the art of being ugly

I think the first time I ever had doubts about my appearance was around age 11.

The kids in class kinda started sorting people into prettiness categories, and I was never, not even once, picked by anyone for anything related to being pretty. I was just there. But I was mostly fine with that, because at that time I did not yet feel the need to be pretty, or try to be attractive to guys.

Honestly, I was kinda ugly. Block-like eyebrows (according to some girls in class), glasses, crooked yellow teeth, a lil upper lip hair, slouched posture, always wearing the long blonde unstyled hair in a low ponytail, often greasy, dry skin, baggy clothes to cover up the body as I started to grow b00bies from that age and got ridiculed for it pretty fast, and generally very tomboyish...

But! I passed as not-TOO-ugly because even though most girls ignored me, me and the boys had fun playing Pokemon, battled with Yu-gi-oh cards or beyblades, and sometimes in the afternoon fought toe-to-toe in Smash bros, Tekken or similar fighting games. I even got the famous "yeah, Ani is cooler than the other girls, she's not so dramatic, she's like us" from one of them lol. 

But that changed pretty quickly when the baggy clothes couldn't even cover my curves anymore. Some of the boys started to avoid me because of my body, and some of the girls started calling me weird things to make fun of my C cups (which were mostly only reveiled when we had PE). At the same time I started growing body hair rapidly, and suddenly the jungle on my lower legs became a topic too. That's when I started to shave. Hate it until this day, even though I do like the smooothness of the skin afterwards (which lasts like 1 day before everything gets irritated/inflamed cause the thick and black stubbles push through my skin).

I understood then the topic of outer appearance and it's affect on your surroundings. I thought, maybe if I start to change, people will look more nicely on me.

I tried a few little changes, but that just drew more unwanted attention to me, so I quickly gave up. 

One random fall day after school I went to catch my tram as usual. It arrived and two young boys younger than me surprised me when the door of the tram opened, because they immediately snapped a photo of me. It was the first generation of mobile phones that was even able to take pictures, super bad quality.

They looked at it and started laughing out loud, showed it to me and loudy exclaimed "FRIGGIN UGLY HAHAHAHA" before taking off. I was so taken aback that I couldn't even react, I just boarded the tram. And that was the moment I got convinced I'm super ugly, and there was nothing I could do. Nobody will ever want me, people will want to avoid me. 

I also developed my depression then, a dark friend who will never leave my side, and who I had to learn how to live with.

I then had my Visual Kei phase which was very experimental, but I did find comfort in the very little community. Even if I didn't get along with everyone, at least my appearance wasn't a worry for me.

Actually, I was kind of admired back then (I think?) for my looks. I used chest binders and dressed more, I suppose, gender-neutral, had a nice lil visual kei inspired hairstyle, and was able to live kinda gender-neutral for a few years. Or whatever you want to call it, but with the binder I was able to dress more androgynous in my free time. 

The worst was always when I had to wear semi formal things for work or formal events, because I was kinda forced to wear dresses or at least figure-highlighting blouses and pants. 

Around the end of my teenage years, it was time to let go a bit of my visual kei phase, as the sub genre eventually died out for about 10+ years (so cool that it's getting more popular again nowadays with the rise of Y2K and japanese street fashion, gyaru fashion etc.).

I was kinda convinced by people around me to try dressing more "normally", by whatever definition. 

I started to dress a little more "girly", wore contact lenses. I also finished 4 years of wearing braces by then. I "improved". It was very obvious, because people suddenly were much nicer to me. Back then I enjoyed it, but now whenever I actually like wear proper makeup, colored contacts, do my hair.. it feels bittersweet when that is the only time I get attention of guys in particular.

It's kind of a internal battle. I do like to feel pretty sometimes, but the second some guy wants me after I shapeshift like that, I feel disgust, I feel guilt, my head screams at me and tells me "YOU know what you look like in the morning when you wake up. You cannot hide your age then. Imagine they see you like that. Ew."

Of course, that is me projecting my built-up insecurities onto myself.

So anyways, during my 20ies, I had pretty phases, then a "I need to grow up" phase during a past age-gap relationship where I simply looked worn out and way older than my age because I felt I need to look closer to the age of my then boyfriend, then I had a big tomboy phase again.

Then, I gained a lot of weight, started to cover up again with baggy clothes. Felt super ugly. Then, even though I am usually good at cutting my own hair, I made a huge mistake and ended up with 10cm hair. Maybe never felt so ugly in my life before or since then. 

My bad mental health also finally started to take a visible toll on me past like age 27. It caught up to me, the depression, the anxiety, the unhealthy food (my coping mechanism. I also binge eat out of frustration when I feel fat), the many litres of tears that I cried.

Started getting obsessed with skin care and looking younger. Didn't really work too well. Started to look how faded, empty, lifeless my greyish-blue eyes looked. The reflection in my mirror hates me as much as I hate it. It's all I see when I look at a mirror, unless I spend 1-2 hours on makeup. Sometimes even then.

Sometimes I have days were I actually feel pretty, or decent at least. I always have the hope that I'm over the self hate.

Then someone takes a photo of me, and it's just the most disgusting thing I ever saw in my life. Then my confidence is back to 0. My mirror reflection despises me again, as I do despise it.

I know I'm not photogenic, and I know us humans probably were never meant to see our faces in HD, but yet...

I admire photogenic people. I'm not jealous, good for them. And they surely have their own qualms about their look, no matter how pretty they are. But I wonder, have they ever been called ugly, ever been ridiculed for their ugliness... 

Seriously, photos of me are the worst. I cannot escape their curse. One part of me hopes I don't really look like that. Like a fat ugly piece of poo that has been thrown into the sewer. I just pray that people don't see me like that. And it kills me whenever I say that and someone says "what do you mean, you look just like always on the photo". Please... please read the room...

So, I'm writing all of this because it happened very recently again. I gained a little confidence, I thought I lost weight, and then I saw some photos from last weekend that someone took of me... Ha... back to zero... I look way, how to say it nicely, chubbier than I thought, especially from behind, my calves and ankles look swollen for no reason, my face was very round, my hair was just... weird? My double chin was so strong on the picture too. And I actually don't see any of that in the mirror.

Back to zero ... despite all the effort I do on the daily. The amount of money I spend on skin care and gimmicks, and even skin treatment/facials (non surgical) I received in a beauty clinic. The diet. All the stairs I had to take in Seoul during my vacation here, all the kilometres I walked, my feet burning and full of blisters, the pilates I did almost everyday over a month, the restraint,...

It was once again in vain. I am just born to never be able to look naturally pretty. It's almost as if I'm some form of grotesque art piece. And the artist is also never satisfied.

Today I suddenly woke up with super dark circles under my eyes again. Nothing I do helps. I will feel ugly forever. But even more if I don't do anything.

The art  of being ugly. And I am the artist. It might be my lifes work.