

I never saw myself as ugly, but I always just assumed I was pretty average. It’s not like people were tripping over themselves to spend time with me. I didn’t have supermodel attraction powers or anything; the most attractive people in my school never gave me the time of day. Every person I’ve ever dated asked me out, but I just assumed that was normal for anyone who wasn’t absolutely hideous.
(For the record, I tried to ask someone out once and it went so wrong, I never had the courage to ask anyone else out again, so the only time I dated anyone was when they approached me. Which happened quite a bit throughout my younger years.)
I’ve had friends talk about how jealous they are of certain features of mine (strong jaw, ability to grow a thick lumberjack beard, being taller than most of our friend group, etc.) but I was also jealous of certain features my friends shared, so I didn’t ever feel physically superior to anyone. You want what you can’t have, right?
But now I’m in my 40s, my hair is starting to thin, and thanks to a permanently busted leg and two bad knees, I can’t exercise without pain and have gained probably 60+ pounds in recent years. All of a sudden, I’ve realized that people don’t really notice me anymore. I don’t draw much attention when I go out in public and people aren’t as captivated by my conversation like they used to be.
My wife also used to love pointing out when strangers were staring at me in public. She used to brag that she’d snagged an attractive man and that other girls are just jealous. I used to think she was just trying to hype herself up, since she used to talk down about herself a lot, so I’d play along and praise her for being so lucky (and also let her know how lucky I was for getting to spend time with a woman like her). But it’s been years now since she’s pointed out anyone staring at me in public.
It’s kind of dawning on me that I may have been pretty attractive as a young man. But like all things, beauty fades with age and I’m in an awkward phase where people aren’t really paying much attention to me anymore. It’s definitely hitting the ego, not only noticing the lack of attention, but realizing too late that I had that kind of attractive power in my youth. If I hadn’t been crippled with introversion most of my youth, I probably could’ve been extremely popular.
I will point out, I shared a link to a blog of mine on Lemmy sometime earlier this year and I got a single comment, praising my attractive profile pic on my blog. Which is the first positive thing anyone’s said about my appearance in years. That was a wonderful feeling, but also kind of hit hard, realizing that people don’t really comment on my looks anymore.
That profile picture is maybe 5 years old now, and whereas I want to replace it with a more current one, I’ve been struggling to take one that doesn’t make me feel old and ugly. So I’m going to keep using that older one until I feel like it no longer looks like me.
As a retired veteran, I’d like to point out that this topic is a bit too complicated to summarize as “fine.”
The military industry itself with be fine. Heck, it may thrive! But the individuals who make up that military will definitely experience hardship along the way.
During Trump’s first term as president, he tried to ban trans people from serving with an executive order. Which he can do as Commander in Chief over the military. That order was very quickly shut down though, because we had a mostly Democrat government that pushed back against anything extreme he attempted that didn’t benefit both parties’ goals. He had his hands tied more than once, which is why his first term was relatively quiet. Back then, I was still serving and I remember our military leaders standing up to Trump on that order and making him back down.
During this second term though, Republicans have a majority in the federal government and have basically given Trump a blank check to do whatever he wants with little pushback. So trans people ARE banned now, and he’s replaced a bunch of high ranking generals with his own civilian yes men, giving them rank and authority without a career of military service or going through proper legal approval processes. The military leaders told him no once, so he’s replaced them with his own loyalists who won’t challenge his executive orders now.
Not to mention, with the push for ICE to round up anyone who’s (essentially) not white, we’re seeing military members and their families affected by that as well. There was a time when serving in our military was a sort of fast-track to citizenship. I worked with a guy once who was Brazilian, but by serving a term in the US military, he would earn his citizenship and get to stay in America. That’s going away under Trump’s new regime.
And Trump is talking about gaining access to voting records, which would just give him more incentive to target anyone who doesn’t vote Republican. Everyone, military or not, will be affected if it comes to that. Being an active service member as our country falls to fascism isn’t a free pass; if you don’t believe in the new order, you’re going to be targeted and, at best, kicked out. At worst, you could be labeled a terrorist threat to our nation and “disappeared” to Guantanamo Bay.
Also, as a 100% disabled veteran, I’m only retired now because my VA pay and benefits can cover my meager and quiet lifestyle without taking on another job. But if Trump has his way, my benefits will be a fraction of what they are (if not removed completely), and I’d be forced to find work to survive.
Military members (and especially veterans) will suffer. But the military industrial complex will be fine.