Ugly -- it isn't a bad thing...

I wrote someone a letter in which I referred to myself as ugly and they called tonight to assure me that I wasn't and I shouldn't feel bad about myself.

I don't know if I ever got my feelings about it across because I was taken aback by the call. I hadn't meant it in a bad way.

Beauty is frequently something people talk about, a symmetrical face, slightly larger than average eyes, smooth features, nothing TOO big or TOO small, proportional to itself and each other, a lack of blemishes or wrinkles, but that last one's not an absolute. We, as a society have an opinion on what beauty is.

Beauty is often talked about and studied, and I'll say I appreciate beauty in a person and beautiful things as well, but often things and people that are considered beautiful lack what I would call character. They're a bit bland. It's not that they're TOO pretty... although, some people are... it's that they're simply beautiful and there's nothing that memorable about beauty.

My nose is too big, too long, too broad. It doesn't go straight, it's a bit off-center. I have thought wrinkles, permanently over my nose that give me something of a scowling appearance. My lips are to thin. My chin too wide. My eyes, when I smile practically vanish. My forehead doesn't know when to stop and I have spots. I'm NOT beautiful. Enough is wrong that I'd say it's ugly. I'm no Quasimodo, but I don't have any delusions about how I look objectively.

That being said I don't think that's an insult. I don't think it's a bad thing. People say, "Oh, you can't say someone is gay because it's an insult..." Well, only if you think being gay is bad which says something, doesn't it? Calling someone who is fat, fat isn't insulting. Calling someone who is ugly, ugly isn't an insult. (I wouldn't do any of those things. It's rude.)

I don't think how ugly a person is exactly related to how attractive they are. That's the confusion. The assumption that an ugly person can't be attractive is common and wrong. I know people find me attractive. I know I find people who aren't by any definition of the word "beautiful" very attractive.
There's a lot involved in how someone looks. Me? I look different in a photograph than I do in real life when I'm talking to someone. The photo shows all the ugly fixed on paper, or on a screen, and that's fine. It's objectively true and it's definitely there.

What a photo doesn't show is me leaning forward to hear something someone is saying when I'm interested in them or what they're saying. It doesn't show me laughing. It doesn't show how my whole body moves when I laugh. It doesn't show any of the stuff that is actually me. My personality is animated. It's broad gestures and lots of laughing. That's who I am. That's what people find attractive. My face? Not so much. A dating app where all I had to show someone before they decided to swipe left or right? I'd be doomed. But, put me in a room of people and generally, I'll do okay. They don't notice how I look, and later, when they saw a picture of me at the event, they'll inevitably say, "Oh, that's not a very good picture of you is it?"

Well, sadly, it is... that's how I look, but it's not what people tend to remember about me. And, honestly, I'm okay with it.