7 surprising downsides of being beautiful

At first glance, it might seem as though pretty people have it easy.

After all, studies show they generally earn more than their less attractive peers; they can treat people unfairly and get away with it; and they're even more appealing candidates for microfinance loans.

But a growing body of research suggests that being beautiful can sometimes work to your detriment.

For example, one study found that being attractive hurts your chances of getting a job when the person evaluating you is the same sex. Another study found that attractive people are perceived as less talented writers than average-looking people by members of the same sex. That's possibly because we perceive attractive individuals of the same sex as a threat.

To learn more about the pitfalls of being pretty, we turned to Reddit, where there are several threads on this topic. Here's what frustrates people about being beautiful:

1. There's a fine line between acknowledging your beauty and being conceited.

"The danger of becoming vain. I know I'm pretty, but even typing that feels icky, like it's a bad thing to admit that I know I'm good-looking." - aviary83

2. It's worrisome when your appearance changes as you get older.

"For a woman, looks fade. I'm in fashion and many models go a bit nuts when they get older and the phone stops ringing. If you're used to not being a knockout, aging won't be as difficult (the looks sense anyway)." - deleted user

3. You may give off the false impression of always being happy.

"People assuming that you are never shy, insecure, lonely, or heartbroken." - nakedcellist

4. People often believe you're less intelligent than your average-looking peers.

"The general thinking seems to be that the more attractive you are, the stupider you are, as attractive people tend to coast through life more. This makes it pretty difficult to be taken seriously sometimes." - LicianDragon

5. It's harder to convince people that you're nice.

"People have a hard time believing that somebody can be attractive AND friendly. I think people assume that I'm confident because of the way I look when in reality, I know I'm a good person and relatively fun to be around." - nednikb

6. No one takes your body-image issues seriously.

"It is awkward to talk about your problems with weight loss or self image, especially if you brush my own concerns for my body aside with lines like 'yeah right.''' - turangasqueela

7. You don't get a lot of pity for your problems.

"I guess people would sometimes trivialize events in your life because you're attractive. For instance, if there was a death in your family or you were fired from your job, people might not feel as sympathetic because 'at least you're attractive.'" - Derangerous