The best way i could explain to a guy friend of mine...
Just seems like girls, myself included, believe the crap we heard in school before we believe the compliments we hear now. For a lot of girls, its hard when we don't hear the compliments from the ones that love us, or even from random strangers. Silence is almost as bad as calling us ugly. If we aren't hearing that we are pretty, then what else are we? The silence makes the taunts haunt us again.