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Hating the compliment "unconventionally attractive"

Started by itsfredtitmus, June 27, 2022, 06:10:45 PM

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TrenterPercenter

Quote from: somersetchris on June 27, 2022, 07:52:04 PMIn fact, I read that 100% symmetry in a face would be off-putting as it looks artificial, so in a way it is the imperfections that make us attracted to a person, so sometimes when the imperfections are bigger, that can increase the appeal.

Yes and we select for these perfections in our media.  That is why saying Monroe or Harry are unconventional attractive is ridiculous they are the epitome of good copy (literally Monroe is the poster girl for this and a whole convention tried to emulate her).

Is it not at least a bit thin-skinned and perhaps even discriminatory in itself to take offence at not being seen to attractive conventionally, I mean you've got to be carrying out your own internal hierarchy here which gets you upset about not being in the conventional group and seeing those unconventionally attractive as something lesser. 

Seems to me you either think attractiveness is social constructed and therefore of conventions or you think it is an innate biological quality which subscribes some people as lesser.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: QDRPHNC on June 27, 2022, 07:54:55 PMIf you have to explain a compliment, it's probably not the best choice, despite how it is intended.

Who said they explained it? Also this is just one of those sayings that sounds like it should be true but isn't.  Often said about jokes in fact when often it because other people are too ignorant to get it, Stewart Lee has literally made a career out of this.

QDRPHNC

I'm just talking generally. No matter how it is intended, "you're unconventionally attractive" could be taken any number of ways, and for that reason I wouldn't use it. The idea of giving a compliment is to make the recipient feel good, and if a compliment runs a significant risk of being misinterpreted by the recipient, it's not a good compliment in my opinion.

Bernice

The day I came to embrace the fact I'm unconventionally attractive my sexual confidence increased five-fold. Because all it really amounts to is being someone it's possible to want to fuck who isn't totally devoid of charm. This describes most people out there. Take heart, you're all eminently fuckable.

Personally, I find the Love Island aesthetic deeply unappealing, but that's almost certainly as much to do with my own snobbery as anything else.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: QDRPHNC on June 27, 2022, 08:08:41 PMI'm just talking generally. No matter how it is intended, "you're unconventionally attractive" could be taken any number of ways, and for that reason I wouldn't use it.

But this is more about how you have chosen to perceive it should be taken based on what I would argue is a misinterpretation of what it means i.e. that you are attractive but flawed, it doesn't mean this, it means you do not conform to the stereotypical conventions of attractiveness.

I get what you are saying but this rather controls the discuss and keeps attractiveness a all or nothing thing which in my view is neither a true representation of reality and society and is potentially quite discriminatory in itself.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I am handsome as fuck, but also rather an oddball. What does that make me?

I can see the potential negging type implications of the phrase. It's like saying, "I think you're attractive, but no one else will."

QDRPHNC

Quote from: TrenterPercenter on June 27, 2022, 08:14:24 PMBut this is more about how you have chosen to perceive it should be taken based on what I would argue is a misinterpretation of what it means i.e. that you are attractive but flawed, it doesn't mean this, it means you do not conform to the stereotypical conventions of attractiveness.

I get what you are saying but this rather controls the discuss and keeps attractiveness a all or nothing thing which in my view is neither a true representation of reality and society and is potentially quite discriminatory in itself.

I'm not saying you're not correct, I'm saying in practice it might not go over well.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: Bernice on June 27, 2022, 08:13:04 PMPersonally, I find the Love Island aesthetic deeply unappealing, but that's almost certainly as much to do with my own snobbery as anything else.

Well I was going to say I'm probably considered what is "conventionally attractive" i.e. I look like someone that could sell you some discount gym equipment, and its fucking dull as fuck.

fucking love someone to say I was unconventionally attractive in a Tescos, I would be absolutely buzzing.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: QDRPHNC on June 27, 2022, 08:16:04 PMI'm not saying you're not correct, I'm saying in practice it might not go over well.

Yes I agree.  in my imagined situation this is being said by two people that understand what is being said.

Bernice

Quote from: TrenterPercenter on June 27, 2022, 08:16:29 PMWell I was going to say I'm probably considered what is "conventionally attractive" i.e. I look like someone that could sell you some discount gym equipment, and its fucking dull as fuck.


Yeah but there's conventionally attractive and there's Love Island, isn't there. I can do a lot of pull-ups but I don't have a torso like a bunch of hotel soaps stuffed into a condom. I often think I have hideous teeth but then I look at actual people I know and realise most people aren't getting their naturals ripped out aged 19 and replaced with IKEA-white tombstones. I divert shipping traffic if I take my top off on a clifftop on a sunny day but then if you see an actual day-glo orange motherucker in the real world you start instinctively reaching for the remote to fix the contrast.

Don't really know where I'm going, and I don't actually want to be mean about the way people look (and who spend money and time and their own health to look that way). I just find it a particularly odd and possibly pernicious offshoot on the evolution of 'conventional attractiveness'.

Jockice

Quote from: somersetchris on June 27, 2022, 07:52:04 PMIn fact, I read that 100% symmetry in a face would be off-putting as it looks artificial.

A mate of mine is a bit of a looker, or at least was when he was younger and got a lot of attention from women, one of whom described him as: "Gorgeous, but he dresses like Alan Partridge."

A few years ago I was at a do with him and a very drunk woman latched onto him and kept telling him he had the most symmetrical face she'd ever seen, like he was a work of art or something. She just wouldn't leave him alone, so in the end we waited until she'd gone to the toilet and legged it out of the place. His idea, not mine.

A few years before that I was meant to be going out with him and his brother but couldn't make it on the day so made a comment about then being more likely to pull if I wasn't there. He replied by saying something about my red hair being a bit of a problem. Charming! So being seen in public with me can stop him from copping off. Nice to know.

I didn't take offence though because us ginners (well blokes anyway) have to put up with this sort of stuff all the time and he's been a good pal in other ways.

Plus his brother (or as it turned out - although he didn't know this at the time -half-brother) can't even be described as unconventionally attractive. I'm not going to be rude about his looks except to say he's one of the strangest-looking and acting people I've ever met. And has no social skills whatsoever, so if my mate thinks he had more chance of copping off with him in tow so be it. I don't think so somehow.

Plus this brother turned out to be an utter cunt when their mum died and it turned out he had a secret will cutting my mate and their sister out of the will. They had to take him to court and no longer talk to him. I always knew there was something a bit dodgy about him. Shame it took that for my mate to find out.


TrenterPercenter

Quote from: Bernice on June 27, 2022, 08:27:49 PMDon't really know where I'm going, and I don't actually want to be mean about the way people look (and who spend money and time and their own health to look that way). I just find it a particularly odd and possibly pernicious offshoot on the evolution of 'conventional attractiveness'.

There is this thing called visual adaptation it is kind of the visual equivalent of muscle memory i.e. the more we see something to more we adapt to this image and normalise its content.  This is what we've done essentially with bodies and attractiveness, features are made desirable and then are emulated, this reinforces aesthetics and adds to the impact of our visual adaptation.  It's why people end up orange or looking so unreal it is troubling as they are over shooting this, what is the bellcurve of attractiveness, due to this mechanism.

Jockice

And I have mentioned this before but one of the most attractive women I've ever met in my life was short, chubby, with frizzy hair and an Oldham accent you could slice metal with.

Yet whatever 'it' was, she had it. It wasn't just me, practically every straight male who met her, even once, really fancied her.

I once had a conversation about her with a mutual friend and someone who had never met her. It was really hard to describe just why she was so attractive. But she was. And probably still is. Haven't seen her for quite a while.

Bernice

Quote from: TrenterPercenter on June 27, 2022, 08:36:25 PMThere is this thing called visual adaptation it is kind of the visual equivalent of muscle memory i.e. the more we see something to more we adapt to this image and normalise its content.  This is what we've done essentially with bodies and attractiveness, features are made desirable and then are emulated, this reinforces aesthetics and adds to the impact of our visual adaptation.  It's why people end up orange or looking so unreal it is troubling as they are over shooting this, what is the bellcurve of attractiveness, due to this mechanism.

Right. And there's also something there about the over-emphasis on the aesthetics of body as image, as something static rather than something out there moving in the world, making arcs, betraying character, shimmering in electric proximity. I'm not going to say that there's not something like a quality of 'conventional attractiveness', but the joy of attraction is that it's active, it moves, it has a thousand faces. Mutual attraction, that perfect herd of butterflies in the pit of your gonads, even more so, it's a perfect and horrifying co-production of meat and mind that has as much to do with the 2d image as the telegraph does.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: Bernice on June 27, 2022, 08:50:25 PMRight. And there's also something there about the over-emphasis on the aesthetics of body as image, as something static rather than something out there moving in the world, making arcs, betraying character, shimmering in electric proximity. I'm not going to say that there's not something like a quality of 'conventional attractiveness', but the joy of attraction is that it's active, it moves, it has a thousand faces. Mutual attraction, that perfect herd of butterflies in the pit of your gonads, even more so, it's a perfect and horrifying co-production of meat and mind that has as much to do with the 2d image as the telegraph does.

People with body dysmorphic conditions (often existing in comorbidity with eating disorders) often have fractured views on their own bodies, they see parts of their bodies in isolation and grade themselves on these unified parts.  That makes us think this is all about disorders but it appears to be a quite a common thing that non-disordered populations do as well, namely women which is thought to arise from anxiety caused from body parts being disunited marketed via media and another group, oh yes, bald men (and presumably bald women also), who see their baldness as the only feature of their being, this fixation tends to be a feature of highly anxious states that seek to resolve themselves by controlling their perception in others (so wigs, surgery etc...).  The whole is lost due the illusion that the fragmented self is easy to control.

Bernice

Yeah, as someone in a near constant state of anxiety I've definitely had that sort of dysmorphic thought about myself a lot in the past – not that I've had any disorder, per se, but definitely a hideously and specifically skewed notion of my own body, and attendant boom bust cycles of diet/exercise and overeating/shame.

Which is ridiculous, because I'm patently attractive, in an unconventional sort of way. And I have loads of hair.

audiocreator


itsfredtitmus

Quote from: audiocreator on June 27, 2022, 10:04:48 PMMumsnet

Really? 

Stop wasting the internet
I too struggle to read more than 2 sentences into a paragraph

itsfredtitmus

#48
If the bar is so low that even someone like Bjork, a genuine goddess, is considered unconventionally attractive then god every single non-white British person must be! If the criteria for being attractive is Love Island stuff then... almost no one is attractive unless they be dolled up and in the right lighting

It's a nasty, non-real world, academic's fantasy term that I've only known abusive neggers to use that needn't be uttered in the presence of the person spoken about, or at all imo - I really couldn't imagine being round my friends and calling someone that we had an interpersonal relationship with 'unconventionally attractive' and be able to show my face to them without apologising. It's so not a compliment, it's almost an anti-one. It says more stuff against than it does for. Even though I have the social skills of a toddler and are very autistic I would never use it, esp to a person with low self-esteem because I'd know it would wreak havoc on that person


itsfredtitmus

Quote from: QDRPHNC on June 27, 2022, 07:09:20 PMYou're weird-looking but it's ok I'm into it.
Yeah, thinking this. Not very nice! Like I said in ^, it's just not a term I've ever known non-weird, fucked people in real life to use, reveals a lot of stuff about the person that's speaking thinks, how they view people, the conventional vs the unconventional - bit morbid don't ya think living like that? I don't don't understand it, aren't compliments supposed to cheer someone up than lock someone in a "aren't you glad I... like you... tolerate you?" dynamic which is what the people that have said this to me have done, invariably. It wouldn't say it to your mother... etc, etc, all

One quick Google of the phrase throws up Jane from BraBa and Kate Moss... 2 supermodels. Imagine calling 'em unconventionally!!

shoulders

It's frame of reference. What individual people regard as conventional and how wide that scope is differs. There is no single agreed definition. Chill out.

itsfredtitmus

Quote from: shoulders on June 28, 2022, 12:01:19 AMIt's frame of reference. What individual people regard as conventional and how wide that scope is differs. There is no single agreed definition. Chill out.
Do you really need to evoke and break down the conventional beauty barriers, which barely anyone I know fits, anyway, but I still know they're very attractive, in order to compliment someone, esp a /s/o? In real life, in the bare, it's not something someone is going to be very pleased with. It's a very neggy phrase that puts more focus on the person that's complimenting than the person that's being complimented. Just going from experience

shoulders

Quote from: itsfredtitmus on June 28, 2022, 12:07:24 AMDo you really need to evoke and break down the conventional beauty barriers, which barely anyone I know fits, anyway, but I still know they're very attractive, fits, in order to compliment someone? In real life, in the bare, it's not something someone is going to be very pleased with is it? It's neggy, puts more focus on the person that's complimenting than the person that's being complimented. Just going from experience

It isn't something I would use directly when speaking to someone about their appearance.

itsfredtitmus

Quote from: shoulders on June 28, 2022, 12:14:15 AMIt isn't something I would use directly when speaking to someone about their appearance.
Glad we agree! Not something you'd say to their face or anyone that knows 'em - bad! Get rid! Bin it!

QDRPHNC

It's a bit like "anti-comedy", isn't it? If it makes you laugh, it's comedy. If you find someone attractive, they're attractive. Not something that needs to be qualified.

itsfredtitmus

It is an immense redflag for me. My current partner would never dream of talking such rubbish to me, it's almost a shock to the system, someone being this nice to me where I don't have to police their language towards to me and establish boundaries where there aoun't be ones.

Get anti-compliments right in the river thames, for fools

Maybe I've just been with too many bad people and it's showing in general bullshit without me realising...

Zero Gravitas

Someone told me I looked like James Spader recently, it has been a real struggle to keep believing that's James Spader in Crash not James Spader in The Blacklist.

Mister Six

Quote from: TrenterPercenter on June 27, 2022, 06:17:17 PMI think it means you don't look like a Love Island contestant. It's a nice compliment in my opinion, I very much doubt it intended to "make people question themselves" and I don't people saying it are thinking about it even remotely as much as you are making out, they are just literally saying you are attractive but not in way that is commonly promoted and marketed, enjoy it.

Aye. It's a useful descriptor. Like, Matt Smith isn't conventionally good looking - if you were building a leading man out of face bits, you wouldn't make his eyes so small, or his forehead and chin so big that Steven Moffat worked an Easter Island head gag into Doctor Who. And yet he is an undeniably attractive man to many people.

What we need is the inverse - someone who has lovely, well-shaped and proportioned, symmetrical features, but has something about them (being horrible as a person, say) that renders them deeply unappealing. Unconventionally unattractive?

QDRPHNC

I remember once reading the phrase "blandly handsome", and I thought you could apply that to quite a few actors.

itsfredtitmus

Quote from: QDRPHNC on June 28, 2022, 12:39:41 AMI remember once reading the phrase "blandly handsome", and I thought you could apply that to quite a few actors.
To actors, yeah, sure, but not real people imo! It's such a bad thing to say to someone, you'd have to be a genuine fool to NOT know what it's doing to the other person on the end of the compliment

blandy attractive
boringly beautiful
what does it even mean? nothinginess! not real world language
language that has never been uttered outside books or the net
pure academic, nonsense