ingeniousmachine

Genuine question: What if you stopped hiding it?

I looked at the photos, and sure, your bone structure is different. People will glance at you because it's different, and kids were terrible to you because kids are tiny monsters, but that doesn't mean every adult in your life will act badly or reject you. Most of us have seen plenty of people with unusual features, scars, or birthmarks. It's different, and our brains prioritize focusing on the differences in our environment, so we'll look, but that doesn't mean sane and well-adjusted adults will go "wow, that person has unusual bone structure, I better loudly insult them!" (that would make *us* look like crazy assholes), or "wow, this person has a few unusual features, so all the rest of their attractive features don't count." Most people won't rule out a prospective partner with attractive-to-them features just because that person has scars or a limp or a missing limb or whatever. Not everyone will find you attractive, but not everyone will find *anyone* attractive.

If you stop hiding it, then you no longer have to fear anyone finding out about it. Wouldn't that be a huge, huge relief of anxiety? Wouldn't it be amazing to not have to care about how you held your head on a windy day?

Sure, there might be a few assholes who react badly. That sucks. But there are also going to be people who genuinely don't care, or who care briefly and then get over the differences pretty quickly. If you hide from everyone, you miss out on all the people who wouldn't mind and you have to imagine that *everyone* is an asshole. If you stop hiding, the few assholes will be obvious, and you'll be able to interact with everyone else freely.

You'll probably make friends who enjoy your personality and don't care if you have dark marks on the back of your legs. (I looked up what the McCune-Albright Syndrome café-au-lait spots look like, and honestly, they're fine? Like, differently-colored sections of skin are unusual but not *that* rare. People have vitiligo and scarring and birthmarks and all kinds of things. It's not horrifying.) Some of those friends might even be attracted to you! Even in really shitty image-focused societies, people have different tastes and tolerances for unusual features.

Don't assume everyone is acting out of pity -- people are pretty selfish, and if they're spending time with you and even giving you compliments they're either sincere or *really* weirdly wasting their own time, which isn't your fault. It sucks that the kid in high school gave you such an awkward compliment, but what if he really did think you had pretty eyes? Like, "hey, your bone structure is unusual but you have great eyes." Maybe you just need to accept the terrible reality that you have nice eyes!

All of your answers in this AMA have been graceful and thoughtful, but the deadpan politeness here is especially good.