Why do I look ugly far away from the camera but look pretty and totally different up close?

I'm sorry to tell you but when you are up close to a camera lens, the image is unnaturally distorted. At a greater distance the distortion is much less noticeable and the results more natural. Your comments are interesting because nearly everyone I've heard from say the complete opposite than you.

Your question is confusing because logic and 30-years of experience tells me just the opposite. As you get closer to the camera, your face should become wider especially if you're using a wide-angle lens. As you get further away from the lens, the distortion decreases.

The only thing I can think of is that when you were further away, the lens could have been a wide angle. This could still cause your face to look "ugly" as you say, especially if you were near the edge of the frame where the distortion is the strongest.

You may want to post a link to some photos so that we can better figure out the problem. But from a photographer's stand point, wide-angle lenses produce distortion causing an very unflattering effect on the human face. Zooming in when the subject is further away will result in the flattening of the face, which almost always produces a very flattering rendition of the human face.

Aarrgh!!!