1. The general idea that looks matter on a basic level for friendships (I disagree, particularly for friendships between two straight males etc) doesn’t sound outlandish to me so I'll simply voice my disagreement first.

Supposing that such a bias does exist, however, I still highly doubt that the advantage/disadvantage conferred is the only difference between tons of friends vs zero friends. To me at most you’ll be starting from a worse, but still workable position. Looks-wise you yourself admit that you are screwed, but you’ve been able to make friends in spite of it (gonna assume socially successful = friends). No way is being good-looking the only direct difference between a ‘normie’ making tons of friends vs a ‘FA’ with none.

For my own curiosity, I'd like to see some of the research if you have links to it.

1. The problem with my original statement was that it was a blanket one. Obviously I don't know anything about your situation, but from what you've said, with noticeable deformities! It's most likely that looks are the only thing that rules you out of dating the majority of those you are interested in, and you have a right to be aggrieved. In your case, bad luck is purely the contributing factor.

Your case doesn’t apply to everyone, however. I still believe that for a lot of people in this sub and in society at large it’s easier to put down everything to one genetic disadvantage that can't be remedied (for example, height/looks for dating, genetics for weight loss, low fluid intelligence for studies, etc). Obviously, yes, these things are a disadvantage but apart from extreme cases (like yours I’d imagine), they’re not the only thing keeping you down (personality for dating, work ethic/determination for weight loss, studying for studies). Maybe not for you, but for some it’s far more comfortable to blame your misfortunes on an aspect of self you can’t change rather than working on the stuff you can, as a sort of coping mechanism. Which is fine, it just won’t get you anywhere I suppose.

The main reason I said that is because I see the idea “normies just don’t want to admit they got supa lucky in life” commonly espoused in this sub from lurking. But I’ve always thought that the reverse may be true for many who say this (i.e don’t want to admit that being unlucky in life is the only thing screwing me over).