Dating : Can we stop assuming and telling people that they’re « not attractive » when giving advice here?
A typical exchange I’m very tired of seeing here is when a person (and most times, it tends to be a guy, but I’m sure it happens to women, too) who is asking a question about a dating experience. Maybe they got ghosted and are trying to figure out what happened. Maybe the other person has been sending mixed signals about wanting to meet. Maybe the person on the other side of the screen is putting in hardly effort into the conversation. Whatever the case, inevitable someone (and in ALL cases, it is a guy) chimes in and says, « It’s because you must not be attractive. »
This « advice »is never based off of any evidence such as pictures of the OP that would suggest that much,. Even if the OP describes themselves perfectly accurate and honestly, and really is decent looking, there are still these commenters who insist that every dating failure is due to a lack of being physically attractive.
People come here for helpful advice and not a reason to feel even worse about dating. We should not be looking for opportunities to tear them down. It’s not difficult to not be a dick. While there are definitely people who may be setting expectations too high out there, I’d like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume that if they can get a match and a conversation going, they weren’t hideous.
If any mods are reading this, I’d like to see toxic and unhelpful comments such as this resulting in temporary/permanent bans of commenters.
Well put. I refrain from commenting but I’ve seen so many people ask for help or advice and they automatically are the problem and get attacked by the community. I’m with you on this post ⬆️⬆️⬆️
Absolutely. I asked for advice a few days ago and someone told me my answer was because I’m fat. There’s no picture of me anywhere on my account or post. I’m 5’10 and my bmi is 22.4. Normal parameters are like between 18.5-24.9. When I told them this they told me I’m big and fat like Serena William’s. And someone else told me I’m probably « punching above my weight class ». Its just really rude for someone to tell/assume that about a person. And it makes people feel like shit.
I do that to myself so I don’t really need people to tell me what I am already aware of
“Lower your standards” and “maybe you’re ugly or fat” are like two things that need to stop being said to people when they’re asking for advice. Seriously.
Here’s the thing, for a relationship to work in my eyes that raw attraction has to be there. Saying someone is not attractive is not ok. But, saying someone may not be attracted to you due to certain signs the person is displaying is completely different.
ok, can we say they have bad body odor ?
Well said, ghosting and bad dates are obviously an amalgamation of not only physical attraction, but personality / goals / humor / characteristics / pheromone matching and more. Everyone knows how dating has changed over the years, especially now in day, so we need to support everyone still trying to meet their partner!
I accidentally made a comment to a wrong response but I will make a similar one here. Often people say that someone is not attractive but that is not true. I do not believe someone is ugly or out of someone’s league. Someone is a 10 to someone. Some people love bald guys while others love full heads of hair. Some people love in shape people or some love chubby people. People are a 10 to someone and they will eventually find someone that loves them for them. It’s good to mention this because I think many people have body image issues and feel like they themselves are not beautiful/handsome. Every person is beautiful/handsome themselves and once they realize this they will be much happier. There is no such thing as a standard of beauty. I might get called out for this being bs/corney but it is true. It’s good to give a positive message and there are many negative ones shared on this subreddit and too often. You are all beautiful/handsome to someone out there.
Banning is going a bit far, isn’t it?
Being attractive is not strictly physical.
Honestly that’s an online problem, any dating advice post has the response “u a ugly hoe”
I don’t know. Personally, I wish I would’ve been told I’m unattractive earlier in my life, perhaps in my preteens, instead of being blinded about my looks and having any hopes in dating, the fact that I didn’t realise how unattractive I was damaged me in my teens and damaged my confidence in particular to the point where it’s difficult to make friends in University. If I would’ve been told that earlier, maybe it would have been easier to accept and my life would’ve been better by discarding dating life and focusing on everything else.
It can be damaging at time, but when it’s true, it can help one get past this obstacle in life and just move on.
Because majority of guys that say that are frustrated with their situation.
all they see is hot women who are ( mostly) out of their league reject them and date a another guy who they believe is better looking then them and thats the only reason the woman rejected them. Is because they are not attractive (physically) enough.
They assume that every single female only wants a good looking man to have around and look at. Only because they are insecure about their looks and believe thats the only reason women choose/ reject
..it could very well be true
I know this is a hard pill for people to swallow but when someone ghosts them,it has to do with the other person and nothing with unless they have a trash personality
I agree you’re correct but this is Reddit for one. World of sad lonely trolls, so that will never change. But to ask advice about getting ghosted I don’t think any can be given. It’s going to happen no matter what. For many different reasons the person getting ghosted will never know
We should stop assuming. I’m a pretty attractive, well put together guy who is definetly a catch, and I’ve been ghosted more than once. People are just fucked up and wierd.
I agree lol, used to asking for an advice here and somebody assuming i’m a ugly person.
Even though, i’m actually decent looking (my girl friends said so) but i’m just too shy to ask a girl’s number and using online dating.
Tbh I’m of the opinion that everybody on reddit, save myself, must be unattractive.
Idk man we all can be very ugly every now and again
Mixed feelings since every one of those posts begins with the fact that they’re “attractive”
Well I tried dating (tried means pretty well) but nothing came forward for me. So after reading someone’s post I realized actually it is true. I am not attractive, I am kind of loser. And I accepted it after some few battle with my mind. But You know what? it helped me, I stop wasting time on trying to date in online or real world and started to improve me. Yes! I am not good looking, I am a loser. Maybe I won’t get anyone. If someone is suppose to be in my life, no matter what they will be there. I don’t need to try for that, I am tired of trying.
But yeah not for everyone. I find everyone is beautiful. So yeah whoever you think that you are not good looking, trust me you are really a amazing person just need some time.
I won’t lie, I had see this happen here all the time, people getting attacked when they ask for an advice. I don’t try to be rude to anyone because at some point I was there, so when they ask for advice I can relate even if it is a little to them.
Then I try to have a conversation with them to tell me how did they act and how do the girls act, I get attacked by other Toxics commentators. Bashing them on how they were behaving sometimes the OP is frustrated at the moment and will rush his/her description on the post and people end up misunderstanding.
Most of the time when I got time I try to interact with the OP to see more deeper of what’s going on and give my opinion about it and if I can’t do anything. I hope other users can help.
Thank you. I don’t get why people have to be hateful dicks. If they are that unhappy that they have to be shit to people on line, they need some reevaluation of their lives
I disagree… well more like I don’t fully agree.
I guess more people need to be told that they are probably average. From my experience on this sub, men come in thinking they aren’t attractive, and someone comes in and tells them they are ugly and the man just accepts it, while women come in and are convinced they are a millimeter short of being a supermodel and get pissed off when people imply they probably aren’t, and thanks the one person who says that OP is really so attractive that men are intimated by them and men won’t ask them out because men have fragile egos and can’t handle being reject (Yes, I’ve seen this many times, it comes across as horribly sexist IMO).
Just assume people are average at first (because most people are and most people have some difficulties and hurdles while dating) and work from there.
I’d like to chime in on this, because I think the bigger picture may be tainted to some degree. First, I’m an amateur relationship coach. I have been giving dating advice for a few years now, and I’m well-versed in some aspects of psychology, specifically, human sexuality. I have also read a lot of material coming from some of the more premiere dating coaches such as Corey Wayne, and while I don’t agree with everything they have to say, I have found that some of the information within their works not only matches one another, but creates accurate worldly predictions when utilized in a real-life context.
That being said, I have also been dating for the past 2+ years, and have probably dated over 60 women. I’ve seen and had it all happen to me: Been ghosted. Been told I’m not getting laid just to get laid on the first date then ghosted. Had women throw themselves at me. Had others flat out reject me in rude and compassionless ways. Had women lie to me, only to find out (in one case for example) that she was not only married but ALSO had a live-in boyfriend. The three of them lived together.
Dated people with psychologically diagnosed disorders such as bi-polar. Dated women of different races ranging from Hispanic, black, white, and more. Dated women ranging in age from 25 to 45–those being the lowest and highest age brackets in the last 2 years. Dated women who have told me they love me a few weeks in, dated another who in 7 months couldn’t say it, then left me for reasons she never figured out in a wonderful relationship.
I’ve been sexually assaulted by women who have become belligerent when her sexual passes were rejected. The sexual assault is when she tries to touch me in ways I don’t want to be touched and I tell her, but she doesn’t stop until I physically stop her.
This is all to set up a narrative here of not only my personal experiences, but my practical experiences with others and how my knowledge has helped them, coupled with my « credentials » as it were. I highly advise anyone interested in more to look at some of my past posts in r/dating to see some of the research information as it pertains to sexual selection in humans.
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Anyway… So sexual selection in humans is first and foremost a relative spectrum of sexual interest between humans. Quite honestly the best way I can think of to explain this is to use the 1-10 system. Keep in mind that for men, the 1-10 is part physicality, and part socioeconomic status–or in other words, the assumed potentiality for an individual to garner future resources. It doesn’t mean acquired wealth.
For women, the 1-10 only signifies cross-cultural universal beauty characteristics. We objectively know what these are: They are symmetrical features, waist to hip ratio, hair and skin shine and health, youth, and neotenous facial features.
We know these are the standards because these metrics, when removing the potential for outside interference with the data, are the features that the highest selected humans (in terms of mate selection/relationship/marriage potential) possess. In other words, the more of the above traits you have, the more likely you are to be selected for mating and relationship, and by a larger majority of higher-caliber potential mates. This is all on a spectrum, but a 10/10 will be desired by everyone, wherein a 5 out of 10 is likely only desired by approximately 50% of people. Men select across and down on dominance hierarchies, while women select across and up, so men are less likely to be mate selected by women who are higher up than them within the sexual market.
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So when people say you must not have been that attractive, it’s both a subjective and objective sentiment. It’s subjective because it’s relatable to the subject in question. If the man is a 5/10 and the women is a 6/10, then his lying on the spectrum as a 5 means it’s much more likely that this in fact WAS the case, than if he were an 8 and she a 6. In fact, you can use this in the real world. If you’re an average looking male, approach and ask out 10 extremely attractive females, then do the same for 10 average looking females. Without a doubt, the likelihood that you will be rejected, even if simply passively (such as by being given a false number, she doesn’t pick up, or she ghosts) is going to be nearly 100% with the very attractive women. Now if you have very high socioeconomic status, then you’re just not a 5, even if you are in looks. The research on this is **crystal** clear.
So you can see that by and large, sexual selection is done relative to the sexual market value of the selector, and females are the sexual selectors in humans. In fact, females are the sexual selectors in most animals. Chimps are an exception, and what makes that so interesting is that female chimps go into heat and will simply mate with any male. It’s the dominant males who scare off the lesser males so as to be the only ones who mate. This isn’t how it works in humans. If it did, every female would be having sex several times a week, if not more, and that’s not what’s going on.
There’s a whole lot more that goes into this, but the bottom line is that how interested someone is going to be in you is going to dominantly be due to where they stand in relationship to where you stand on the sexual market. I can attest to this. The women I’ve dated when are beneath me on the market are prone to sleeping with me on the first date, throwing themselves at me, and basically trying to lock me down, but the most attractive women I’ve dated are a lot more prone to not reply to me on OLD, will reject me after a first date, and are much less likely to sleep with me, because while I have fair luck with women, I’m just not a top-10% of men « Chad ».
My theory is that females desire to mate with high-quality males, and most woman will say that they don’t sleep around, that they don’t put out on the first date, and that they’re not interested in FWB or hookups, but that’s just a generalization to try to communicate to most men that they’re not going to select them. The reality of my experiences is that if she perceives you as high quality, she’ll have sex with you. EVEN in those cases where she’s very reserved, actually doesn’t sleep around, may be very religious, etc., she will still put out after a few dates if she deems you high quality.
This doesn’t mean women are bad or wrong or anything of the sort. This is just how human sexual selection works. It’s how it’s worked for millions of years.
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So again, beauty is subjective in that it’s related to where the onlooker perceives you in relationship to their own attractiveness, and it is objective because we can measure those traits that garner humans the most mate selection potential. At the end of the day though, if someone perceives you as a true catch–meaning they believe you would be very hard to find another of who has interest in them, or that it would be almost impossible, then they will have a very high interest in you and won’t let you disappear, barring they are emotionally and mentally stable. So when someone ghosts or slow-fades, it means their perception of you is so/so. In other words, on the 1-10 scale, if they’re a 6 and you’re a 5, there are a million other 5’s out there for them to choose from. Now if you were an 8, there’s no way she would let you walk away without a fight.
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I’m sorry but this is just the way it is.
The reason for any of those situations though is that they were not attractive enough to that person. That’s the only reason there’s mixed signals, that’s the only reason you get ghosted.
You’re assuming when someone gives the advice that they were not attractive enough to that person it means they aren’t attractive? You speak like everyone finds the same thing attractive. If you’re not attractive enough to someone you need to figure out why. This is so that you know if it’s a flaw that you should work on, like you were being kind of creepy, or if it was just that you weren’t their type. It still means you weren’t attractive enough to the person. If you’re attractive enough to someone they will rearrange their whole life for you. They will move heaven and Earth to be with you. And often in cases of mixed signals and other things where they haven’t cut contact you have the chance to become more attractive to them.
Attractiveness is not an objective scale. Attractiveness all depends on the individual person. What is downright ugly to one person can be beautiful and sexy to another.
That said I will admit there are a couple objective measurements that you need to get in order for a base level of attraction. Namely hygiene. If you stink, or you look like you just walked out of a concentration camp that’s a very fixable problem that will make you unattractive to 99.9% of people.
Agreed! I literally can’t stand that word, “attractive” it’s like a filler or something. Say something of substance. Dating is hard whether you’re attractive or not!! I’m actually surprised at how many people want to jump into relationships without becoming friends first! If someone ghosts you it’s because the dating apps force you to respond so quickly and then guys want to meet face to face after one sentence… give me a sec to get to know you through conversation.
I find it more challenging because I’m a good looking person. I seem to fit into everyone’s idea of a great partner but few want to get to know me. I am not a fan of the apps. So guys, get it together and build confidence without needing to swipe and just ask the girl out wherever you meet her!!!!!!!
I’m sorry but for a lot of men, myself included, being unattractive or overweight is the only thing holding them back.
I’m in a bad place now, and I’m glad you made this thread because it’s true but for a lot of men, being unattractive is the issue. Full stop.
I’ve seen the following a number of times:
Step 1: Be attractive
Step 2: Don’t be unattractive
trolls will be trolls…all you can do is ignore them.
Unfortunately, online dating is generally all about looks. When a person doesn’t seem to making any progress, it is very often because they are going after partners who are “out of their league”. That’s the truth. Yes, it is a generalization and it doesn’t work that way 100% of the time, but often enough that we can make a safe assumption.
Great observation– I agree!
Hear, hear. We need more constructive comments, not just lashing out on the innocent poor.
I mean. Unless you look like Belle Delphine I don’t even want to waste my time so….