Quote:
Originally Posted by Atticus
I can relate to much of what you say. While societal expectations for women's beauty are higher than they are for men, most men struggle with various aspects of aging and or appearance. I certainly have.
I started losing my hair in my early 20s. 21 is as early in your 20s as it gets. This was devastating to my self image. It changed how I though about myself socially, schlastically, and professionally. I had never dated and I felt very much like my youth had been stolen from me. 30 years later, I still have dreams that I have hair. Those dreams are mostly funny now, but they were heartbreaking the first 10 years or so.
Fast forward to my late 40s when I become single again. I've pretty well adjusted to being bald. There are a number of things I'd change about my appearance, but overall I'm pretty happy with how I look at 51, and there are women I'm attracted to who are physically attracted to me. But these past several years I've discovered how much many women in my age group cling to rigid gender role ideas regarding men's income and assets.
Discovering that women who might have seen a possible future with me didn't because I wasn't well off probably shouldn't have surprised me. Most women my age aren't dependent on a man finacially, but in many cases their mothers were. Their values were at least partly shaped by the idea that men are the primary bread winners. That's a rational explanation, but I really struggled with how I ought to feel about all of this, and still do.
Losing my hair never actually hurt my appearance the way I thought it would, and struggling financially, at least compared to what people (and I'm a people) seem to expect, hasn't made me a social leper. But these things were and are handy reasons to indulge in some self pity or to explain away struggles that have more to do with self perceptions than with any judgements from without. Most of my regrets involve the limits I placed on myself.
So for all the surface differences between us, I think I understand what you're going through.
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thanks for the reply.
Still, I have to ask: Can you at all relate to never having been in a relationship at age 30. Because that, probably more than anything else, is what's most depressing. The other things are just like the extra bit.
I'm tired of this. I don't deserve to be so neglected and forgotten. Like I haven't gone through enough.
I'm going to get drunk and listen to music. The world sucks. My life is a piece of ****