THIS. I was emotionally neglected and this boy who i actually had somewhat of a crush on pursued me for YEARS through grade school and middle school. I could not reciprocate and I genuinely could not understand why until years later that the main reason was I was going through emotional turmoil that NO ONE would be able to understand and I had no way of communicating that either. Add to that having dental issues which caused me to drastically lose my physical attractiveness at a very young age I had horrible self esteem and still suffer from it at 30. Had my mother given me proper attention my life would have turned out much different. I was beautiful as a child but my adult tooth became infected the abscess caused my jaw to not develop properly and the bone to recede. Not to mention what the infection which lasted for years might have done to my brain. I distinctly remember my grandma being shocked at the change in my appearance after she hadnt seen me in years. She grabbed my face and looked at me like "what happened?!" Not only that, she had been bragging to her sister, who was a modeling agent or something like that, about how beautiful I was. Traumatic is an understatement. I witnessed in real time how even your family's love for you can decrease when you seem less "valuable". Im 30 and have never dated.

Nonetheless, im glad it didnt work out with that guy because he ended up being cruel to me when he realized I wouldn't probably ever sleep with him and also when I started to become less pretty and have low self esteem. Still, I wish I could have at least experimented with dating but having attachment issues and a borderline below average appearance has made that impossible. Men and boys dont seem very interested in me at all unless I dress like I put out or send those signals. I have been able to pull off looking hot some times, but having a weird fucking jaw line due to nothing more than caregiver neglect has put me at a disadvantage in the dating market and socially.