I'm finding it hard to reconcile my self image with the apparently fairly average person everyone else sees on the outside. Growing up, I always thought I was pretty, even though I was a chubby kid who didn't figure out makeup until after college.

Over the summer, I tried online dating. On OKCupid, you get star ratings, and I found out I had a below-average rating. I also didn't get nearly as many messages as the huge flood of messages my friends were getting. So I took my profile down, lost 15 pounds, took some better photos, and asked for help writing a new profile. Tried again and got the same response. Below average rating, very few messages from men I find attractive, much fewer messages than my friends get in this city.

This sort of makes sense, because I regularly find myself interested in men who aren't interested in me. I only attract guys I don't find physically attractive, but I'm realizing now that it's probably my "standards" that are off.

I think I'm finally accepting that I'm just not that pretty. I know I'm not hideously unattractive, but I guess I'm just an average-looking person, like most other people.

Does anyone have any tips on how to deal with this? Has anyone gone through something similar? I haven't discussed this with my friends, because they always just tell me I'm pretty and say all those other things that girlfriends tell each other.

And yeah, it could be worse. Average is better than ugly, but it's hard to deal with average when you've gone through most of life thinking you were pretty :(

link: http://redditlog.com/snapshot/22388/28326

Not sure what this one is, probably narcissism. She has to "deal with" not being hot, oh the horror. And what a surprise, she goes for guys above her paygrade. If this girl can't take being average-looking at 24, it's gonna be ugly when she hits the wall. Literally.

The advice is what you'd expect - some of it useful, most of it feel-good platitudes. Maybe she'll follow the lead of one commenter and get dreadlocks, tattoos, and piercings because confidence.

Edited for formatting.