Dr. Aziz remembers the exact moment he decided he was ugly: sitting in a Supercuts waiting room, he saw a Us Weekly ad for a cream to erase "raccoon eyes." The image of dark circles under a woman's eyes made him suddenly feel undesirable and unworthy of love.
And I remember a distinct moment where I was sitting in a Supercuts and I was about 11 or 12 waiting around. I picked up a magazine. It was like an Us Weekly. If you're not familiar with that, it's like a kind of a trashy celebrity thing. I flipped to an open page and there was a, there's an ad and it's got just a strip. It's almost like it looks like the paper has been torn. You see just a woman's eyes and she's got these dark circles around her eyes. And right above the image it said, are you tired of those raccoon eyes? And then down below is like whatever they're selling, right? Like, our cream, we put this on your face and it'll hide those horrible, gross circles around your eyes. And I remember it like shocked me because I was like, oh, wait a minute. I just had this moment where I was like, oh my God, I'm ugly. I'm undesirable. I am unworthy of love and connection. And I was, you know, this is like a young, early teen starting to discover, like, am I attractive to the ladies or not? Right? And the answer was no, no, you're not.
