Positive Experiences with Facial Hair

I'm a lady and yes, I have facial hair. I never thought until tonight to see how many other women do out of my own curiosity. At the end of puberty, it became apparent that that not only have peach fuzz on the upper lip, but some little side burns started to grow it. I was very down and outs about them, you know, "why do i have side burns? i'm a girl, that's so wierd!" and my self esteem was pretty down. My hair cut is such that they were well hidden though and I'd do a pluck here and there to keep them under control. I also have loose hairs on my cheeks and neck and my hair is almost black so it's very noticeable. One day I was working and my hair was back and a friend, who's a good bit older than me, came in and noticed them. He said, "oh my gosh! do you have little sideburns?! that's so cute! can i touch them?!" and I told him yeah, but only he could but I was real awkward and sort of wanted to die. This esteem problem was weird for me because I already didn't shave my armpits and legs, I decided that I didn't care for the upkeep and hell, if someone wasn't attracted to me cause of it, that was there problem. But I was still very concerned about the facial hair. For several months that one friend would comment on them and I'd feel awkward. Some of my other friends made fun of me for it and I hated that. Then all of a sudden, I took to heart my one friend's compliments. I decided that they WERE cute, and that c'mon, a girl with sideburns? That's awesome! And really, if someone thinks that my facial hair is so disgusting they can't look at me, then I don't really want to be with that person anyway. It's a good way to root out jerks. I moved to a new town and embraced my hair and was embraced in return, I think mostly because of my attitude. And since my hair is so dark, and I have facial hair, people think I'm eastern European. That's pretty awesome. I know that my attitude is not that common but I needed to put some positive spin out there. Don't feel bad about yourselves ladies, you're beautiful, and in past cultures hair was a sign of beauty in women. We're never going to be those all too skinny, retouched magazine models (and we must remember, they've got plenty of esteem problems of their own!) so why should we try? Let's be ourselves and put that out there, and tell someone you don't care what they think about your hair, because your body is your body. It doesn't belong to anyone else. And if you're trying to get with a man (or woman, for that matter), at least in terms of relationships, would we really want to be with someone who doesn't love us for who we really are? I know that this isn't going to make anyone up and stop shaving but I just want to shed light on the idea that this difference isn't only a negative one.