I subconsciously hate ugly people for no reason
I don’t know why, but I feel repulsed by the presence of very unattractive people. I realized this a few months ago. After leaving my previous friend group, I pretty much joined another one after hanging out with them a few times.
In that group, there’s a girl who is pretty unattractive and overweight. From the first time I saw her, I subconsciously started to dislike her because of her looks, and my repulsion of her grew even more when, a few weeks later after becoming acquainted with her, I was told that she had a crush on me.
For some reason, that information gave me an enormous feeling of disgust, and from that moment onwards I’ve disliked her even more for no particular reason.
The worst thing is that she’s a nice person, although it’s true she can be a pain sometimes as she’s very talkative.
I recently became aware of my irrational dislike towards her, as I’ve noticed that sometimes I become very rude and angered when talking to her, which is why I desperately want to change this because I don’t want to screw up and seriously hurt her feelings just because she’s unattractive.
Netizens’ comments
- Being aware of it is a good start. Most of our bias happens at the level we aren’t aware of. Actively seeking out and calling to mind examples of unattractive people you have liked, or who were very kind or otherwise admirable is also a good exercise to engage in before activities that you know she will attend. Try working with a counselor who specializes in CBT so that you can practice identifying what unconcuous thought or beliefs are driving that reaction and actively challenge it.
- For real! The biggest roadblock to breaking down prejudices is most don’t wanna face a fact like “I subconsciously hate ugly people.”
If you say it out loud, you’re an a-hole. Even if you don’t say it, people can tell. That’s probably not intentional, but we communicate without words more often than not, and we are far less aware of it.
BUT the first (and often hardest) step to solving a problem is recognizing there is one. I don’t think you would have posted this if you didn’t want to change. Unless you were bragging about your bias, you’d probably like to stop having it. That’s above my pay grade, but I just want you to know you’re probably doing a good thing. - This isn’t uncommon. It’s a proven fact that more attractive people are more likely to be treated better and are more likely to be offered a job. If it’s an isolated incident you probably just don’t like her, but if you feel that way towards anyone that’s unattractive you should probably try to work on that. There are a lot of unattractive people that have a lot to offer and are worth being friends with.