Is your partner more or less physically attractive than you?

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I am just curious about this with respect to autism. Is there a tradeoff where the autistic person dates someone who is less physically attractive in exchange for the less attractive NT overlooking the fact that the autistic person is less socially attractive?

Count long-term (1 month or more) partners only. For me, it's been 1 more physically attractive, 2 about the same, and 5 less attractive. So I may fit the pattern. As for rating yourself, OkCupid's "my best face" is pretty good as an objective measure. It counts what percentage of the time users chose you vs. others. I get between 58% and 73% depending on the photo, so I am 5-7/10, or slightly above average.

For purposes of this poll, I'd like to stick to physical attractiveness and by commonly accepted measures of the term, rather than idiosyncratic personal ones. Example: I am attracted to slightly heavier women than what is normally viewed as attractive, but in my own results, I count the ones I've dated as "less attractive" even though I personally viewed them as more attractive.

Being attractive in other ways, such as personality, is even more subjective and probably needs its own poll.

One more thing, in the last gender-focused poll, I put women first, so I put men first in this one. It's not because I'm sexist.

I've only date 2 women in my life so far,
first one in high school, I would say I was better looking then her
second one, my ''first real'' girlfriend was very good looking.
my ''first real'' girlfriend was better looking than me.

Most of them have been more attractive..
I usually attract women who like me for my intelligence, not so much my looks even though I'd like to think I'm decent looking.

I've dated males and females and they were all more physically attractive than me.

With every guy I've ever dated, all of my gay guy friends suspect they are gay and say they are just too attractive to be straight, or something like that. I don't find men very appealing, physically, so it was kind of wasted on me.

And I don't find myself attractive, I can't think of myself objectively, I guess. So every woman I've ever dated, I would say is more attractive than me.

Re: bolded part.
Me neither. Makes it impossible to answer a question like this based on that because I have no way of knowing whether it would be accurate or not.

I think we're on the same level. I've never really cared enough to see it.

This depends on whose judge of 'attractiveness' we are using. In my own opinion, of the three people that I have dated two have been less attractive than me, and my current partner is of the same level of attractiveness.

In societies opinion? At the time I dated my first girlfriend I would probably have been considered more attractive than them. The same for my second girlfriend. My boyfriend is currently considered more attractive than me.

The deciding factors in discerning my level of attractiveness is my height & weight. I'm short and overweight. Societally speaking short men are considered unattractive, and overweight people also.

Personally, I think I'm working the chubby short-ass look.

While I'm single, I felt like replying to point out that its impossible to get apples to apples comparable respnses even if people are trying to assess themselves and their SO on a generally accepted societal scale of attractiveness because its simply too subjective.

Ie no matter how physically fit I may get, I'd still always rate my crush as more attractive than myself because I'm attracted to him and not to guys that look like me. There's the very real possibility that someone else comparing us side by side would rate me as more attractive if they're attracted to the features I was born with vs the ones he was.

Make sense?

Attractive for me, signifies equal, or above intellect. Physically, I wouldn't have a clue, as its not really a major concern, and my tastes are quite eclectic anyway.

My previous partners were about the same as me.
My current long term partner would not be considered conventionally attractive.
He is absolutely beautiful on the inside though.

Mine have been more average looking than me but as I look different from the norm it's hard to get an objective idea of my own attractiveness. I've been liked/loved more for my personality than my looks generally and see this as a good thing as looks fade.

Even given the autistic predilection for low self-esteem, this poll is bearing out my original theory for both men and women.

I have a new theory: given that autistic people generally need to trade down in looks, what differentiates an autistic person who can get a date from one who can't (different from just being picky) is not social skills, or whatever advice the fake PUA's on this forum dispense, but perhaps looks almost exclusively.

Some anecdotal evidence for this theory is supported by the reports of men on this forum, including myself, having big changes in success with women after spending some time in a fitness program.

A man/woman who is a 3 and grossly overweight/bad skin/skinny/unkempt (for guys) has hardly anyone to date. However, if this person works on improving her appearance, she may even be able to become a 7 or 8, which would allow her to date 4-6's, making plenty of partners available where before there were none she thought worth having.

Last edited by Tyri0n on 07 Apr 2013, 4:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.

What was your original theory?

In the OP, I wrote:

In my case no

I don't think I'm bringing looks to the table

but then I haven't tended to have relationships with NTs

I've brought being a decent person with intelligence and humour to the table and the other person has bought either the same with average looks or they've been better looking and witty and less of a decent person

I've tended to see people who weren't fighting others off, the same as myself basically