, you’re not half bad. You can do this”.
And I did. I’m still single but I no longer feel like it’s because I’m ugly. And it feels great to think this way.
Edit: To clear some stuff up, I did not beat depression just by looking in the mirror. It took months. But that day was the day I actually felt like I was back to normal. To those saying that you can’t get rid to depression… That doesn’t matter. Don’t just accept it. Fight it.
Yes it will come back, eventually, but that doesn’t mean you have to give in. I refuse to be depressed any longer than I have to be, and you shouldn’t either.
1. Hey, u/kenkenkenken, do guys do this too or were they still making fun of me?
When i was a teenager, girls would giggle around me. I thought they were making fun, but one day I was hanging out with a friend and it happened. I wanted to leave, he asked why, then thought I was joking. Brief confusion, sudden realization, total upheaval of my entire paradigm.
Edit for clarity: I wanted to leave because I thought they were making fun of me. He thought I was joking when I said “Those girls over there are making fun of me,” because if I had actually made eye contact I would see that they weren’t looking at me with disdain but with interest.
