brighid

Liana,

You are welcome! It is always difficult to deal with superficial, insecure people who project their inadequecies onto you, and try turning you into the bitch because they fail to acknowledge that their negative feelings have nothing to do with you! I really hate these kind of people. I don't understand that sort of neurotic, obsessive jealousy. I suppose that is a good thing.

Sadly, I know many women (including myself at times) that purposely play down their appearance because of situations around people like this.

Hey, I've had people attracted to me when I am all sweaty, wearing that damned gi ... and I think ... you must be crazy, but if I am floating your boat right now .. OKAY So it's no wonder she is jealous of you then as well. Kill her with kindness (figuratively of course.) As you have found out they really, really hate that!

Brighid

Majestyk

I'd just like to point out, in the midst of this discussion on how tough it is to be beautiful, that Liana's characterization of her behavior has changed from "flirtatious" to "outgoing". The two are not synonymous. If, "outgoing" is the term that best describes the behavior then, most of my comments were not applicable.

Buddrow_Wilson

Pick apart my post all you want, but I wasn't making a moral judgement. Its called working with reality.

Imagine a gay man who is obviously gay and "flaunts it". He is going to get a reaction out of people and would be naive to think he wouldn't. But If he does it anyway because he doesn't think its right that he should be discriminated against for being gay and knows that the more people who are openly gay, the more likely that society in general will accept and get used to them, then I would applaud his effort. Still he would realize that discriminataion is going to occur,

I wasn't implying anything about the way you or any individual dresses, it was just a general statement that applies to human behavior and the known reactions of society.

The message is quite simple: There are behaviors that are known to get certain reactions. If you don't feel those reactions are warranted and are discriminatory, so be it. Yet, you should be aware that those reactions will occur if you perservere in doing the actions.

I meant it to be thought-provoking. Whether it applies to you or not is up to you. However, I would say, in my judgement, its very unlikely that your problems all stem from being physically attractive.

elanah

I thought this was an interesting article relating to the discussion.

christ-on-a-stick

I think that a big part of the problem is that when an attractive woman is outgoing, it is often construed as flirtation by many men (note my intentional avoidance of words like "always", "all" or even "most" )

brighid

Agreed 100%!! I have been told by mother that it appears I am flirting with her older, male friends .... what?????? An outgoing personality on an attractive women is very often deemed as "flirting". Believe me when I am flirting with someone there is no doubt about it, but it is annoying to have enjoyable conversation mistaken (by men and women) as flirting.

Brighid

Goliath

The posts in this thread have given me much to think about....

As an extremely unattractive man, I always thought that beauty would eliminate nearly any social problem that a person could ever have. This thread has taught me differently. To those who have contributed to the thread (especially Brighid, LianaLi, and COAS), thanks.

Sincerely,

Goliath

cheetah

I just thought I'd post a different perspective. I am also widely considered to be beautiful. I have done some modeling, get some stares on the street, etc. However, I usually don't have to deal with too much crap because I am also a total bitch. Well, that's what people think when they look at me. My mom says that I have a permanent mean look. I say That's just the way I look! But I also think it could have been trained after years of being "knocked down" as revenge for both my looks and my smarts (I was also valedictorian and graduated summa cum laude from a top college). I don't know if it's bad or good in the grand scheme of things, but it works for me. When I want to make friends, I smile a lot more and it's helped me to gain many desired friendships. When I'm not interested, I let my face go neutral, aka the mean look. This has been highly effective, though it has left perceptions of me rather polarized. At work, people are either afraid of me/think I am haughty, or think I am a truly gifted professional that is very personable.

If there are times when you'd prefer to reduce the attention given to you, I see no problem with cultivating two personalities, one for people who are your friends/who you want to be friends with and people with whom you'd prefer to have a stroctly business-like relationship (or no relationship at all). no matter your beauty, people respond quickly to body language. I'm not as much of a flirt in general, though, so I can easily resist chatting up people if I choose not to befriend them.

Majestyk

My mother says I smell. My friends say I smell. People I don't know very well say I smell. I don't smell. They all just have a problem with my extraordinary articulation.

LianaLi

Brighid- Maybe, just maybe, if she tried actually being NICE to people, she wouldn't have to complain that I "steal" all her friends. Classic example: We were rehearsing for the women's demo team, that was going to be in the febuary tournament. Our head instructor had to step out of the room for a moment, and left us to practice the demo on our own for a few minutes. Most of the women wanted to rehearse together, move by move, since the demo was with nunchakus. There is safety in coordination with those weapons. Anyways, what does said "friend" do, as the highest ranking woman in the demo? Shuffle off into a corner of the room with her pet student, to rehearse by themselves. So Freddie, the one who knows it best steps up to call out moves, but she's working with foam nunchakus, and the rest of us have metal or wood ones. Needless to say, it didn't work. Wood and foam do not move at the same speed. Eventually, I started calling moves, because she got lost, and my dear, darling friend didn't step up to the plate for helping. Gee, I wonder why she always finds herself isolated like that....

She got it dead on the nail. I have an outgoing, friendly personality. It's such that I don't even bother anymore trying to separate "flirty" behaviour from just friendly behaviour, because apparently, ANY friendly, outgoing, or humerous comments or behaviours I make will be interpreted as flirting and interest. Once, I went with my sister to pick up an order from the restaurant she worked at. While we were there, waiting for our order, she introduced me to her manager, who sat around and chatted for a little bit, before or order came and we left. Afterwards, my sister told me that I was flirting with her manager. What? I was talking to the guy! We made jokes, for crying out loud. As my friends have noticed, I don't single out any one person for this behaviour, I treat everyone with the same sense of humor. For me, this is simply being friendly, for the rest of the world, it's flirty.

Ahhh, so that's what you were saying. I thought you were saying attractive women had to accept the status quo of demeaning labels. Since that wasn't what you were saying, ok. I would say that it's not quite the right analogy- short of physical mutilation, appearances won't change.

Heh. I'll have to work on that. Most people that know me don't take my mean look seriously, which makes it hard for me to take my own mean look seriously. It's funny, I had some friends who tried to teach me how to curse in italian, and their major complaint was that I sounded too nice while doing it. I do have a problem trying to sound or act mean or angry.

-Liana