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March 12, 2008 Ugly Duckling 
When I was in middle school it was widely believed that I was too unattractive to ever be loved. I would walk down the hallway, and a boy would say loudly to his friends, "that is one ugly chick." Or I'd be followed around in the shopping mall by groups of barking boys. Or see a caricature of me being passed around in class that no one had even bothered to try to hide. It was always the same: I was too skinny, flat, my hair was gross; the list of defects went on and on and I had been made aware of each of them. At that age I had no expectation that this would ever change, and thought I would either spend the rest of my life alone or maybe someday find someone who was willing to look past the hideous exterior to what was underneath (assuming it was not also hideous). I did not have a bedrock of self-worth that had been built by unconditional love within the home, so what happened at school cut deep. I believed all of it. This didn't stop me from wanting love or affection, only from believing I would ever receive it; so in grade eight, there was a boy in my class with red hair and green eyes. We'll call him J. I had a huge crush on him. He was tall and a little gawky and he laughed a lot. That's all I remember about him, really. Towards the end of the year, someone passed me a note that said--paraphrasing from a nearly-twenty-year-old memory--that he liked me a lot. His name had been signed to the bottom. I was elated. I walked home from school that day thinking that maybe I wouldn't be alone forever. The next day I wrote a note back saying I liked him too. When he read it, he laughed, doubling over in his chair, and showed it to all of his friends. The note from the day before had been a hoax. It was funny, you see; the thought that anyone could ever have a crush on me was instant joke fodder to my entire grade eight class. Kids are cruel, yes; that's not the point. A few months later I cut my hair and started wearing miniskirts, and had filled out some; and a month or two after that I was sexually harassed for the first time while walking to my part-time job at McDonald's when a boy came up to me in public and introduced himself with, "Hi, I'd like to fuck you sometime." I haven't often seen boys at their best, Dear Readers. Internet dating post-separation has been more of the latter than the former. No one has messaged me to tell me that I am inherently unloveable and too ugly to be wanted. It must happen to someone and the ego that can withstand that is tougher than diamond. But I get emails telling me how amazingly beautiful I am and how happy I could make someone by writing back--with never a mention of anything else I might be interested in; or the one who wrote me to say "ur hot" and asked me to tell him all about myself (having apparently not read the handy-dandy profile right beside the picture in which I talk about how much I like books and writing and enjoy saving the world for a living) or the weirdo (no other term will suffice) who ambushes me every single time I log in with an IM containing his name and phone number and the imperative "call me." Umm, NO. Says one: The sun has come. The mists have gone. Thereafter, I came across your profile; it’s interesting to know and to come across. It's so amazing how you can speak right into my heart from the look of your pix; you’re the epitome of beauty. (I've chosen this one for mockery specifically because it is so obviously plagiarized. I love how "pix" is thrown in there as if it instantly contextualizes the rest of it.) When highschool started, I loved it when people told me they thought I was beautiful, because for so long I had heard only how ugly I was. I didn't believe it, but I loved it. Really? Beautiful? Halloo! My problems are over! Because surely then I was loveable, people would want to be around me. By the end of highschool, though, the lie underneath the promise had been exposed. Being attractive didn't solve my problems. Seventeen magazine lied, I tell you. By the end of highschool, when someone told me they thought I was attractive (however phrased), I grimaced and looked away. It took me a long time to figure out why. Until this February, in fact. It's the flip side of the same ugly coin. When I was twelve, everyone thought I was ugly and therefore not worth getting to know; now I'm 32 and there are plenty of people who think I am worth getting to know only because I am not ugly. It still has nothing to do with me, the me who has to get up and leave the room when a character in a movie is about to make an ass of themselves, the me who has perfected the art of losing one's temper in a truly spectacular fashion, the me who was lost for days a few years back in the discovery that stars are not evenly distributed throughout space but are clumped about so that the fabric of space resembles lace, and there are parts of the galaxy you could sit in and not see any stars. The boys didn't care then and they don't care now; I can't help feeling that the same people who made my life so miserable back in grades 6-8 are the very ones haunting internet dating sites haranguing pretty girls to "call me call me call me." I'm not naive. I know whoever decides to contact me on one of these things is doing so at least in part because they're not repulsed by the photograph I put up, regardless of what we end up talking about. But I've noticed that the only people I'm remotely attracted to or end up talking with more than once are the ones who rarely, if ever, make any mention of what they think about my face. Posted by Andrea at March 12, 2008 8:47 AM under Friends and Others , Single Momming EMAIL this entry (comments fields are below this section) Comments Exactly. My step-brother, an academic in an obscure field, is back in the dating world after a hiatus. He gave up on the "mainstream" dating sites pretty quickly and now uses one aimed at "ivy leaguers." If there is something comparable up here, I bet you'd have better results. I won't offer to hook you up with my s-b, though. He's pretty high maintenance, on top of being far away. Also, I've been wondering since your last mention of the obnoxious IMer, does the service offer a "block" feature? There is no reason you should get messages from that dude. If indeed there is even a dude there -- I wonder if it's a bot. Posted by: Madeleine at March 12, 2008 9:49 AM
I gave up on internet dating a long time ago. A year seems like a long time to me! Posted by: LauraJ at March 12, 2008 10:40 AM
Boy, you're not kidding. I stopped dating in my 20's because I was so sick of only being looked at for my beautiful long red hair and my tall skinny body. It wasn't until 29 that I finally went back into the waters with someone who truly didn't care about the exterior, only saw that I was funny, sweet, caring, sarcastic and fierce. And that's my husband. I can't imagine having to go back into that pool. Having been the ugly duckling, it's still hard to deal with people who only see the outside. Posted by: Jen at March 12, 2008 10:46 AM
Is it possible to do Internet Dating without the photo? If there's enough information up there, it might be worth a try. You could be putting off the nice guys who are intimidated by your good-looks (it's a theory). It's not just what they're interested in, but what they think you want to hear. People have told me I am beautiful, when it is blatantly untrue; I'm not being overly modest, I'm not and never have been ugly, but I have access to mirrors and I'm not that. However, it is supposed to be the ultimate compliment to a woman. It might even be that people who like you in all sorts of less superficial ways reach for that because they imagine that it matters more to you than anything else. In the movies, when the guy finally realises how perfect the girl is, what does he say to her? Posted by: The Goldfish at March 12, 2008 11:34 AM
I have always been grateful I am not very pretty or very ugly. I feel as you do when people tell me I am smart. OK, great, but I was born with that. How about the things I have worked for and earned? Posted by: Emily R at March 12, 2008 12:03 PM
Is there a positive side to internet dating? It sounds awful. Posted by: Jennifer at March 12, 2008 12:41 PM
I remember the glee with which some classmates in 6th grade made a connection with the Greek mythology we were reading and started calling me "Medusa" because of my stringy hair (which can be ringlets when cooperative). I also realized recently that I maintain my looks so that I don't draw attention--well-groomed and hygienic, but I hide some of my assets. Posted by: Mouse at March 12, 2008 3:22 PM
Madeleine, I've seen specialized dating sites, but they have been less ... ah ... classy. Goldfish, that is a good point. Emily, exactly. Why not praise something that was actually a choice? Jennifer, sure, but I don't want to mock the nice ones. Posted by: Andrea
well, U R hot, after all. Don't give up on it yet. Posted by: jen at March 13, 2008 12:08 AM
My 'lil bro is on a lot of the TO dating sites. He is bald and very large. I can assure you that the obsession with appearance flows both ways and, sadly, his ego, though strong is by no means diamond hard. There must be a better way. I wish this were easier for both of you. Posted by: Mad at March 13, 2008 8:28 AM
What's wrong with you, Andrea? I dig it when supposedly grown men use phrases like "ur hot." Gets me all a'tingly down there every. single. time. Uh. No. I agree with Mad that there has to be a better way. What happened to the friend of a friend thing; do we not do that anymore, culturally speaking? Posted by: Gwen at March 13, 2008 10:12 AM
I'm sorry. It is appearance-obsessed, even more so than regular life, I think--because you have no other markers, really. You have a photo and a few paragraphs and you have to try to make these decisions based on very little information. In real life a sense of humour or a nice voice or getting to know that someone is kind might make a difference, but that rarely happens online. Jen, oh god! The netspeak! Don't remind me. Posted by: Andrea
I'm sorry you've had such bad experiences. I had a similar awful time in middle school. I towered over all the other girls and most of the boys. I was gawky, flat-chested and I wore thick glasses. I was miserably shy. Posted by: Jill at March 13, 2008 3:34 PM
So far, I have managed to avoid writing to prisoners, but now that you mention it a guy who strangled his ex-girlfriend sounds intriguing.... Kidding. I appreciate the "oh my god internet dating is the devil!" advice--I really do, I mean that--but the thing is, I'm a single mom with a full-time job who is truly just too exhausted and too busy to get out of the house on her only two nights off each week to sort of hang out somewhere and hope she runs into someone. I am getting out and doing other things--writing classes, the occasional crafty thing--but realistically those are girl things. I've let it be known that I'm not against being set up, but in the meantime, I don't actually see the harm in meeting people this way, so long as I manage to avoid the, you know, serial killers and such. Y'all will occasionally get the scary internet dating story, but that really is because I don't want to expose the nice ones to public mockery. Even if we don't click or see each other more than once, I think it has to be truly exceptionally bad to deserve a blog expose, so you're only going to see the terrible stories here. Although maybe I will have to come up with one or two nice stories just to counterbalance the "this is so awful it's beautiful" trend. Posted by: Andrea
I did the internet dating thing...and am now married :) To a guy I met on the internet in April of 06 and we got married at the end of June of 06. I'm now a step mother and loving every minute of it. it's great. But holy heck was there ever a learning curve on how to date again. I hated dating for a long time and my husband sure swept me off my feet :) Posted by: Catherine at March 14, 2008 11:39 PM
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