I don't know that I'm hot. I've been told as much, I've had some strangers say so and of course my SOs have held that opinion but truthfully, oddly - I've only believed it when I needed to. I've believed it when I was so bummed that I needed something to keep my chin up for the week, you know.

This was me in middle school: http://i.imgur.com/WKp85XA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Nw6rvBT.jpg (middle kid); I was often teased for ugliness, though these pics don't capture my worst years when my family was poor and I was wearing Kmart and never had a haircut....

or high school: http://i.imgur.com/MsfVLar.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3bICCJ2.jpg (On left)

I'm an acquired taste, I guess. This is my most recent pic: http://i.imgur.com/TjFmWDU.jpg and as you can see I guess the phrase is 'wrung out and hung up wet'. So what I'm getting at is I don't believe the people who say I'm hot unless I have to. I'm not objectively hot, but it's a thing I battle with in a weird way.

I don't think I'm hot, honestly. I think when people say that they're trying to say something else. I'm gentle to a fault, I'm I guess what they call 'nice'. I'm liked as a person, but on first sight I guess I'm no real jewel.

I haven't...negotiated it. I get such diverse reactions to my looks that I'm either 'hot', 'weird-looking' or from the nicer of the weird-looking camp, 'exotic'.

I guess I don't qualify, right? I got it more than I anticipated I ever would. My personality didn't change a fuckshit for it mostly because I couldn't see it, but sometimes I do fall back on it to hold my shit in a basket for the day. It helps, to get that kind of compliment, it lets one get through another day.

I've been called hot by those who loved me. I don't get it a lot though, so I'm not really assured I really qualify.