appearance and attractiveness
let's talk about looks. Or rather, I'm gonna talk about looks/appearance/etc., and you can read and talk back or ignore completely. ;-) (I'm in a rather domineering mood right now)
I am a very visual person -- probably why I have violent feelings about colors. I hate orange, even though I have liked some people who liked it (SO weird to me) -- it seems like such a harsh, bitter, cynical color to me (I do make an exception occasionally for pale sherbert or screaming neon oranges). I shall prove my geekiness by telling you that I have found an html color that is almost exactly my favorite -- #9554f7. And some colors inspire such a feeling of boredom that I hate them in a dull quiet way -- ICK navy beige tan. I can't spell out loud, hardly at all, but I can easily figure out the spelling of a word from the look of it. Same with math -- I can't do it in my head, I need to see it. Anyway, my visualness extends to people. I'm not sure if I've just happened to befriend beautiful people, or if I fall so in love with them that they become beautiful to me, or that I subconsiously seek out beautiful people to be friends with, but the vast majority of my friends are people whom I consider attractive, quite a few even drop-dead gorgeous (I think you know who you are).
And I wonder about that a lot. I find it very disturbing when I actually consider someone unattractive based purely on looks. Because I can't imagine God making an 'ugly' person, I'm sure he considers all of us incredibly beautiful, so what is it that I'm missing? And I'm not talking about things that people do to themselves, like obesity or anorexia, I'm talking about facial features. It's okay and perfectly right to me to find people different levels of attractive, but I don't think it's right to be put off from someone for simply wearing the face that they were born with (I'm not talking about any of you, okay? Don't go thinking that).
Oh, but on a very good, positive, and encouraging note, I have started to see different body shapes as beautiful. HONESTLY see them as beautiful, not 'beautiful in spite of their differences from the ideal' but beautiful because of their differences from each other. I just tried to picture my 'ideal woman' and I couldn't think of a shape-- YAY!!! Because there should be no such thing as ideal. I can't stand it when women say, "oh, no, my body this, oh no, I look (insert negative adjective)." If I'm hearing it, I've gotten to the point where I will tell perfect strangers not to say that about themselves (yay for D-type personalities). (but only with friends do I demand that they make up for it by saying good things)
The only time you should worry about your figure/weight is if your health is suffering or you are trying to get into shape for some kind of physical event like a marathon. If women would stop complaining about 'those ten extra pounds' then other women would feel free to be their natural weight and we'd all be happier. Do you know WHY those 'vanity pounds' are so hard to lose? Because they are supposed to be there!!! Most women were designed to be curvy! God made a few slender women for variety, but the more common healthy female body shape is curvy. At least, that's my opinion.
I've gotten much closer to accepting my body, can you tell? And it's had the surprising but very welcome effect of accepting others' bodies as well.
I am a very visual person -- probably why I have violent feelings about colors. I hate orange, even though I have liked some people who liked it (SO weird to me) -- it seems like such a harsh, bitter, cynical color to me (I do make an exception occasionally for pale sherbert or screaming neon oranges). I shall prove my geekiness by telling you that I have found an html color that is almost exactly my favorite -- #9554f7. And some colors inspire such a feeling of boredom that I hate them in a dull quiet way -- ICK navy beige tan. I can't spell out loud, hardly at all, but I can easily figure out the spelling of a word from the look of it. Same with math -- I can't do it in my head, I need to see it. Anyway, my visualness extends to people. I'm not sure if I've just happened to befriend beautiful people, or if I fall so in love with them that they become beautiful to me, or that I subconsiously seek out beautiful people to be friends with, but the vast majority of my friends are people whom I consider attractive, quite a few even drop-dead gorgeous (I think you know who you are).
And I wonder about that a lot. I find it very disturbing when I actually consider someone unattractive based purely on looks. Because I can't imagine God making an 'ugly' person, I'm sure he considers all of us incredibly beautiful, so what is it that I'm missing? And I'm not talking about things that people do to themselves, like obesity or anorexia, I'm talking about facial features. It's okay and perfectly right to me to find people different levels of attractive, but I don't think it's right to be put off from someone for simply wearing the face that they were born with (I'm not talking about any of you, okay? Don't go thinking that).
Oh, but on a very good, positive, and encouraging note, I have started to see different body shapes as beautiful. HONESTLY see them as beautiful, not 'beautiful in spite of their differences from the ideal' but beautiful because of their differences from each other. I just tried to picture my 'ideal woman' and I couldn't think of a shape-- YAY!!! Because there should be no such thing as ideal. I can't stand it when women say, "oh, no, my body this, oh no, I look (insert negative adjective)." If I'm hearing it, I've gotten to the point where I will tell perfect strangers not to say that about themselves (yay for D-type personalities). (but only with friends do I demand that they make up for it by saying good things)
The only time you should worry about your figure/weight is if your health is suffering or you are trying to get into shape for some kind of physical event like a marathon. If women would stop complaining about 'those ten extra pounds' then other women would feel free to be their natural weight and we'd all be happier. Do you know WHY those 'vanity pounds' are so hard to lose? Because they are supposed to be there!!! Most women were designed to be curvy! God made a few slender women for variety, but the more common healthy female body shape is curvy. At least, that's my opinion.
I've gotten much closer to accepting my body, can you tell? And it's had the surprising but very welcome effect of accepting others' bodies as well.