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Comment by norome | Hacker News Reader

plenty of mean and sarcastic ugly people around too

Some ugly people are mean because they are ugly and take their frustrations out on the world.

Some pretty people are mean because they can get away with it and never learned that it's often counterproductive in the long term.

This is just some people, others act differently.

They often have "other reasons" people put up with it - even just being the office attack dog you sic on annoying customers will make you a valuable team member.

In my opinion, a lot of ugly people start off by trying to be nice, then gradually become more bitter and cynical the more they have to take shit from other people. At least I feel like that has happened to me, and I'm not even so ugly (imho). The amount of gaslighting I've put up with from everyone over the years has really been infuriating and has led me to a lot of misery in my life, and also turned me away from the things that might have actually made a difference.

This. Childhood experiences are formative, and the peer environment from early years through adulthood is usually brutal. My expectation is that confidence and grace is evenly distributed at birth, but is added to the physically attractive and denied to the unattractive almost immediately. I've always found the physically-unattractive-but-socially-attractive especially interesting because they've succeeded, often along with a very cool peer group.

>My expectation is that confidence and grace is evenly distributed at birth, but is added to the physically attractive and denied to the unattractive almost immediately.

I don't think it would be evenly distributed, but it goes something like that. You can choose to behave confidently up to a point, but people reject such behavior from an ugly person. Ignoring this social feedback can get you into a lot of trouble.

>I've always found the physically-unattractive-but-socially-attractive especially interesting because they've succeeded, often along with a very cool peer group.

Some of these are brutal too. I've known some real busted dudes who got attractive girls to like or marry them somehow. I assume it's often money, connections, and/or encountering the right person who is a sucker for your particular characteristics. Imagine being the ugly brother or nephew of a solid 10 (guy or girl), or being a multi-millionaire. You'd easily get many times more opportunities in all areas of life.

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