My advice is not to define yourself by other people, by their reactions or by "having someone in your life". I know the feeling of wanting someone to love you, the idea of ideal companionship, I know how compelling it is... but it absolutely is not the be all end all of human life. And I think it's entirely possible to go through life and enjoy the best life offers without necessarily orienting your entire life around somebody else. In fact I think you can be happier by seeing to all your other needs first, finding out where you need to work on confidence for example, deal with those before worrying about relationships because they will come easier and be easier if you have dealt with your other issues ahead of them.
I've been pondering the topic of self-actualization a lot recently, and what it means to be self-actualized. It basically means acceptance of self, desire to achieve your potentials, expressing your autonomy and freedom of thought, developing a comfort and not a fear of solitude and one's own company and being able to rely on your own judgement, among other things. I feel this is the best way to overcome all of these problems and find a peace with yourself. I think I may have already done this because despite a long climb and a childhood of rampant self-hate I realized in the last few years I am finally at peace with myself and my own company. I don't think that actualizing yourself by way of whether or not you have won the affections of another person in life is going to mend the things that need mending first. You need to work on your self-esteem by not dwelling on the potential thoughts of other people toward you.
The first step to that, in my case, was to understand that nobody's perfect. Not even them who give you the stares and the glares and the ambiguous glances. And understand that basically they don't really care anyway. People don't care about odd-looking people they might meet in the street and let it plague them when they're back home the way a trans person might take the idea home with them they were being stared at and talked about and laughed about. People really don't give that much thought to it. They see something, they might give a second look, but trust me, they go home and they forget about it. And so should you. Because the opinions or glances of random humans on the street you will never see again are just not important. Digesting this was what led to me not caring a whit if someone stares at me or not. They are part of the background canvas, nothing more.
As for thinking you are ugly. Well, I don't know what you look like, but I have aspects of myself I think are pretty ugly, yet I know there's always someone uglier out there. I'm no Elephant Man even if I'd love to look better. And that's ok. Nobody's actually come up to me and said "Jeez, you're ugly." And even if they did - see point one. Their opinion doesn't matter. The opinion of the self does matter, though, and it needs to be realistic. You pass all the time? Well that's more than I do. It's a start. It's a good thing. Look at the good things and not just the bad. One needs to accept that perfection does not really exist. Improvement where you can make it, will help. How would I deal with the situation of thinking everyone's just being polite? I could care less if they are. I could care less if they call me sir or ma'am - in fact I care so little for what "they" think they could call me anything they want because the only approval or validation I require is my own. I'm heading into transition with this mindset. And I feel fine about it. I'm doing the HRT for myself, the surgery for myself. My sense of personhood and self will not hinge on a pronoun or a title or a glance. It will hinge on what I think of me, and I've come a long way, too long a way to let the rest of the world tell me what I am.
Dating? I've never really wanted to date. I just don't see myself trusting a random person enough from a few meetings to want to get intimate with them. If I've been intimate with people it was people I'd known for a while first, people I knew, already talked to, and had already figured out whether they were decent people. Dating isn't for me as it seems a lot like roulette. So I'd say just make friends first. Don't head in with the intent to find that special someone every time. Don't even head in with romantic inclinations but just good times, good friends, good experiences. I've never dated and I've never chased anyone, but I have had lots of interest from people without trying and I figure it was because meeting people and getting to know them opens up the possibilities. Trying to go out and just find a perfect mate puts too much pressure from the start on everything. I met people at uni, at work, at hobby clubs, on holiday, online. But don't be desperate to find that person because desperation is not a quality you want to enter into a relationship with. Ideally you should enter into it from a strong position, not a weak one, because there are always trials and tribulations ahead in any relationship. To be strong, you need to deal with your own confidence issues first.
Try to think about things other than other people validating you or liking you. Do things that will make you respect yourself and develop a good relationship with yourself instead and the rest will flow from there.
