Confessing to a Physical Flaw

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-06-2006
Confessing to a Physical Flaw
17
Fri, 02-02-2007 - 9:41am

We had a question here recently about when a handicapped person should disclose his handicap to someone s/he is meeting online. This is a similar question, but not exactly the same. Physical (and emotional) handicaps may affect daily living, but some of us have flaws that are not handicaps, but are nevertheless unattractive.

When should a person disclose to a date (or prospective date) that "what you see is NOT what you get"? There are women out there with "falsies" (some because of masectomies, some because they were less endowed than they wanted to be), men and women with fake teeth, men and women who wear hairpieces... How and when do they tell a potential lover about this?

I belong to the last group. Everything about me is real except the hair at the crown of my head. I had a medical condition which caused my hair to thin a lot even when I was in my thirties. I began to wear a hairpiece in my early forties. At the time I was married, so I did not do this to fool men into finding me attractive. :) My ex was used to my lack of hair. He was happy for me to wear a hairpiece in public, but when we made love it did not bother him that the hair he ran his hands through was thin. He'd gotten used to my hair loss gradually, as I had. I started wearing the hairpiece to look good to the world.

But now I am dating. Not a lot, because there aren't a lot of men that I find attractive who find me attractive also. I've done a bit of online dating and I had a couple of dates with a guy I met in real life. Now I am dating a guy I met online. We'll be having our fourth date this weekend, if nothing goes wrong. And at some point we may move from the goodnight peck on the lips to something more. If I don't tell him about the hairpiece in advance, he may find out at a fairly awkward moment.

Still, I am afraid of telling him. I worry that if he knows too soon, that will be a turnoff. This guy and I are poised on the edge between friendship and a romantic relationship. We know we can be friends, the question is can we be more? If I tell him about my hair too soon, I may throw the relationship firmly into "friends." If I don't tell him until he finds it out for himself, my not having told may ruin the relationship. I don't want to deceive him. It just hasn't come up and I can't bring myself to bring it up. Should I? And what do I say?

Elsa

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-30-1999
Fri, 02-02-2007 - 10:17am
One time on Friends, Chandler went out with a woman with a fake leg, and she was freaked out because he had a third nipple.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-31-2007
Fri, 02-02-2007 - 10:38am

I say tell him. Yes you run the risk of scaring him off, but wouldnt having him find out from you telling him be better than him finding out in the heat of the moment and creating a VERY awkward moment between the both of you? I'm willing to bet that your honesty wont be the demise of the potential future you two have together. Besides you've already gone out on three dates with this guy, and he's stuck around for date number 4, don't you think he might possibly be intrested in you...not your hair? Be optimistic, and trust that he values your personality more than your physical appearance. If he does not, he's probably not the type of guy you want to be with anyway. Hope that helps.

~britt

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-09-2006
Fri, 02-02-2007 - 10:48am
I would like to think that how a person is on the inside is more important than what they look like on the outside. Just as it didn't bother your ex, if this guy really likes you and he's not superficial, it won't bother him either. I am dating someone with a physical flaw (although I'd rather look at it not as a flaw, but just part of him) and it doesn't bother me because I like him for who he is, not what he looks like. I don't see any harm in casually mentioning it, to see what his reaction is. After all, if he starts acting weird, would you want to be with him then? I'd think you'd want to be with someone who doesn't care about surface stuff like that. The guy I'm dating did that to me...one day he casually mentioned it...probably because he wanted to see my reaction and because he just wanted to get it out there. Good luck!
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-06-2006
Fri, 02-02-2007 - 11:28am

RE: << One time on Friends, Chandler went out with a woman with a fake leg, and she was freaked out because he had a third nipple.>>

:)

Yeah, we all have flaws, and you never know what someone else is going be bothered by. The question is: what is the right moment for disclosure?

Elsa

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-06-2006
Fri, 02-02-2007 - 11:38am

I agree that telling is best. I agree that if he has a problem with it, that reflects on him. I agree that it's better not to have him find out in the heat of the moment. The question is how/when to tell him.

We don't go around meeting people and saying, "Hi, I'm Jane, I have a partial bridge and falsies" or "Hi, I'm Joe, my natural hair is all gray, but I color it."

Revealing this sort of thing implies either a degree of intimacy or a lack of sense of the privacy of the matter.

I tell friends (male or female) about my hair when the subject comes up. Usually. The problem is deciding if the subject has really come up or if one is forcing it. The last guy I told, I was on a first date with (but we'd been friends for a while before this) and he said something about my gray hairs and I took the moment to remark that those weren't my gray hairs but the hair piece's. We did make it to a second date, but it ended there. I have often wished I hadn't told him, because since we didn't last, he didn't really need to know.

So, with this guy I didn't mention it in the earlier dates. And now I feel I may have missed some good opportunities to tell him. And how do I tell him without making a big deal of it that embarrasses us both?

Elsa

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-06-2006
Fri, 02-02-2007 - 11:48am

You know, we all say that what really counts is the person inside. But we also (consciously or unconsciously) discard a lot of potential partners because of a flaw that bothers us. He's too short, she's too fat, he has a large nose, I don't like those hairy arms... whatever. If this guy had met me w/out my hairpiece, he prob wouldn't have been attracted. So I feel maybe I have been deceptive.

And I figure my ex didn't mind because he got used to it gradually, just as he got used to my gaining weight. (Now in his online dating profile he requests a woman who is "slender" or "average.") So it's probably natural that a guy will mind that I have only thin hair on the top of my head.

Yeah, I need to tell him. And hopefully it will not bother him. It's just hard to find a good opening for telling him. I want to be casual about it, so it's not too awkward. Now if only he decided to confess to me first about his third nipple... :)

Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 02-02-2007 - 12:30pm

I know you and I have talked about this before when you posted this question on another board a while back--I think the right time is sometime between now (i.e., after you've had at least a few dates) and when it becomes apparent you're going to become intimately involved with the guy.

I wouldn't force yourself to bring it up the next time you see him, necessarily. But do be on the lookout for a good opening.

Sheri

Avatar for cfk_3
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-1999
Fri, 02-02-2007 - 12:45pm
I have not yet read the other posts, but I do not think, at this stage in your relationship, you owe him anything. If it progresses into an exclusive relationship, this is where I would start planning the conversation, not before. Imagine that this is a new girlfriend you have started chumming around with, would you feel it necessary to divulge personal information to her in the early stages of your friendship? I personally would not, but if you are the type of person who likes to get everything out in the open, that's fine, too. Maybe keeping it inside is just as much a burden as the thought of telling your secret. My .02, if this is a good guy, a solid, secure man, it won't matter : )
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-06-2006
Fri, 02-02-2007 - 2:25pm

Right Sheri, I posted this last summer on the Dating Doyene board. I get several good answers, but I didn't feel fired-up to one course of action or another. And last summer I was not dating much and it never really came up. Maybe it won't come up in this case. But it still causes me anxiety.

Once a guy kisses you good night, even if it's only a peck on the lips, there is no telling when the next kiss will involve putting hand behind head to push face closer. (This is especially the case with me because I am short-- guy needs to tilt my head up to get it in position, if I am not already in position.) If he sets his hand just a little higher up than the back, he will touch the rim of the hairpiece. SO this problem is not going to be a "wait until you are ready to be intimate" problem.

Also, do I want to wait until I am ready to be intimate with the guy to risk rejection? Won't it be worse for him also, if I delay too long and it catches him by surprise?

I suppose there's no good answer really, and I am just voicing my anxieties. Thanks for listening.

Elsa

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-27-2004
Fri, 02-02-2007 - 2:29pm
Hi Elsa
That is definately a tough one. I know how you feel. To be honest I have something that I always have to reveal to guys that I'm dating and i try not to do it too late in the game or before intimacy either. But the couple of times I've had to reveal it, it hasn't been a problem and I've been accepted. In fact my boyfriend is in the same boat much to our relief and it took tremendous courage for me to tell him but I told him after a few weeks of dating. But nevertheless, It's hard disclosing something like this, but I agree with the other posters if he seems to be a compassionate man who likes you, he will accept you for it. I got a good feeling about the kind of person my boyfriend is and thought that he would not judge me for something and accept me as I am even after I told him kind of early on. I think you probably will get a positive response even if you tell him this early on and if you don't, like another poster said, you want someone who will be open to accepting this about you.

Pages