Getting haircut+shaved helped ... Now I am pissed

Post Reply New Topic

I never said it made you look dangerous. I don't even know what you looked like.

Most strangers do not care whether you desire what they do or not. They care about themselves. If you look attractive, they will want to talk to you because it makes them happy to talk to an attractive person, just as it makes them happy to look at pretty flowers. If you look unattractive, they will avoid you simply because it brings them no happiness to engage.

If I'm talking to a homeless person, it's not because I want to befriend him; it's because I feel sorry for him and want to give him a dollar.

If you smell bad (or merely look like you smell bad), might have lice, might be mentally ill, etc, people will not enjoy being near you and will move away.



Yes, exactly. Human culture changes, but our instincts are still there. Our ancestors lived in small tribes where it made sense to pay attention to what the chief was doing, because he had a real effect on the whole tribe. Now we live in giant cities/countries. Who are our chiefs? I think people enjoy tabloid gossip because they want to know what the important people in their tribe are doing, and celebrities come closest to that for most people. (For some people, politicians are celebrities.)


I don't know why *you* were looking scruffy. Most of the autistic people I know keep up with their hygiene.

Most of the people I know who don't wash regularly are ill, either mentally or physically, to a degree that makes it difficult to do daily tasks. For example, my father has ALS, which makes it very hard for him to move at all. he has trouble getting in and out of bed, rolling over, talking, etc. He doesn't always make it to the bathroom in time and he can't get in and out of the tub without help.

Animals typically stop looking after themselves because they are too sick to do the physical work required. Humans with mental illness may also find that they can't do basic tasks, for example a depressed person may not have the energy to get out of bed and do the laundry so they can have clean clothes. (Homeless people may want to keep clean, but have nowhere to do so.)

Again, I don't know what's up with your personal case. It could be stress, or it could be gluten, or it could be something just individual to you.

As for sickly animals, they tend not to survive very long. Nature is harsh and predators are frequent. Typically they will not live long enough to recover and try to reproduce.

I think all 3 of your theories are fine working theories.



Which one? We are talking about a whole slew of instincts and basic behaviors. Grooming? Grooming is still important so you don't get fleas and your teeth don't rot. Social signaling via your appearance? This is important because it tells other people things. A police officer wants people to know he is a police officer so that they will comply. A doctor wants people to know she is a doctor and not a random hospital visitor. I want to avoid criminals and people with lice. Someone looking for a girlfriend wants to narrow their search to women who are also looking for someone to date.


Ah, good question! I used to wonder this, too. Here are my thoughts:
It actually does pay for violent people to signal that they are violent, because other people will obey more quickly and readily to avoid getting hurt.

Consider whom you would obey faster:

1. There are 5 police officers at your door. They are wearing uniforms with badges, have guns and tasers, and have a warrant. They say, "Open up! It's the police!"

2. There are 5 guys in hoodies at your door. You can't tell if they have badges or guns or anything. They say, "Open up! It's the police!"

The first set of guys has effectively used their appearance to signal, "We are actually the police and you had better do what we say or else we can use our weapons to hurt you." You are likely to obey because you do not want them to hurt you. The second group has *not* conveyed this message, and you are unlikely to open your door for them.

(Yes, the police are not criminals because they are allowed to use violence, but they still use violence.)

As for criminals, who are you going to be *more* careful around and try to avoid bumping into, someone who looks like a sweet little old lady, or the guy with the facial tattoos who looks like he's sawed someone's head off? Facial tattoos are like a wasp's bright yellow and black colors: they signal "stay away, I'm dangerous."

Who knows? Most likely your appearance changed somewhat between 21 and 34. You got older; perhaps your clothes also changed or your smell or your expressions or something else.


They don't really *need* a logical thought process to get there. They just have to observe that most unkempt people have something wrong, or even just an instinctual desire to be around nice-looking people and not un-nice-looking ones. Most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff. They see a hobo, they avoid. They see someone who looks nice, they want to be around them.

I spent a long time thinking about this same question. After all, you can order Harvard University merchandise on the internet, so why don't we all order Harvard t-shirts and try to pretend we went to Harvard?

Now imagine someone walking into their motorcycle club wearing a Harvard shirt and trying to pretend they went to Harvard. Do you think the motorcycle guys would care? They'd just laugh.

Society is really made of all sorts of little societies. Each sub-group has its own stuff that is high or low-status. Going to Harvard or Yale is high-status among the kinds of people who go to big colleges. It's not not relevant to people who dropped out of high school. Among motorcycle guys, motorcycles are high status. Having the right kind of motorcycle or going to Sturgis (a motorcycle gathering) or riding with other high-status motorcycle guys is important, not which college you went to.

So if you're in a motorcycle club, you want to use motorcycle signals to signal your status. Trying to talk about your time at Harvard or Martha's Vineyard would just *lower* your status at the motorcycle club, because these are not motorcycle club things. Likewise, if you're hanging out at Martha's Vineyard, then you want to talk about your time at Harvard, not the details of the motorcycle engine you're restoring.

But why hang out at a motorcycle club at all? Why not try to join the Martha's Vineyard club?

Of course, some people just like motorcycles. They love riding them and love hanging out with other people who love riding them. Sticking them in some posh wine-tasting and cheese party in Martha's Vineyard when they could be tearing down the highway with the wind in their hair would be torture. But even if they decided to fake it because it was worth it to them, they wouldn't know the first thing about the Martha's Vineyard culture. They wouldn't have the money to get in and they wouldn't have the years of reading The New Yorker or attending Broadway plays or knowledge of Harvard dorms to properly fit in with the rest of the crowd. To have friends--which most people want!--they have to hang out with people who are like themselves, culturally and socially, which means sending the social signals of their own group, not someone else's group.

If you look at the last sentence of the above quote, you said that dangerous people actually want others to stay away from them. But why would they want it? Because you see, people staying away from me is the exact thing I resent. So why do others want the very thing I resent? Do they like rejection?

That is an interesting point, especially if you put it side by side with the earlier made point that even birds know to clean themselves.

Since it is unlikely that Trotsky won't do what birds do, could it be that humans simply took it a lot further? As in, it started out as simple biology but then developed into a sophisticated system. Just like eating is a biology too yet birds don't cook and humans do?

So then you could argue that both me and Trotsky are in par with birds level of cleanliness, and thats why we don't instinctively know to do any better.

Of course the counter-point is that birds clean every day and I don't. But I can answer this by saying that birds have a lot more opportunities to get dirty too. So if I were to take a hike somewhere where I can get myself into a mud, then I will be also looking for an opportunity to clean myself, without any reminders. But since at home I don't get as many opportunities to get dirty (or get lice) maybe thats why I clean myself less than birds.

Still, though, I had a bird in a cage as a little kid, and she cleaned herself too. So I guess I am not exactly confident in that theory.

That would explain it, if thats their thinking. But, just like with the homeless thing, it seems like people only started to assume I am on drugs at 34, not in my 20-s. So if they didn't assume I was on drugs when I was in my 20-s, then again I don't see how they could say messy ==> dangerous, since they could neither say messy ==> homeless ==> dangerous, nor could they say messy ==> drugs ==> dangerous.

But again, perhaps they assumed that when I was in my 20-s too, I just wasn't aware of it?

I was talking to a lady that runs the storage, and I was complaining to her how people assume I am homeless or use drugs. She acted as if its no big deal. Then she mentioned how she used to be homeless and used drugs. I was like what?! Because she looked very well groomed. But then again that is Albuquerque and there are a lot of homeless/druggies here.

So I guess I tend to under-estimate their numbers in the assumptions I am making. That is probably why I am so shocked that, in my 30-s, they assume this about me. Could this also be a reason that, in my 20-s, they also assumed I was on drugs but I totally missed that because I was assuming that nobody would ever assume that?

Last edited by QFT on 26 May 2022, 3:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.

It is advantageous to intimidate people instead of risking bodily injury by fighting everyone

And what are they getting out of intimidating people?

a feeling of power, which leads to confidence

All in all, it's better to spend five minutes in the shower......what's so hard about that?

That is an interesting take. Ironically, in my case it is also about confidence BUT I derive confidence from the opposite source. My source of confidence is approval of others. While their source of confidence is being able to scare others. And I want power too, but again it is the opposite kind of power. I am focused on a "power to make people like me", while the people you described are focused on "power to scare people".

So could it be that what separates "good" people from "bad" people is their source of self esteem? And thats why, metaphorically, in that "good people raise your hand, bad people raise your hand" scenario they would, in fact, raise their hand correctly. Good people would call themselves good in order to get an approval while bad people would call themselves bad in order to sense the power as they scare people?

But I am one of the few people who wants to be good yet looks bad due to lack of social awarenness. And nobody gets it because most others are more socially aware than me, and the ones that look bad actually want to look bad?

Again its just my theory. Is this what you are thinking or do you have a different theory?

Well, one thing that is hard is turning back the clock in order to re-do all the years of my life that I threw away.

I do see your point though. One example was getting good grades. There were many times when I got a B instead of an A despite knowing all the material, all because of careless mistakes in my calculation. But I weren't complianing that the grading system is unfair (even though it probably is). Instead I was putting some effort into fixing said mistakes and thats why my GPA was 3.3 instead of, say, 2.0. I am sure if I were to focus on how its unfair instead of putting effot, I would have had 2.0 or even worse.

But, unfortunatley, socially I didn't take that rout. Socially I was complaining, complaining and complaining, while putting zero effort. Thats why my "social" GPA is probably 1.0 Yet I can't do anything about it now, its like look at how many years I threw away. Thats why now I am forced to continue to be preoccupied as to how it is all unfair.

Well, back when I was 25 I was preoccupied about the very same thing, which is why I am where I am. So, back when I was 25, I was wrong in doing that. Back then I had plenty of time ahead of me. I should have just knocked it off and taken a shower, along with many other htings. BUt I didn't do it. And now at 42 I feel stuck with my choices. So now I am kinda forced to dwell on how its all unfair.

You can still have a good time, obviously you can't turn back the clock but if you improve your appearance you can have a great quality of life.

What you said above that sounds correct, unfortunately you were one of the ones who looked bad by accident.