2024: diary of a girl in her 20s

02.27 Beauty standards

Haven't written in a couple of days because I've been more or less busy with university.

I don't want to write for long because tomorrow I'm going to wake up and study early on the day, and then I'll spend the rest of the day at the library and at night I'm supposed to go to the cinema with Julie.

Nothing new has happened. I've been studying, reading (I've finished Ian McEwan, I've started James Joyce and also the Bible), eating well. I still haven't found the time to do sports, I'll have to find the way some way or another.

Mhm yeah, that is it. Nothing exciting. I was in Boathouse last weekend, barely left the house, didn't see any of my friends.

Lately I've been wondering how pretty or attractive am I, and how much real importance that really has. I don't know where this obsession for knowing what other people think of me comes from. There is also I think this big discrepancy between what I think of myself and what I perceive others to think of me. It's really hard to judge myself, like I'm constantly struggling to accept compliments or positive conceptions of myself.

Why am I so obsessed with beauty? What is there in it that attracts me so bad? It's never just beauty in isolation, I guess it is everything beauty encompasses, like "admiration" from people, or perhaps jealousy, or more attention from guys, higher chances regarding romantic/sexual experiences. I feel like in a way it brings attention, validation (recognition) and acceptance the most, and those are things I believe I quite lacked growing up. So I guess in the end I'm just pursuing those things, which I do in many other ways, but I think maybe through beauty is the way I try to get these things and get most frustrated about.

I don't know why tho. I can't say I'm ugly. I don't know if I'm pretty or even very pretty, here is where the internal debate starts. It's always this obsession with being the best. I'm a very competitive person with myself, I mean that I put a lot of pressure in myself and I am extremely self-demanding, and I'm sure this corresponds to with how I perceive beauty. I notice this even with the guys I feel attracted to, which is usually a very selected/restricted amount of guys. I mean that my taste is quite reduced (not specific, I don't have a type, just, it's hard for me to find attractive people, really few people make it to that category). And I feel like I put this pressure to myself to. And I don't think I am that attractive, I don't think I am or could be a "10/10", and that somehow is a big disappointment for me, and makes me extremely frustrated with myself overall.

Then there is the issue of "okay, maybe I don't think i'm a 10/10 because I have very high standards, but do other people have the same standards as me, or standards as high as mine?" I know not, that people have very different conceptions of attractiveness and some place more or less degree of importance to it, etc. But still this doesn't calm me and I fell frustrated, sad and disappointed at myself.

So then I try to cheer myself up by looking for external proof that says, people do find you attractive, you've heard them tell you. You've heard Cloyd say "you're really above other girls in terms of beauty", you've gotten random comments from strangers saying "you have a unique beauty", extremely attractive guys have liked you for a long time (Archer, Cloyd), a one night stand once sweetly said to you "if you are insecure, then what about the rest?", Rocci said to you "you are so pretty"... the list can go on and these all are guys that are all very very attractive. Still, I usually feel insecure when I go outside or sometimes when I look in the mirror.

I also feel insecure that I don't usually have sex or I don't get involved romantically too often. It might appear otherwise after what I've written, but compared to my friends and lots of the people that I know, who hook up with random people at least once a month, compared to that, I barely never have anything with anyone.