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Body/Self Image

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jhocking:
I have a fairly up-and-down relationship with my body. I mean, I realize I am an attractive person, but it's not a fact I dwell on. Occasionally I do muse on how suddenly I changed between highschool and college. There are plenty of flaws of course, my main hangups being 1) I'm way too skinny, 2) my nosehairs often protrude, and 3) my breath stinks if I haven't brushed in a while.

My main body issues lately are health things (what do you expect, I'm an old man.) Like, for the past couple weeks I've become keenly aware of how out of shape I am, and am planning to start swimming regularly again soon. It's funny, people see how skinny I am and assume that means I exercise a lot, but in fact my body is slowly wasting away.

RedLion:
I am impossibly sexy.

0bsessions:
Kudos to this thread. This is the first thread in like a week I've wanted anything to do with (Between a Pokemon thread and three birthday threads, one made my the birthday boy?). This is the first thread created this month where I didn't skip over anyone's replies either!

Anyways, I am of the overcompensating variety. Growing up, I was never comfortable in my own skin. I was short (I was 4'11" the summer before going into Freshman year at fourteen), socially awkard (Read: Star Wars nerd, comic nerd, video game nerd, etc) and not at all a looker (I just didn't know what to do with myself, nor did I particularly care, as I was socially awkward).

Fortunately, society bent to my whims and High School was advantageous. I sprouted from 4'11" to about 5'8" by the end of my Freshman year (Bringing me from third shortest in my class to one of the ten tallest) and, inexplicably, the nerd chic movement developed around my sophomore year. Suddenly, comics and video games and Star Wars weren't nerdy, it was "alternative." This moved me from the "loser" caste to the "punks, goths and miscellanea" caste. Actually having friends did a good bit for my self image, but I was still incredibly self conscious. I knew people liked me, and that did wonders for my personality and sense of self, but my self esteem and body image were still absolute shit. I was skinny as a rail (5'10" and about 120-130 lbs), had hair down past my shoulders and unable to grow facial hair in any non-awkward manner. I was popular with girls, but only as a friend (To the best of my knowledge. To this day, I cannot read women at all), so not being able to attract women in a non platonic sense didn't help my self esteem. On the other hand, actually having people who went out of their way to talk to me forced me to actually give a flying fuck about what I looked like. Putting in an effort helped a lot.

Jodie nails it, though: The best way of increasing one's self esteem is to actually have someone you're attracted to become into you. I went on all of like three or four dates before I was seventeen and the only two times I'd ever been told I was hot was by the cousin of a girl I had a crush on from like 14 to 17 and a girl who lived like two hours away). When I was about sixteen, I started to get into the whole internet thing and that helped. Unlike lunchy, however, I took what compliments I got seriously. I took the most complimented features and accentuated those while trying to draw away from the more criticized ones (Which I still do to this day). To anyone who's still in that awkward phase, I recommend this. Everyone's got good and bad features. The secret is to enhance those good features so much that people don't notice the bad. I have incredibly skinny wrists and my nose is actually slightly bent/crooked and my ears are big. Fortunately, I have nice eyes, a prominent chin/jawline and broad shoulders, so all that draws away if I dress and groom myself to accentuate those details. If you have a nice smile, laugh a lot, if you're too skinny, spend a full day trying on clothes that make skinny look good on you. It's really quite easy.

Nowadays, my self consciousness is fully behind me. I still think my wrists are too skinny, but wearing a watch and a bracelet draws away from that easily enough, so I don't really dwell on it. All that egotistical behavior of mine, much of it is actually how I feel. Given, I don't think I'm god's gift to the human race or anything, but I AM of the mind I'm quite attractive. It's like Tommy said, it's all about playing to your strengths.

(Christ, six responses while I typed that?)

Edit: P.S.: My metabolism is awesome. At last weigh in, I'm at 162, which is about the heaviest I've ever been. You should see the kind of crap I eat, too.

Katherine:
I was absolutely hideous growing up.  I am somewhat of a late bloomer and come into my own over the last few years and while I wouldn't necessarily call myself pretty, other people have and I tend to believe that they mean it, rather than write it off as them just being nice.  I have my moments where I will look in the mirror and cringe, but for the most part I'm pleased with what I have (nice eyes, dimples, nice teeth and, while I am fat, I am proportionate so I have some kickin' curves) and work on fixing what I don't like - if I can - and if I can't I try to make peace with it.  Like Tommy said, there are going to be things about yourself that you absolutely hate that other people will love you for having.  Just roll with it! 

Thaes:
I´ve become very sensitive and unhappy about the way I look lately. Well, not the way I look in general, but certain small parts, which, ironically, are nowhere to be seen in normal conditions (namely my legs and my stomach). I guess it has something to do with me moving to another city in the summer and wanting as many people to like me as possible (I might have slight issues with that).

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