On my mind

When one of my friends ,when in her early teens, was at a family party sitting quietly by herself, her aunt came over and put her arm around her shoulder and said “Don’t worry dear- I was the plain one in my family too! “
She never forgot that but she and her sister were the best of friends and both in my opinion were attractive and had a brilliant sense of humour.

Here's some excellent put downs:

1. "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play;
Bring a friend, if you have one."
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill.

"Cannot possibly attend first night, I will attend the second...If there is one."
- Winston Churchill, in response.

2. A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows, or of some unspeakable disease."
· "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

3. "He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr

4. "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
- Clarence Darrow

5. "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

6."Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
- Moses Hadas

7. "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
- Mark Twain

8. "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.."
- Oscar Wilde

9. "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."
- Stephen Bishop

10."He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
- John Bright

11. "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."
- Samuel Johnson

12. "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
- Paul Keating

13. "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."
- Forrest Tucker

14. "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
- Mae West

15. "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
- Oscar Wilde

16. "He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
- Billy Wilder

17. "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx.

18. It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

19. The people who tolerate you on a daily basis are the real heroes.

20, I’ll never forget the first time we met, but I’ll keep trying.

21 I was hoping for a battle of wits but you appear to be unarmed.

22. I was going to give you a nasty look but then I see you already have one

23. You are multi talented. You can talk, irritate and be rude at the same time.

24. Check your face, please. I think I just found your nose in my business'

No. Suspect they would be rather frightened about my reaction!

I thoroughly agree with MG62. I have always thought this.

I think the awful comments people
Come out with say more about that person tbh.

MT62

Oh a few.
Asked this elderly lady, I was only 18 at the time, if I was pretty. She said I’d look better with a paper bag over my head 🤣
My ex who I finished with, went out of the door, only to come back in. He said’ ‘oh you know when I said your weight didn’t bother me’, ‘well it does’ then stormed out.
But rang me for weeks trying to get me back😳
Another ex said, I’ve always loved your big nose 🤣 I don’t have a big nose.

I forgot to add the elderly lady had dementia. So I’ll let that one go 😔

In my teens a "friend" said "You're quite good looking ... from a distance"

SpinDriftCoastal

I think time past older relatives were quite quick to comment on looks. It is just what they did. Nowadays, we are more conscious of offending people which is a good thing. But, we do need to tell our young people to come back with a fitting retort like: 'Looked at yourself lately'.

Good grief, if I'd said that to my gran or aunties, I'd not have had pudding for a week!

I used to hate it when I was 13, 14 and men used to say "she'll be courting soon" or "are you courting yet?". I was only interested in ponies at that age & I thought it was really creepy.

One of the great things about growing older is that I have forgotten some of the comments made, often thoughtlessly, mostly by boys, or "frenemies", or family members, but not always. I used to wonder why say it? There must be a moral there somewhere. I think we all remember how we felt. That doesn't disappear as quickly, does it? One other adavantage is that I care less now, and can see thay those comments were often bravado, and were also perhaps untrue.

As if we needed reminding, this thread goes to show that there are some truly horrible people in the world. My heart goes out to anyone who’s had to deal with them, especially if they were stuck with them as family members.

We’d a friend who always used to comment in a snide way on the appearance of people around him. Until his normally very quiet wife snapped one day that it was a bloody good job he was such an oil painting, wasn’t it, which shut him right up!

I had a lazy eye as a child and got called “gozzy*. The patch I wore for a time didn’t help either (Long John Pirate).
My (hated father) used to say “You look stupid and you are stupid”. Told me I was only fit for brushing the backyard (which I did to avoid him hitting me).

Boyfriends: “You’re a bag of skin and bones” “Yes, good idea to have a nose job”. “Concave chest”. “I’m trying to imagine you as Julie Christie” in the middle of a snog. “Have you got a glass eye”?

Contact lenses corrected my lazy eye and I was astounded later on by a soprano singing colleague who said “Well you know you are good looking don’t you?”😳

Oh a few.
Asked this elderly lady, I was only 18 at the time, if I was pretty. She said I’d look better with a paper bag over my head 🤣
My ex who I finished with, went out of the door, only to come back in. He said’ ‘oh you know when I said your weight didn’t bother me’, ‘well it does’ then stormed out.
But rang me for weeks trying to get me back😳
Another ex said, I’ve always loved your big nose 🤣 I don’t have a big nose.

Families eh! My mother used to make fun of my small adolescent chest comparing it to my much larger sister's.
Said sister named me Spotty and to my brother I was Fairy Elephant.

All were accurate and the same as OP, I've had compliments too, but I remember these with clarity.

My mother has said to me in the past "Let's face it, we're no oil paintings, you and I".

As a teenager I remember some girls passing me saying "You could use that nose as a ski jump!"

I had sticking out front teeth till I had them crowned when I was in my 30s (on the NHS because I couldn't actually eat with them) at the same time as one of my best friends got contact lenses instead of the thick glasses she usually wore - she had really beautiful big blue eyes- and we went to a party.
The number of people who said they couldn't work out what was different about us both ("Have you done your hair different or something?") astonished me and made me realise that maybe people hadn't been as critical as I assumed.
(Although I do remember a guy once saying to one of my friends "I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of her with those teeth!")

My partner loves my "strong" nose, luckily for me

yes I remember a comment about my hands being dry, my hair being kinky and my nose being crooked

My mum said I had a roman nose just like my dad. She admired Hayley Mills nose which was turned up. 😳 I couldn't change my nose but was paranoid all through my teens. Now I realise it's normal, not even large.

My mother was not one for giving compliments but she excelled herself on my wedding day as I stood dressed in bridal white complete with bouquet ready to go to church and she looked me up and down and said

‘I suppose ’you’ll do’

I can't recall why I was crying one day but my grandmother saw me and said "Don't ever cry in front of a boy, you look ugly when you cry". I was around 14 or 15 and have never forgotten that.

My aunt said to me when I was at my most gawky, about 14, “What a beautiful mother you have. What a shame you look just like your father!”
She was my dad’s sister, and this feeling has stayed with me through my life- nothing I did was ever as good as my mum.

My EX husband asked if I would like a boob enlargement surgery for my birthday present. What an ASS !

If you Google >> "Put downs anyone can use" you'll see masses of suggestions, lots of sites. Just learn a few that you like?

One site was this one, 2023, by FoxyGloves, "Wittiest put downs ever". One of the best was "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, when they go." (Wilde). Another (anon) was "Wisdom has been chasing you - but you've always run faster". You could also use "I bet you don't like bananas" . . .and if they ask why . . ."we thought the instruction manual would upset you".

I remember a good few years ago in work someone that used to work with me came in and I said hello, she said I didn’t recognise you cos you have put on so much weight.
I felt like saying oh I recognise you because you are so ugly but I can lose the weight, but I didn’t say anything I just cried inside.

Funily enough my friend of longstanding told me the other day I was a glutton. No idea where it came from but have been feelung hurt all week

I’m another one whose mother undermined my very fragile adolescent confidence. Apparently it was “a shame” about my eyes and my dumpy figure, not to mention my legs. She lifted up my skirt to show her friend with the comment “I can’t understand where she got these from?” Unsurprisingly I’ve hidden behind eye make-up and long skirts/trousers all my life. She wasn’t pretty though had a nice figure and long legs. Her whole focus was on looks but she told us off for being vain.

I was once told by a colleague that I wasn’t looks just personality. I was always insecure about my looks so it was quite a blow. When I split with my exhusband he also told me that I wasn’t a pretty girl and all his friends hated me. It’s taken me over 20 years to learn that people say things to hurt when they feel threatened and unable to win an argument. I wasted many years not doing things or approaching people in case I was unattractive or just not a nice person. When deep down I know I’m neither bad nor ugly.