We're all human, but I'm feeling vain right now
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free skin care · Sat Mar 05, 2005 10:04 pm

I hope no one takes it the wrong way for me posting this topic, but I think other people may feel the same way??

First off, I must say I LOVE this forum. It's just a nice way to talk about the things that concern us most, like our appearance!! Plus, it's just a fun atmosphere Smile

However, there comes a time when you start realizing, that what we are trying to fix is imperfections. We all have them, and there's nothing wrong with that. It may be lines, wrinkles, freckles, pimples, etc.

But, some people are way worse off than imperfections. Some people have serious skin problems that most of us wouldn't imagine having. That I can't imagine having. And I'm starting to feel bad about worrying so much about a few pimples and fine lines. I'm starting to feel vain Crying or Very sad

Does anyone else feel the same way??

free skin care · Sun Mar 06, 2005 3:08 am

I sometimes feel like this too. I've always spent too much time worrying about my mild acne and now I'm starting to worry about ageing. I stop and think sometimes that I should be grateful that I haven't got severe acne or some other terrible skin condition.
However, there are also times when I see people walking about with lovely, clear, radiant skin and I start to feel envious that I have never had (and never will have) skin like that. I know it's stupid but it's sometimes these silly little things that can consume our thoughts. Sad

I just tell myself that I'm very lucky to have mine and my family's good health and that I am a lot better off than a lot of people out there in the world.

free skin care · Sun Mar 06, 2005 3:15 pm

This is an interesting question.
My mother (who, rest her soul, was not very supportive) used to say, "I cried because I had no shoes until I saw someone with no feet". Gee, thanks Mom.
But yes, I do feel self-absorbed about imperfections and I'm always on the look out for a magic wand of a product that will lead me one the road to perfection. This may stem from having acne as a teenager and having parents who were too poor to send me to a dermatologist. So when I became old enough and began making my own money, I visited skin care professionals and derm docs and I was amazed that someone actually cared and took my skin issues seriously.
Once you begin seeing results you want more results and better results and it can sometimes spiral out of control. And, oh yes, when I see someone with a really severe skin condition, I feel shallow and vain and ashamed.
But I believe it is human nature to want to be and look our best.
My question is, and this is tricky, if you see someone with a skin condition you know is treatable, do you recommend products that work? Is it like telling someone they have something in their teeth?
ktsweets, thanks for starting a conversation on a difficult subject. Joani

Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:47 pm

It's Human Nature.

free skin care · Tue Mar 22, 2005 4:33 pm

To want to look the best you can is great!!! Being obsessed is another story. Question....is it really vanity or insecurity? I would tend to think that spending a good percent of your day being concerned on how you look would tend to be a security issue.

free skin care · Tue Mar 22, 2005 9:49 pm

I agree with Winnie about the security issue. When I'm busy with work and dealing with other people's problems, I don't usually think about how I look.
It's those times when I'm feeling that my world would be different it I could change this or that...that's when it feels like insecurity is rearing it's ugly head (oh, bad pun!).
It is about feeling confident and poised without being self-center or dismissive.
I had a birthday yesterday and I thought, wow, I'm old, but I can still care about my skin which is aging and has acne (now that's just not fair!).
But I wonder if, as women, our insecurity (about aging) is not just about our skin or our looks but about our fear of becoming invisible and therefore, not feminine or desirable anymore. Thinking out load, joani

free skin care · Thu Apr 21, 2005 6:58 am

Hi, I saw this a while back and wanted to say something but it slid away.

I have to say I agree with almost everything people have said. There's so many different reasons we're here. And I have to say I very often feel guilty not to mention embarrassed for spending so much time and money on my skin especially because I'm living in the country in a developing country and some of them can barely afford to live, but I feel my vanity is justified or explainable - read on.

I think the invisibility is a big issue for me, certainly. When I'm in a bad situation I dwell on improvements. My last bad situation was working in an English school in Beijing with only younger male colleagues and a lot of fawning female students. 'Invisible' is exactly the word for it. I haven't worked in such an overtly sexist environment since the early eighties and being female and about to hit my forties didn't help. I could either be a pain in the arse or one of the lads, so it had to be the latter. I had to ignore their comments about every female that passed by and pretend that I wasn't really female to get on. And chinese men don't appear to find many Western women attractive, for various reasons not just physical I think, so this makes you even more invisible.

So I moved on to where I am now; a small, distant Chinese city, where at first I was the only foreigner and pretty much the first. I still spent time on my skin, but I was feeling happy with the way I looked. And you have to feel happy with the way you look because you are scrutinised closely in the street every minute of every day and comments are made loudly on your appearance without any shame at all. But I look young for my age and for them I was beautiful and exotic and they can't figure out Westerner's ages at all, it's a lack of experience. They've nothing to compare. So despite the staring I was feeling confident.

Then a 25 year old Italian moved to a village on the outskirts doing research for a Phd. And since then I get nothing but comparisons. They might say them in the local dialect, but I can understand them now. So now, ever day, every minute I (a 41 year old) am compared looks-wise to a 25 year old. I'm a really strong person, but this could get anyone down. You can say 'don't compare yourself to others', but this comparison is forced on me by others, regularly.

I've read before that constantly comparing can be a very strong contributory factor to depression and this is as if the comparing is magnified because there are only ever two of us to compare. I try and tell myself how ridiculous this is; they would never think of comparing the looks of a local 40 year old woman with a local 25 year old. But, as I say, I hear comments every day or the English speakers tell me directly to my face.

In so many ways living in a Chinese town as a lone (or now couple of) foreigners is so similar to being a celebrity, everyone knows about us, everyone has an opinion, but no-one really knows us well so a lot of it is based on our appearance. I remember Guapagirl posting up celebrity cosmetic surgery photos - I actually felt very sorry for them. What I'm getting is probably a tiny percentage of the kind of scrutiny and pressure they get on their looks and the stress I feel is enormous.

Anyway, it's an *interesting* situation, but I'm thinking of winding it up.

So, I'm really, really, really vain right now, but I can't help it. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

M

free skin care · Thu Apr 21, 2005 8:54 am

happy belated birthday joani.sp Very Happy

Yes we are all vain - it's part of the female nature and we are our own worst critics.
I had really bad acne in my teens, made worse by the fact I messed with it - all I wanted was perfect clear skin, I would get so pissed off at my friend who had lovely skin with the odd imperfection when she moaned how bad her skin was. Now that my skin is clear I have become her scritinizing for imperfections!!!
My boyfriend goes mad at me when I have a small breakout as I obsess - he has to remind me that I would have killed to have had skin like I do now (even with the breakout) when I was in my teens.
Then I think well why do I care he loves me the way I am - even when I have a breakout he always says he never really notices and I don't notice when he has an outbreak either - just try stopping and actually looking at a person you spend a lot of time with and you will realise that they have a lot of features that you have never noticed before - I always see him as him, when we have a photo taken I think do we really look like that?

I think I become more vain when I have spent time around other females as they are more competitional, even when I am around my sister she competes with me and I her (I've no chance she's 6 years younger!!).
But it suits the cosmetic industry to have us vain....money..... When I think of how much enjoyment I have actually got out of being vain, that includes buying stuff, it is really empty satisfaction.
True enjoyment really is spending time with my other half, no make-up, by the sea, eating fish and chips.
I shy away from having vain 'perfect' asthetically pleasing females as company because I just think that they will probably bore me!!!

free skin care · Thu Apr 21, 2005 10:16 am

Molly that must be tough. I think I would move.

free skin care · Fri Apr 22, 2005 5:14 am

Thanks Loopylori - yes, I will go at the end of this term, but it's a wrench after investing a year and a half's effort in the students and the place and I had so many plans. I should go back to London to restore myself, but it just doesn't excite me after living somewhere so strange.

free skin care · Sat Apr 23, 2005 3:25 pm

Molly, what amazing experiences you are having! This forum has such fantastic, interesting, smart women as members (all of you!)
The town you are in sounds like a different world, so of course, you are bound to feel insecure. It sounds as if you are perhaps lonely and missing all that is familiar to you. I think anyone would feel insecure in that situation, regardless of how one looked. You are about 15 years older than the Italian. You have a different kind of beauty and you should not to allow yourself to not enjoy this time. You are at a great age (I'm 51 so I can say that!)
You have so much to contend with, cultural differences, economic differences, and different views of beauty. Moreover, men seem to be men no matter where they are! Just think of their little wieners when they are being mean! Can I say that? I do not mean it in a racist way; I mean it in a sexist way. I think all men who are mean have small you-know-what’s!
Could you possibly become friends with the Italian gal? Then you would see her as less as an object of comparison and more as just another gal living in a strange, far-away place. Think of her laughing and having red wine coming out of her nose!
Molly, perhaps you just need a break. A place where you can feel pampered. It sounds like you give so much to others.
I think you are so brave and brave is definitely beautiful in my book! Best, joani

free skin care · Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:34 am

Hi Joani
thanks for the encouragement.

Me and the Italian are good friends. She emerged from the woods and came to the school to find me several months ago, which was good because from time to time we need to talk and laugh about so many people things which we find extreme, strange and often just plain inexplicable. We we're a bit wary of each other at first. I mean we'd both chosen to be here because we wanted to be immersed in the local culture not because we wanted to hang around with westerners. My sister said it was like trying to bring together a couple of pandas to mate Laughing

.

We do our best to try and support each other. We've discussed the comparison thing a lot amongst other things. I have a lot of sympathy for her, in fact she's been much more lonely and up and down than me since she's been here. I'm not sure she's really suited to the panda existence at all.

And you're right, 41's a good age. I was thinking so on my birthday. Not too old, not too young and free and confident. I was feeling very comfortable with myself.

I don't really miss London at all. I feel completely at home in China having been here for 3 years, but I DO miss the people and their sense of humour and being understood (culturally) so I'm going home for a 3 month holiday I've decided from the end of term.

I am brave too! Just before I arrived there were a couple of teachers working at another school in the city, but they stuck a note on the school gate one day and ran away. I can understand why. M

free skin care · Sun Apr 24, 2005 10:06 am

Molly,
I actually admire what you are doing. A holiday away might be just what you need to put things back on an even level. It must be hard for you, but what sort of a life is it if you dont face challenges and try new things. I hope you have a great break and ignore what I said in previous post I was half joking. I guess it can't be that bad or you would have put a note on the gate and run away before now.

free skin care · Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:56 pm

Hi Loopi

Don't worry I'm not going because you told me too Smile

, but I am leaving the school for good. The comparison of looks thing is only the tip of an enormous iceberg of other problems, which I won't go into, because they make me sound either mentally ill or racist and I think neither is the case, though I did actually wonder about my mental health at one point and found the perfect description for my situation here 'borderline personality disorder', but in retrospect it describes the condition of being a foreigner in small town China not a problem of my mind itself. At least I considered it was my fault. The Italian had convinced herself they were all completely insane, but hadn't found an appropriate illness. Laughing

And she's studied Chinese culture and language at the London School of Oriental Studies and is doing an anthropology Phd so she's certainly no racist either. We've certainly both had to examine our western, individualist, liberal values since we've been here.

I did want to set up a holiday venture for people busier than myself who still wanted to have cultural adventures. I've set about trying to buy local farmhouses and I'm still going to give that a go in my time left. We (me and the Italian) both agree that this place is such a rarity; i'ts 'real China'. Most adventurous tourists to China end up on the fringes of the place in the minority areas, mostly because they are less well developed so the countryside is still beautiful and the minorities maintain their culture. Unfortunately 'real China' won't be around for much longer. With their love of progress and modernity and the huge migration to the big cities at this point there are only people over the age of 50 left working on the farms and kids, they bring up their grandchildren (a Chinese tradition). So given another 20 years, at most, this kind of life will almost certainly have died out. So it's been a valueable and rare experience. (oops, I'm beginning to sound like a travel advertorial).

So I'd come here for a holiday, but I wouldn't want to live here, not all the time anyway, oh maybe. M

Mon Apr 25, 2005 6:37 am

People who respect themselves enough to always look their best are often labelled as vain by those who choose to be sloths in the appearance area. And then made to feel guilty about it. It's as if doing everything in ones power to look as good as possible gets translated into trying to make others look bad, and so becomes a hated behavior.

I think we lost something when society got too casual. Photographs from the 1940's of a typical downtown workday scene show men in suits, ties, and hats, and women in skirt suits, heels, and hats. Whether they worked in banks or retail stores, both men and women dressed like executives of today. I believe this was due to the fact they had immense self respect for themselves and that self respect led them to always look the best they could. Today, people call that shallow vanity. And more's the pity.

free skin care · Mon Apr 25, 2005 6:56 am

Hi Keridwen

...but surely in the 40s most people were poorer than today. Weren't they dressing up to go to town to try and impress and hide the stigma of being impoverished. That might look romantic in retrospect.

Now people are more affluent they've less need to impress.

Where I live the poorest people put on suits to go to the city even if it's to go and do manual labour and the rich buy expensive casual wear and laugh at the outsiders' suits. I think this is more to do with economics than vanity.

(Sorry to argue with you. You're new. Welcome anyway Smile

) I hijacked this thread a long time ago and just had to jump in. M Bad Grin

free skin care · Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:39 am

Molly, I hit an iceberg too! We lived on an island in Mexico for 5 years and if we'd stayed one more year I'd have ended up in the loony bin or jail. Whenever you go someplace foreign to live you have such a completely different experience to the tourists that they think you're nuts or racist if you complain about how you're being treated. If you surveyed the tourists climbing back onto their cruiseship at the end of their 5 hour stay on the island I'm sure only a small percentage would have anything bad to say about the islanders or the condition of the place. They wouldn't have a clue about the abuse/extortion/terrorism we suffered. We went there with open hearts and open minds, learned the language and made some good friends but we'll probably never go back unless the desire for revenge gets overwhelming!

The island we're on now is much, much better. We don't feel threatened here and there is a terrific ex-pat community available for "group therapy". When things go haywire it makes a huge difference if there are people around who can say, "We know, that happened to us too", rather than look at you like you're from another planet. It's still unusual and exciting but I don't think I have to be the only one experiencing it for it to be an adventure.

Here's an example of something that probably hasn't happened to many tourists. Some scumbag decided we were having too much fun riding our motorcycles through the trails at the north end of the island and strung up a wire cable to hurt/kill one of us. Here I am in shock and with a concussion less than an hour after the cable snatched me off my dirt bike by the neck. It took over 6 months to get over the worst of the whiplash. I still have scars and still hallucinate wires when I'm out riding.

free skin care · Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:52 am

OMG freefall2,
Those bruises!!!! You are lucky that you weren't more seriously injured, lathough that prob doesn't make you feel better. That is a horrible, horrible experience Sad

free skin care · Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:59 am

There aren't words for how shocking and horrendous that is. How unbelievable horrid. You must have been so traumatized. I can't imagine how scary it must have been to stay after that...how long did you stay there following that obvious attempt on your life?
Pudoodles

free skin care · Mon Apr 25, 2005 8:10 am

That was taken shortly after the incident, I hadn't even begun to bruise yet. Those marks are all abrasions, like burns from the wire cable. A doctor had to debrade them twice just like you would with burned skin. I was really lucky that the branch the wire was attached to broke. I had nightmares for ages because it was only a fluke that I was riding out in front. Usually Tim goes really fast, gets ahead of me and then waits for me to catch up. If he had been flying along and caught that thing he may have lost his head. We were there another 2 years after that! We have a lot more horror stories. I had just written up our letter of resignation when we got word that we were moving the boat.

free skin care · Mon Apr 25, 2005 10:25 am

I think it is very sad that you went there ready to embrace the lifestyle and small minded bigots( the same ones who would cry racism if the things they did to you were done to them) ruined it for you and truly endangered your lives.

free skin care · Tue Apr 26, 2005 10:50 pm

These stories are very interesting and scary. I guess it's sometimes difficult for Westerners, who generally live in heterogeneous societies, to understand the xenophobia of homogeneous ones. I suppose that in developing countries, native-born people don't mind tourists quite as much because they spend a lot of money and then LEAVE. Those of you who stay to make a living and/or try to help or educate in some way can obviously be considered threats to the status quo and culture. Especially so for Western women, who enjoy so many rights and freedoms at home compared to Third World women. Molly and freefall, I admire your fortitude!!!

On a different note, I'm an "urbanite" (hate that term but can't think of another one) and have felt like a freak at times in suburban culture! My husband and I are mass transit supporters/promoters and have occasionally been treated like freaks (less and less though over time and as gas prices have risen) at cocktail parties, etc., because we don't own a car! I'll never forget the woman who shreiked, "THEY TOOK A TAXI HERE!!!". Well HERE is Cincinnati, Ohio - smack dab in the middle of the rust/ghetto belt, and like many American places, people identify too much, IMO, with the vehicles they use to transport themselves. Just today, I read an article about how many Houston, Texas drivers hate the light rail system there and cause an alarming number of accidents with rail cars because of their animus. What symbolizes quintessential Americanism more than the automobile? Is it any wonder that public transit riles people who feel one person/one car is the only way to go?

I've often wondered if it isn't part of human nature to find some/any excuse to resent our fellow man, sometimes to a dangerous extent.

Ktsweets, I agree with you that vanity can elicit guilt. My eldest brother was born with cerebral palsy, so when I worry about my appearance, I'm still mindful that things could be MUCH worse. Nevertheless, we shouldn't be serious all of the time -- life requires a little comic (or cosmetic) relief now and then!!!

free skin care · Sun May 01, 2005 8:23 am

Hi Freefall

God, that's quite a horror story. Why on earth did you stay 2 more years? Maybe you really are crazy. Or was it all the effort you'd put into the place already stopping you or perhaps (like me a while back) you thought 'I'll show them they can't run us out of town'.

We would never suffer open physical horror here like you have. Mine is more a physchological thriller. My story would only work if I wrote a novel to explain all the twists and turns and lies and discoveries. Really, I just tried to write it in brief and it sounds too ordinary, whereas it's very particular to this situation. All I'll say is someone very well connected here has worked really hard to get rid of me by spreading gossip and trying to damage my reputation with the school management and teachers and any friends I try to make here. This campaign has gone on for several months and that's one of the reasons I absolutely and totally refused to leave even though most of last year I would have liked to have left a note on the school gates and run away. (Sounds paranoid, I know, but it's true - the Italian would verify it for you - if only she cared about her skin, but I've seen her moisturiser?!). My refusal to leave was mostly because I couldn't understand why he was doing it, but then bit by bit I think I've unravelled his mind and now I'm satisfied with my explanation(s) I'm happier (still quite sad) to go.

I can completely relate to what you're saying about outsiders views of a place. I'm so careful what I say to people back home (except close friends and family who've had blow by blow accounts of my time here) I know exactly the kind of reaction I'd get. In fact it reminds me of when I first arrived here - to hear the expats even saying 'the Chinese think........' or 'the Chinese always ......' is really offensive to our Western individualist ideas about people, but after a few months you end up saying the same.

I don't know about Mexico, but the trouble is that China is not only a monoculture, but of course it's a one party state so they are all taught the same things and they are all taught to aspire to be one kind of perfect Chinese person too. I was chatting to someone here about my personality, his personality etc. and he said, as if it was a revelation 'so you mean people are all different?'

m.april, hi. Actually there's nothing xenophobic about the Chinese. They revere foreigners to a frightening degree. We are all experts, we are all rich, beautiful, successful and more knowledgeable than them, we are all able to help them. It would take too long to explain the history behind this and certainly the Italian and I cannot fully explain it even then, but one part of it seems to be an inferiority complex; not because they're Chinese, but because our countries are 'developed' and theirs isn't - this is always high up on their agenda. But there are massive contradictions in their thinking, because whilst they revere foreigners (or all white, Westerners at least), they are also completely intolerant of cultural differences. If I dare to be different (and I don't mean by doing something offensive to them - I really just mean being different) I get the 'when in Rome' thing quoted at me, but we pretty much gave up that idea that everyone has to comply with one culture so long ago. I'm not saying you don't have to adapt to fit in, but I think you really can't throw away your own culture entirely.

This reverence combined with traditional Chinese hospitality, which is unbelievably oppressive (you feel you're someone's prisoner rather than a guest) makes it almost impossible to make real friends. You can never get through the formal hospitality. And everyone wants to know you because you are a foreigner; not because you are you. This is why I compare it to being a celebrity. You're always in demand, but not in a relaxed friendly way.

Enough. I could waffle on and on, but I must go and prepare my face for bed. Laughing

So little time and so many sample pots.
M

Wed May 11, 2005 10:28 am

I believe that the people who love us teach us to love ourselves best...accurately. They are the ones that teach us balance and perspective, which help us not be overconcerned with small aspects of who we are/how we appear. In my experience, the more we are loved, the more we grow physically beautiful and healthy...whether we are beautiful in any classic/objective sense or not...it doesn't matter...real beauty is too immense to abide by one loftily spoken definition...or one fashion magazine's credits. I have had to grow into myself in so many respects because of being surrounded by adults who were poor at giving/showing love. I think it is only in the last several years (I'm 43) that I have begun to see a fair amount of my true worth...because little by little, good/caring people have insisted it is there. Also, American culture goes to great lengths to educate all us women about exactly what we are supposed to be and not be...if we lack internal regulators--a strong sense of self--we are absolutely bound to get lost in the aisles of endless products bound to FINALLY reveal our true beauty to us....it is a crying shame! I'm working on a book called, I'm taking my body back...which I am...I hope to write a version that can be performed for middle-school aged girls.

free skin care · Wed May 11, 2005 11:04 am

That's an interesting post colacurio, mainly because in the UK there is a view that in the US, teen girls are taught self respect and esteem in order to counteract the kind of media images that make women feel they are freaks or inferior about even the most intimate areas. I find it sad that this is clearly not the case.

As a uk perspective, I find it depressing when kids at the school I work at tell me that they get their sex ed from watching internet ------------. This clearly means that there is a whole generation of young people growing up thinking that shaved genitals, anal sex and threesomes to name a few are normal, not to mention all the surgically enhanced bodies and faces.

I don't see how it is possible to counteract the messages sent out by the media that so affect young people. Hell, I just turned 40 and I am now insecure about my teeth and what I think are a mass of new wrinkles! No matter how much guapaboy says he doesn't see them, it doesn't help (also I know he can't see them because his aging issue is that his eyesight is starting to diminish).

Sorry. ranting on a bit Rolling Eyes

I'll shut up now!

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