As a teenager, you weren’t exactly what you’d call a head turner. However, after those awkward years passed, you fully came into your own and grew up to be a beautiful swan—you’re just not totally used to it yet. Here are 11 signs you’re suffering from Ugly Duckling syndrome.
- You can’t accept a compliment to save your life. Every time someone tells you how nice you look or how hot you look in that dress, you immediately skip to thinking they’re just messing with you and that an insult is sure to follow. As an ugly duckling, you spent your childhood and adolescence fending off bullies who called you names based on your appearance, so it’s hard to trust that people are complimenting you for real and aren’t just making a joke.
- You automatically assume a guy’s interested in friendship rather than a romantic relationship. When a guy’s interested in you, you immediately try to make it just a friends-only situation to avoid disappointment—and yes, this includes friends with benefits arrangements. For all you know, they’re making a terrible mistake by being interested in you. Maybe the lights were dim and they couldn’t see what you REALLY looked like, or maybe after they see you without makeup on, they’ll find out who you really are and run the other way.
- People staring at you makes you uncomfortable. For people who were beautiful since birth, they can trust that the majority of the human population thinks they’re attractive, so they don’t have to worry about people staring at them because they look weird. Since you went through an Ugly Duckling phase, you’re often paranoid that people are singling you out because you look different, ugly, or there’s something weird about your face and people just can’t look away out of shock.
- You can never tell when a guy likes you. Even if a guy is putting out ALL the signs, you haven’t been trained to pick them up because you spent so many years barely getting any male attention. If only you knew the laundry list of guys who had crushes on you both during your awkward AND now. Even though you’re beautiful, you still haven’t figured out how to decipher the cues of attraction. It’s a learning process.
- You didn’t start wearing makeup until your 20s. Wearing makeup in high school was kinda embarrassing. You didn’t think you had anything to accentuate, so why even bother? You went for the natural look and kept that up until you fully grew into your looks and turned into a beauty queen. Now you wear makeup all the time and it’s mainly because you feel proud of your looks, not because you’re trying to cover anything up.
- You tend to value intelligence/sense of humor in others versus looks. You’re one of those smart and quirky girls who isn’t shy about speaking up and showing off your intelligence. You spent most of your high school career cooped up, reading books and studying like mad and now that you’ve out-grown your Ugly Ducking phase, you’re now smart, funny AND beautiful—the perfect woman.
- Your heart literally pounds in anxiety when you get dressed up. For some reason, you’ve always been anxious about putting on makeup or wearing revealing clothing. A part of you is channeling that insecure, awkward girl from your early years and you haven’t been able to totally shake that feeling of fear that people are going to make fun of you.
- You choose your friends/partners based on what’s on the inside. You couldn’t relate when your friends started having crushes on celebrities and guys they have never even met. You learned from a young age that your outer appearance is merely a shell and that what really matters is what’s on the inside.
- You’re attracted to mediocre looking guys, yet hotties seem to always be interested in you. You get totally weirded out when hot guys show interest in you and rarely ever have crushes on the traditionally attractive-types. Those were the kind of guys who made fun of you in high school, so it’s hard to not see them as bullies. You tend to stick to the more sensitive, intelligent type of guy who appreciates your brains over your beauty.
- Your friends always have to tell you when a guy’s looking at you. Since you weren’t born beautiful, you haven’t gotten used to accepting eye contact from strangers. It’s something that beautiful people get all the time, but you still assume that people are looking at you because you look weird. It’s gonna take a while until you can accept these flirtatious glances, but you’ll get there.
- You’re able to see the beauty in almost anything. You find even “ugly” people to be attractive in their own way. You tend to believe that everyone is beautiful and that there’s something inherently special about everyone, no matter what they look like. Aww!
