Why do pretty girls pretend they don't know they're pretty?

The subject that sees objects in the world cannot see itself seeing, Žižek notes, any more than a person can jump over her own shadow. To the extent that a subject can reflectively see itself, it sees itself not as a subject but as one more represented object, what Kant calls the “empirical self” or what Žižek calls the “self” (versus the subject) in The Plague of Fantasies. The subject knows that it is something, Žižek argues. But it does not and can never know what Thing it is “in the Real”, as he puts it (see 2e). This is why it must seek clues to its identity in its social and political life, asking the question of others (and of the big Other (see 2b)) which Žižek argues defines the subject as such: che voui? (what do you want from me?).

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In order to express the anthropological discovery that truth is incarnated in a human being, Christian theologians began to utilize the concept of “person,” which ultimately led to our current notion of “human rights.” “Person” was originally a term that described a role in a theater play. The “persona” is the actor’s mask. It then gets generalized and designates the role one plays within society (and not the subject behind the role). Originally, it meant the mask itself. What is behind the mask is nature – “persona” is a secondary identity in relation to nature. In the Christian adaptation of the antique concept this relationship gets reversed. A person now designates a being that relates to its own nature as if it were a role. We don’t say about the human being that “it is nature,” but rather that it “has a nature.”

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Wellsy said:

I once made a thread in regards to accepting compliments and possible issue surrounding it: http://personalitycafe.com/sex-relationships/472682-agreeing-compliments.html
The point was there can be an issue with acknowledging that one is beautiful or too strongly identify with such a sentiment without it having negative connotations in our culture. So it could be that whilst they acknowledge some standard of physical attractiveness, it's not socially acceptable to acknowledge.

There is also the issue that you don't really see yourself and thus your sense of self relies on external things, you construct a self image.
Žižek, Slavoj | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

So we construct a sense of self, an illusory but necessary mask that you can't tear away.
Subject, Ego, Person | Philosophical Explorations


And so with this in mind, one can consider the transitory nature of a person's self concept.
People on here have shared how their sense of self took time to adjust to different feedback as their appearance or social context changed. Someone who has endured years of being told their ugly may maintain such an identity irrespective of others opinions or changes in their appearance. Similarly, someone may have a sense of being stunningly beautiful regardless of other's opinions.
So some people who look stunning now, may have gone through high school not feeling as such, so even if they appear stunning to everyone now, it doesn't just automatically shift to i'm the hottest. If anything, it can be jarring to a person's identity, in that they begin to question the feedback and what it conveys. Some become quite suspicious of people's emphasis and compliment on their looks considering that the supposed positive feedback they're getting now wasn't there previously.
This can be especially pronounced in the experience of those who change weights quite often and experience the differential treatment of being perceived as 'fat' in a cultural sense with its associations and 'skinny' with its cultural associations.

In this, one might end up feeling like the game of beauty is not fulfilling. To identify to strongly with the opinion of others gives them the power to take it away, making a precarious sense of self. If one feels too dependent on other's affirming that they're beautiful, then its of course a precarious sense of beauty in that it constantly must be proved.
To which many people might seek to emphasize other parts of their identity instead, to allow a more stable sense of self that doesn't jerk their emotions and make them question themselves too much.

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Drecon said:

Bragging is a big turnoff for most people. There's a lot of social pressure on men to be the 'leader' in social situations and for women to be 'followers' in those situations. It's possible to deviate from that, and a lot of people don't mind, but it's really hard to do, especially at a younger age.

Besides that, beauty standards for women are absurd and society puts an unreachable goal on physical appearance, with photoshopped images of already bone-thin girls all over the place. It's enough to make anyone feel uncertain about their appearance. At a young age you also don't know yet if your behaviour will be accepted, meaning that most people start out on the shy side and only open up later to people.

Finally: it might be a way for some women to deflect attention away from their appearance, which they have a limited control over, to their actual qualities, like being social, having certain skills or general intelligence. It can be demeaning for some people to be reduced to just 'being pretty', where your other qualities don't seem to matter anymore. I mean, you can't help most of what you look like. It's really hard to be held accountable for something you don't even have any control over. Especially if you have other qualities that you do have control over.

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atamagasuita said:

Until you dgaf and life will all be good

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Red Magician said:

Yes pretending everything is fine is a good strategy as long as the laws and norms have your back.
If not, you are in for a world of pain.
Game of thrones and Breaking bad are interesting depictions of people who underestimate their surroundings,
and pay a heavy price because they didn't realize that society didn't have their back.

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Goblin Tower said:

LOLL, why do homely men pretend they're not homely?

Similar reasons, I would expect. XD

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Red Magician said:

Life is a game where everyone is trying to stab everyone else in the back.
Especially when everything seems to be fine on the surface.
Hence people will say or do things that don't make sense.
Until you relalize that by doing so, they somehow saved themselves from a potential backstab.
Just assume that everyone is up to no good, then everything usually makes sense.

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