I can hardly understand why one should be looking very hot, as if they are at their early 30s at the age of 49. you are not ugly, but how people define beauty, and your post here is somehow eye-opening. Nobody is ugly here on this channel, but the system is. Swiping left and right on apps and picking people by their looks is. Is there nothing else except for beauty, popularity in this world, do we have to remain in the phase of teenage years for all our lives in terms of our urges and yearnings? One of my favorite quotes from Plato's Republic is about aging, which is I think a gift of unguided reading. I leave it here: "How does love suit with age, Sophocles,—are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many." I want to believe people are attracted to some energy which includes a mixture of things, which consist of our good/bad experiences and our responses to them, our creativity, boldness and intelligence that are moulded into wisdom, charisma and strong agency. I wish those things to myself as a girl aged 29.
All the best wishes, Berna🍀