Bored Panda
People Reveal What Things Are Socially Acceptable Only If You're Hot, And It Might Surprise You
OCT 3, 2017

People Reveal What Things Are Socially Acceptable Only If You're Hot, And It Might Surprise You

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The genetic lottery happens very early in life, but its prizes (or the lack of) are evident during most of our days on Earth. The consequences of this natural process we have no control of, unfortunately, often leads to double standards, favoring the pretty and hurting the ugly people.
Reddit user OrbitalDickHead (I know, I know) has posted a question on the platform, asking "What is socially accepted when you are beautiful but not accepted when you are ugly?" and it went viral, accumulating over 38K upvotes.
Bored Panda has collected some of the most popular answers about social acceptance to highlight that not everyone can get away with staring at a stranger or going on about how inner beauty is more important than its outer counterpart. For example, if your read-headed, pot-bellied and slightly balding colleague that you usually don't talk to would stop to chat with you, would you feel delighted or later tweet about meeting creepy people? Now the opposite - if the guy were tall, dark, and handsome, your feelings would probably change too.
Scroll down to read the stories about ugly ducklings below. Hopefully, while reading it, you won't find the signs you are unattractive yourself.

#1

Being quiet/introverted.
If you're attractive, then you're "cute" or "sweet" or "reserved".
If you're ugly, then you're "awkward" or "creepy" or "have no life".
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115points

#2

My sister and I call ourselves "Princess Diary" pretty, because we have frizzy curly hair, but when straightened, we clean up nice... We tried an experiment for two weeks: Week 1- wear sweats, no hair straightening, no makeup... Week 2- wear cute outfits, straighten hair, do makeup, wear perfume. I wish we had filmed because the difference in the way we were treated was insane (by men and women). Week 1- People would let doors slam in my face, treated me meanly, and didn't notice me. Week 2- Everyone smiled at me, held doors, called me "honey", got invited out with co-workers, I even had my coffee/donut paid for. Anyone who says that looks don't matter, is living in a fantasy world.
115points

#3

Literally just existing and talking to people. There's a guy at work named Sean. Sean is unfortunate looking. He's a redhead, he's balding, yet his sides and back are pretty long, he doesn't cut his nose hairs, he's constantly red/pink, pot bellied, and yeah he kind of lingers around your desk and talks a bit too much.
Problem is, we all kind of do that... you know... overstaying your cubicle visit or whatever. Everyone at work thinks he's creepy. They all think he'll shoot up the place or maybe will eventually be banned from entering a school zone. TBH, Sean is a sweet, nice dude. He's your nerdy, 40-year old virgin type of dude. He's got a lot of friends, from what I can tell on Facebook, and practically zero work friends. He plays on different softball and bowling teams, goes out to bars with his friends, and from what I can tell, seems perfectly normal.
I talk to him every so often and he's a really nice guy. I visited his desk and he said I was the first person to visit him (he started here maybe 6 months ago...) It's very unfortunate for him that people think of him this way. I know for a fact that if he was skinnier, had hair, and wasn't ugly that people wouldn't think he's creepy at all.
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104points

#4

I'm not seeing this listed so I'll go ahead and say it: sexual assault.
When someone who's attractive goes way too far, it's frequently taken as a compliment, laughed off, or just not spoken of again, and if you take issue with it and tell someone, they're a hell of a lot less likely to believe you and/or try to talk you out of it/convince you it wasn't as bad as you're making it seem.
If an ugly person grabs your crotch or your boob, or smacks your ass in a bar, or doesn't take no for an answer, it's sexual assault and nobody questions you and everyone immediately rallies around you and agrees the person is bad.
I once had an outrageously hot girlfriend who didn't stop when I said to. We were in the drivers seat of a car and I was pinned between my seat and the steering wheel on top of me, and I wasn't wearing a condom. I was shoving at her and yelling, but I had no room to move my legs at all and had basically no physical leverage in that position. So she held me down and got what she wanted. I hated it.
Yes, female-on-male rape is a real thing.
I told her she raped me and she laughed in my face. Meanwhile I'm over here like "I don't know if I just got this crazy bitch pregnant, also how the fuck did she just remove my personal agency."
It was horrible and confusing and disorienting, because it's hard for men to really process the idea that it can happen to us too.
When I started telling people, at least 3/4 of them didn't believe me or blatantly didn't take me seriously in any way at all. Several simply changed the subject. The consensus was "You're whining because your hot girlfriend let you cum in her, how stupid are you?"
But if I'd told people a fat, homely friend of mine held me down and raped me, they'd have believed me with little question.
I can't even imagine how it must be for women who get assaulted by very attractive men.
And people wonder why most victims don't report shit, and people wonder how Cosby admitted in a deposition that he gave women quaaludes and then fucked them but somehow got a mistrial. We live in a society where if the aggressor is hot or rich, nobody wants to believe you and the system isn't set up to support you.
101points

#5

Going on about how inner beauty is more important than outer beauty. If you're attractive and say this you're humble and empowering, but if you're ugly and say it, you're just seen as whining.
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90points

#6

Almost anything.
Report
65points

#7

Weirdly, being polite to the opposite sex. I'm generally a very polite and friendly person. When I was fat men would constantly go out of their way to make sure I knew they had no interest even though I hadn't given any hint at being interested and was already in a relationship. Now that I've lost weight everyone's a LOT nicer.
64points

#8

Eating a lot. Skinny/ pretty girl eats an entire pizza? Oh how cute! She can eat anything she wants and shes still skinny! Adorable!
Fat/unattractive or average person even eats a whole pizza? Just sad.
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63points

#9

Being weird. People will tolerate a great deal of weirdness, strangeness and psycho behaviour from an attractive person, whereas these traits would be unforgivable in an ugly person.
There was a social experiment conducted where a catfish profile of a beautiful blonde was created. When guys talked to her the catfishers responded with the most weird, bizzarre, off-the-wall, creepy answers but guys still kept pursuing. People will tolerate a lot of weirdness if it comes alongside hotness.
62points

#10

HANDSOME + DADBOD vs UGLY + BEER BELLY
62points

#11

Making a lot of eye contact or smiling at a stranger.
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50points

#12

Having fantasies or fetishes. If you are ugly, having fantasies is seeing as creepy and dirty. If yo are handsome, it's kinky and exciting.
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50points

#13

About 10 years ago, I was asked to come in for an interview for selling Bose speakers at one of their B2B outlets. It was an entirely professional deal, and the HR guy on the phone could not stress enough how important knowledge about sound systems was. So I go in and only one other guy shows up. We assume they need more people, so we both fancy our chances. only thing is this guy has no idea how speakers work, no idea what or who Bose is, and displayed a generally carefree attitude. At least he was wearing a shirt and not a polo with his jeans and sneakers.
I get called first, and my interview went on for over 30 minutes, getting grilled about all things imaginable and then some more. I was pretty confident about the material ('coz I knew that stuff!) and I thought it went really well. So I come out and this guy is shitting bricks because he did not realize this was a "serious job interview." We had built up some rapport while waiting, so when he asked me if I could wait for him for some moral support (we were headed back to the same area too), I said okay.
His interview lasted 5 minutes. He walked out with an offer letter. All they asked him was his name and his background. I was politely asked to reapply after 12 months.
This guy was equally confused. He was not a scumbag, in fact, he was a really nice guy. But even when you are selling high end conference room sound systems to people who have no time to even listen to your pitch, Bose wanted good looks over skills. Did I mention this guy looked like a cross between Christopher Reeve and Elvis Presley?
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47points

#14

This super hot girl farted once in my high school class. People thought it was hilarious and some of the football players hugged her and thought it was awesome. Later that year in English Class an overweight girl let a ripper go and was mocked and ridiculed and was told she was disgusting.
44points

#15

Letting yourself go a little.
What I mean is - a beautiful man can let his hair get shaggy, go a week or two without shaving and bum around in jeans & a T-shirt. He's so rugged, look how carefree he is! An ugly man does the same thing, and he needs to put himself together, no wonder he doesn't have a girlfriend.
A beautiful woman decides to bum around the house in sweats with virtually no makeup and her hair tied back because she's in no mood to actually put in the effort to do it up today (after all, she's just hanging out at home with the cat this afternoon). She's a low-maintenance, natural beauty. An ugly woman does the same thing and she's a frumpy, lonely cat lady.
44points

#16

Conversation/small talk I guess. This just happened recently to a friend:
Matched a girl on tinder who looked very attractive from her photos. They had hour long phone conversations and day long texting conversations. Went to go meet her for the first time and he felt "catfished" apparently she was much larger than the pictures led on. I told him you gotta expect that a bit but he says it was a crazy amount like he felt tricked. Anyway, after knowing she was not very attractive, he said she was awful at conversations, very boring, asking the same repetitive questions to not let a conversation die. Looking back on his old texts, she was always awful at conversation (him too tbf) but he was never 'bored' when he thought it was a really hot girl asking about his day at work or his college program etc.
41points

#17

I am sure more good looking people get away with shit personalities.
40points

#18

Taking your shirt off.
38points

#19

As a woman who loves video games, I spend a lot of time gaming and streaming. Before I gained weight viewers as a whole were a lot more friendly and willing to watch my stream, now I have a health condition and I look pretty rough, I get virtually no views now.
37points

#20

Being the 'strong, silent type' only works if you are handsome. People don't want to explore if there is any depth to you if you're not aesthetically pleasing.
35points
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