“I Know I’m Ugly” said my friend who was the only one who thought so

Why our notions of beauty are broken

Photo by Drew Graham on Unsplash

I have never seen an ugly person.

And no, I’m not face-blind.

Nor am I trying to pull some feel-good crap about how everyone should love themselves, that we’re all beautiful.

The truth is, I recognise beauty. I can discern it. I can consciously note someone having good features, or being attractive.

What I do not register, is someone being ugly.

Who decides ugly?

I can be attracted to people, but I don’t consider people who I am not attracted to as ugly, or even unattractive. Nor have I ever used those types of words to describe myself.

This may seem a pretty mild thing to say in writing, but my friends and family have nearly almost disagreed about this. What’s always surprised me, is the derision in their voices when talking about someone they consider “ugly”.

I remember back in secondary school, as a young teen, one of my friends told me that she ‘knew’ that she was ugly. And that, apparently we think we’re even uglier than we think we are, so she was probably even uglier than she thought she was.