Not Being Attractive Also Has Advantages

Not being attractive or not feeling attractive is a nightmare for some people. In fact, the pursuit of physical beauty is so embedded in culture and collective thinking that we hardly ever consciously notice it.

Also, distancing ourselves from established canons of beauty is not a curse. In fact, being an anomalous case seems to have at least as many advantages as disadvantages, what happens is that these advantages seem to be more hidden … In the following lines you will be able to learn about studies that support this hypothesis.

The good and bad of physical beauty

Being handsome seems to be one of the best things that can happen to you in life: people stop more to help you, get opportunities more easily and can even influence the length of a court sentence. However, although not much is said about it, it also has disadvantages :

• Praise is not well internalized, as there is a hidden interest in it.
• Due to the above, insecurities and low self-esteem are often found in attractive people.
• Since beauty standards are not very flexible, most people who are considered beautiful look alike physically, making them more difficult to remember.
• Attractive people are often assumed to have only their beauty and no other virtues, and there is even a prejudice that they tend to be worse people.
• Prototypical beauty is ephemeral – since old age is not considered attractive – so attractive people are pressured to cultivate and maintain something that they know they will irretrievably lose.

As you can see, attractiveness does not always play in favor of whoever wears it. It’s okay to keep an eye on it, as fighting media pressure to impose very unusual body images can be a burden on many people’s lives, especially those with weaker self-esteem.

Not being attractive also has advantages

Like any aspect of life, not being attractive can also work to our advantage. It may seem difficult, since from a young age we are bombarded with images and slogans that push us to seek physical beauty.

Experts who study psychological well-being from positive psychology have reached the conclusions that you can read later.

1. Praise is better internalized

Unlike attractive people, compliments sound more authentic to those who are not considered beautiful, free of hidden intentions. This is a great help to integrate those compliments into the self-image, so that the self-esteem remains more stable.

2. There is not so much pressure to stay attractive

Once these people have been labeled as unattractive, the social pressure to take care of their image diminishes. In this way, the ability to enjoy in general increases, since they can focus on activities and pleasant moments without that burden of image.

This absence of a feeling of pressure also favors building self-esteem around qualities that can last forever, such as being a good person or being an intelligent person.

Although it does not mean that someone attractive does not cultivate them, it is easier to do so when someone is not required to maintain an image according to the canons.

3. Not being attractive helps to be remembered better

Before it was said that attractive people tend to resemble each other and remember each other worse, since they meet general criteria. Well, with unattractive people the opposite happens: their appearance is better remembered thanks to the contrast with what is established.

In fact, the study that investigated this found interesting results. It showed the subjects prototypically attractive faces and others considered ugly, and it resulted in the attractive faces being remembered better in the short term, but after several days it was the unattractive ones that remained in the memory.

4. Others are not so intimidated

Attractive people tend to be intimidating to others, in fact, they even spike cortisol levels. Attractive people seem more unattainable, especially from an insecure point of view, such as approaching them to try to seduce them.

Such is the effect they produce that there is even a clinical term for when this turns into fear: venustraphobia.

On the contrary, not being attractive seems to go hand in hand with being closer and approachable. This also has to do with a cognitive bias that accompanies people considered ugly, in which it is assumed that they are better people than handsome.

Are you convinced that not complying with beauty prototypes can also favor us at certain times?

Far from encouraging the victimhood of either party, this article aims to reflect the gray scale that exists in society when it comes to being handsome or not.

When you go out into the street, it turns out that millions of people fall in love with unattractive people and that handsome people can also be unhappy. Let’s respect and normalize physical appearance.