“i want gravy on everything”
I was toying with the fact that i’ve never been attracted to what i suppose you would call conventional beauty. Which is not to say that i don’t judge people on their looks; that there aren’t people i find dead fuckin’ sexy based on nothing but what i see – there so are. They just aren’t “pretty” people. So i’ve always kind of wondered what it is i’m missing – like the whole world is in on this joke, and i just don’t get it. Or, more accurately, that i do get it and i don’t think it’s funny.
Okay, whatever, to each his own and all that, it certainly isn’t the sort of thing that matters.
But what popped into my head thinking about it was kind of fun. Which is that conventional beauty is based on flawlessness. It’s based on not having “negative” qualities (what qualities a culture calls negative is another bag of worms). It’s a very deficit-oriented view of beauty – that is, there is this list of things that makes you “ugly” and if you can avoid all of them, then you are beautiful. Except that not having negative features is not the same as having positive features.
So, that’s my little lightbulb moment, enjoy.
Lady Brett
“Wintertime Blues” – John Hiatt
"Don't let's talk." 
I’m very similar. I see people who others lust after, and just don’t get it. And then I see people who make my jaw drop, and others just look at me and shake their heads.
But I think this is a good thing, that we all have different attractions. Otherwise, I’d never get ANY!
Traditional beauty is based on flawlessness. You are 100% right. But I think having “negative” features can actually be a positive because they make you stand out from that ideal which we are inundated with day after day after day. I don’t really find ANYTHING attractive about that “ideal” look. This isn’t something I had thought about until I read your entry, but the things that often attract me to someone are their quirky “imperfect” qualities. My girlfriend too; one of her favorite things are my crooked teeth even though the beauty standard would tell me that to be attractive I need to fix them… so yes, to each their own and screw the mainstream.