Looks do mean something, as an earlier poster said, but the way women treat it is vastly different to the way guys treat it. I like to sum this up with the simple statement that men primarily initially go for looks and secondarily for personality whereas with girls it's the other way around.
Now, the reason that women "go for" attractive guys like your friend first, is because they don't know anything about your personality so they don't have anything to go on! If you have an awesome personality and your friend has a sh!t one, and they find this out, they'll almost always end up going for you because that's what they're primarily attracted to.
Now, for the scarring, and for your self-consciousness regarding how you look, I can guarantee you that 90% of this issue is due to the fact that you are communicating your insecurity about your looks to women and this is what they are detecting and being turned off by. I've seen pizza faced dudes get mad tail because they just didn't give a **** about it. So you need to change the way you feel about your looks and you need to learn to realize that it doesn't f*cking matter, and that you're just using that as a convenient excuse to blame instead of accepting the fact that you don't have any game. But this should be a good thing to you, because you can change your game much easier than you can your looks; you just have to accept that it's your game that needs work and need to stop blaming your looks.
Now this doesn't mean that you shouldn't try improving your looks, but you need to start from the fact that they matter more to you than to the girls you're going for, and so any attempts at improving your look are being done for the benefit of yourself and not anyone else.
For the scarring, I've found that On-The-Spot helps scarring go away faster (I know, I've been pushing this product like crazy on this forum, but it to me really is f*cking amazing). Also, try sitting with a hot, damp washcloth on your face for 20-30 minutes a day. This opens up your pores, helps your skin breath, and increases the blood flow to your face, which will help the healing process. Plus, it's relaxing as hell. Couple these with the obvious things (showering daily, washing/moisturizing your face, etc...) and you should be able to help minimize the scarring.