Being extremely insecure about your looks and how to deal with it
I've been wondering how y'all deal with being insecure on your looks. I'm working in academics and I like getting self-esteem juice via debates, complex thought processes and absorbing knowledge as much as possible.
But I have to admit, that I'm pretty much absorbed with my looks as well. I'm male, millennial, and it's always been like that. Everytime a mirror pops up, I have to look at myself. Sometimes I see myself as pretty, but most of the time, I look at myself in a criticising way. Like, being worried whether I look attractive. I do take a lot of selfies.
I try to hide this whenever possible, but at some point, people realize that I'm quite vain. I talk a lot about lookism, pretty privilegue and stuff like that, like how society and media feeds us with unrealistic beauity standards to make profits. Only to fall back into my own self-absorbed patterns again.
I've always been extremely envious of handsome people. I feel I never get complimented on my looks, thus I assume I'm ugly. Writing this, I realize this is not technically true, but compliments don't stick. Maybe they would if I'd get them multiple times a day, but how likely is that?
The problem is, whenever I get rejected (real or imagined) I blame my looks. Because I'm like "I'm smarter, more talented and more creative than everyone else, it must be a looks problem".
This is one of many issues I'm currently working on with my therapist (who is specialized in the treatment of NPD). But there is still a long road to go.
Still, I'm very curious on your experiences.