alliekat asks: Everybody tells me that I am very pretty. And I was on Instagram and I posted something and a guy said that I was very ugly. I didn’t know how to handle it. How should I handle it?
Hi alliekat –
Isn’t it just amazing? If a person is told a thousand times that they’re smart, and one person just once says that they’re dumb, they’ll instantly forget the thousand comments and remember the one. Similarly, you’ve always been told you’re pretty, but one guy said you’re not, and it’s thrown you all off. Brains are weird, aren’t they?!
Well, alliekat, I have a couple of reactions to this. The first is that the guy might have been saying his true feelings, but if so – so what! My friend Handsome is a great lover of beautiful women, and absolutely adores the loveliness of all sorts of them. But he has never, for the life of him, understood what people get so excited about with the famous woman Paris Hilton. He doesn’t find her particularly pretty (thinks she has lovely eyes, that’s about it), and the second she opens her mouth, he finds her very off-putting. Yet there are others out there who think she’s one of the most attractive, desirable women in the world. Who’s right? No one. It’s all about individual taste.
Do you find Channing Tatum attractive? Most women do, but I’ve heard some who don’t. What about Benedict Cumberbatch, or Bruno Mars? Everyone has their types, and it’s fine if one person doesn’t agree with others on this. It’s all about opinion, there is no fact about beauty.
Now I personally deal with this all the time. I think I’m a very beautiful dog, and people tell me I am nearly every day. Now there’s a little Boston Terrier down the street from me, Dilla. Most people will tell you that Dilla is about as ugly as anything you’d have to scrape off the bottom of a dumpster. Sweet pup, nothing I dislike about him, but downright hideous. But you should see what his humans are like around him. To them, he is the most beautiful being in the history of creation. Are they wrong? Absolutely not. And isn’t it great that different eyes see beings differently? Why it’s even possible that if you met my human, you might not agree with me at all. You might not think he’s the handsomest, smartest, best-sounding, best-smelling person ever born. That’s okay – all that matters to me is how I feel about him, and that I get to stay with him forever.
Now I’m saying all this, based on the idea that that guy told you what he honestly felt. But that’s probably not the case.
Why do I say that? Because of one reason: he posted it on Instagram!
Most humans know people that they think are unattractive. But they would never think of broadcasting their opinion on social media. Simply because they know it would only hurt that person’s feelings! And they have no desire to do that.
But this guy did. He wanted to make you feel bad. And I don’t know the reason for it, but I am sure it has nothing to do with your looks. Maybe he’d just had a bad day and wanted to hurt someone/anyone. Or maybe he was angry at you about something.
Either way, I imagine he thinks you look just fine. Maybe he even has a bit of a crush on you – that’d be very normal (guy is embarrassed about liking the girl too much, so puts the word out that he’s completely Uninterested in her!).
So my advice is to let this wash off of you. Consider what he said completely unimportant. Don’t let it affect you any more than Paris Hilton cares what Handsome thinks of her.
And know that, no matter what, you DO have beauty in you. The joy of that is finding ways to help people see it. If you don’t know where it is, just ask around. Someone in your life will be happy to tell you about the great beauty they see in you – in your face, your body, your heart, your mind, your soul – maybe all of them.
But I wouldn’t expect that guy on Instagram to be the one to tell you. So I’d skip him and find someone else to ask about it!!
And always remember what the song says:
You’ve got to get up every morning
With a smile on your face
And show the world
All the love in your heart…
Then people’re gonna treat you better
You’re gonna find, yes you will
That you’re beautiful as you feel
So feel beautiful, alliekat! Deep down, you know you are!
Shirelle