Feeling Particularly Ugly

I’ve been struggling with my image the last couple of days. There seems to be a pattern in my life that the men that I’m most attracted to do not find me physically attractive. In the third grade, it was Kim Williams, who had a huge afro like Foster Slyvers. (Hotline Hotline) He was light skinned and I thought he was the finest thing since Michael Jackson (when he was black with a big assed nose). He liked my best friend Lydia Cherry who was also light skinned. They boy who liked me was Tony Davis. Tony Davis looked like a skeleton with some brown skin he was so skinny. He would write me little love letters, put cut out hearts on them, and glitter. He was crazy about me through high school. Needless to say, I wasn’t really attracted to Tony.

In Junior High, on the first day of school, I saw the boy that would have my heart for six years. Darren Davis. I remember the sensation of seeing him for the very first time to this day. I was walking down the stairs and he was coming up. It was right after homeroom and he turned the corner and bumped into me and my heart skipped a beat. I said right then and there that that was the man that I was going to marry. Within a week, he was going steady (that’s not what we called it, that sounds like something from Happy Days) with my best friend of five years, guess who, Lydia Cherry. They dated for two or three years until which time they broke up and he started dating Jenny Colombo, who was white. They dated for about two years and then he and Lydia finished up high school back together. The entire six years, I was his summer lover. School would let out, he would come over to my house and, eventually when we were about 16, have sex every single day. On the first day of school, he would ignore me like I was a leper for the entire school year, kissing and holding hands with Lydia or Jenny. For six years, the same pattern repeated.

The boys who liked me in high school were the outcasts. There were two brothers, Mark and I forget the other one’s name Clark. They both were into heavy metal and had crusty stuff in their eyes and white gunk in the corners of their mouths and didn’t fit in with the black crowd. One of them asked me to the prom on the day of the prom. Needless to say, I sat home on the night of the prom and watched the Love Boat and Fantasy Island. I did not find either one of them attractive.

In college, I dated the same guy for three and a half years. We were in love but when I met him I was truly not attracted to him. He was attractive but he was white with strawberry blonde hair and he didn’t look anything like Darren Davis who was 6’1” and chocolate. I was so in love with him that I didn’t look at another guy the entire time we were together.

My ex husband looked almost like Darren Davis’ twin. Actually, people used to confuse he and I for twins. He was tall, had a fantastic body, brown, and looked like the boy next door. I was attracted to him the very first second I laid eyes on him. He left me, for surprise, a white woman.

The latter half of my twenties I would go out with men who I didn’t find particularly attractive but I liked something that they had to offer on the inside. I felt I owed it to them to be open and receptive to the person that they were and not the package it came in. I found myself being patronizing because I was really only trying to be a nice person and not aroused on a physical level.

My early thirties . . . enter Emmanuel Bell. I remember the second I laid eyes on him. I remember the feeling of knowing he was standing behind me before he said anything. He took my breath away. Not only was I physically attracted to him, I was intellectually drawn to him. He, however, is only attracted to women with light skin and long hair. Well, that’s not true. They can be Latina or Asian, they don’t have to be light skinned black women. For 7 years, I tried to get him to love me. For 7 years, I tried to get him to see that we were perfect for each other. For 7 years, he fucked me and pursued every other woman who was light skinned and high maintenance. Derrick Scott, not attracted to me. Billy Odum, not attracted to me. I have a string of men that think I’m the best thing since sliced bread and all of whom are beautiful . . . on the inside.

Anyone noticing a pattern? From the time when I was 8 years old till now, the men that I’m attracted to are attracted to light skinned or white women. The men that are attracted to me, I don’t really find physically attractive. I think I’ve done a reasonably good job of dealing with the issues of attracting men to me that make me feel like I have to prove that I’m worthy. That was an issue from my mother that I was trying to resolve. I’m really only attracted to Afrikan centered men now, so the whole issue of white/light beauty isn’t really an issue for me anymore.

That still leaves the issue of the fact that the vast majority of men who are attracted to me, are not men who give me chills shall we say. The men that I meet that I find attractive never seem to show interest in me. The men that would worship the ground I walk on are men I’m not sure I could feel a genuine physical attraction for.

Here’s my concern. If the men that find me attractive are men that I don’t find attractive and the men that I find attractive don’t find me attractive . . . isn’t that really an indication that I’m not as physically attractive as I think I am. Granted, I don’t think I’m a knock out, but I think I’m okay. But if I’m honest with myself, the men who I don’t find attractive must say the same thing about themselves.

Maybe what I see in the mirror is not appealing to the men that I find attractive because my perception is distorted. Maybe I’ll forever chase after men that think I’m ugly because I’m truly not as attractive as I once thought I was. I’m not sure that I ever thought I was attractive but I thought I was at least attractive enough to be appealing to the men that I found attractive. I remember having honest humility in my life and saying, “There’s no way in hell that he would find me attractive, I’m not anywhere close to his level.” It think it’s healthy to have an honest assessment of what you bring to the table.
I have this fear now that I’m about to achieve my goals, now that I’m finally putting to bed some of the demons from my childhood, that I’m going to meet some amazing man who knocks my socks off and he’s going to think I’m ugly. I’ve been staring in the mirror, trying to be honest with myself. What I see looking back at me isn’t very pretty. Maybe I’m seeing myself truly for the very first time in life. Perhaps the men that are most attracted to me are so because I’m resonating on their level and not the level of the men that I’ve been pursuing. Part of me wants to think that really pretty and that the men that I find attractive will find me attractive as well. I’d love to have a man in my life who looks at me and says, “Damn, my baby is so fine.” I know I’m not attractive to quite a few men because I have no hair and long hair is the standard of beauty, even when it’s nappy. I don’t know. Maybe if I hope to find partnership I have to look past the outside and find companionship with someone who isn’t really aesthetically pleasing to me and accept that I’m not aesthetically pleasing to the world.