I fear I'm going to sincere post again I struggled a lot in HS and college because I suffered from pretty severe acne, which I only kicked at 18 with accutane. I can look back now and see that despite it, people were interested in me, but I didn't seriously date until after college. It took me many years to understand my awareness of my beauty, as you put it. In some ways I'm still working on it, and posting on Threads is part of my therapy 😅