heya gary and welcome. i'm pretty down myself right now, so i don't know if i'll say anything worth while, but i can tell you that the people here are great. i understand where you're coming from, and i have to say, shame on all the women you've met that haven't given you a chance. i've always been self conscious about my looks because i've never had the figure men want, or i assumed they want. my (ex?) bf was always going "oof" when a hot girl came on tv, and i finally had to tell him to tone it down. though i understood that he found those girls attractive, it made me realize that i am not. but he honestly doesn't see why i hate my body so much. he knows i'm overweight but he doesn't care. during our relationship, we had a lot of intimacy issues which were totally backward. he wanted me alll the time but my self image and past events killed any mood for me at all. and he just didn't get it. i got into such a slump, that makeup was non existant, my hair was always just shoved back, and i never bought any nice looking clothes. i would try to look a little better when we went out and i loved the reaction i would get from him. finally i decided that i was making myself hate my image even more, so i started making an effort to look nice every day. not all gussied up like when we went out, but just groomed and not sloppy. and it made me feel better. i tend to accentuate what i do like about myself. i have great hair, though it's thin and board strait, but i'm growing it long and leave it down more often. i also try to show off the bust line a little, since that is also a feature that's not bad. =) i don't really know what advice to give, but i know it's comforting for me to relate to people, so i thought i'd share a little about my self image too. hang in there and keep posting. drop by chat sometime too. we're usually totally silly in there, but we do get serious when it's needed. take care of you, glad you found us!

rayna