Questions about dating and attractiveness

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I don't mean to offend anyone but this has been something I have never figured out and I don't understand.

Part of finding a partner if I understand right is physical attraction. So why would someone who is not very attractive (compared to the norm or whatever) settle for someone only as attractive as them or less?

When I see couples, they always seem to be equally attractive. But what happens when 2 attractive people get old and become not attractive anymore physically? How important is physical attraction in a relationship?

To me it seems like many couples are in love and attracted to each other for a few years, then they just become partners in a sense to where they help each other out in life like friends.

I feel like a bad person for feeling this way, but I couldn't ever date a girl that wasn't more attractive than I am. I don't know if that's an AS thing or OCD or just selfish. In high school when I would have little dates I would break up with the girl very quickly as I found flaws. I hate it because with those standards and my condition I will definitely be alone the rest of my life (thank God for dogs!).

But really, like if there are 2 very obese people, how can they stand each other in an intimate way? How could they want to touch or kiss an ugly person? Maybe it's just me, I can't stand people even touching me. I understand why pretty people date, but I don't understand how uglier people can settle. Because you know if the ugly people could get the prettier people in almost all cases they would. I mean if one person is ugly, then they have either money or power usually to compensate.

Dating is the strangest thing I've ever seen. I only know this from movies, but it's like people go to bars and have secret languages like "getting out of here" means "we are going to have sex", and guys try to act all alpha male like I'm watching Animal Planet.

I don't even think I have an ego. I don't understand why people have these elated views of themselves. I know what I can do and what I can't. Why do people pretend to be things they aren't to trick others into mating/dating?

Is sex that good?

What you said is very shallow but it's also very true!
I guess the Importance of being loved and connected is a priority for most people.
They just try to maximize the quality of their partners.

People instinctively go for attractive people because it implies good genes.

And people who are not-so-attractive don't have as many options open to them, because attractive people want attractive people. Also, when referring to people as "ugly" keep in mind it's your opinion. I'm sure somepony is attracted to somebody I would consider unattractive. and vice-versa.

I've been with my husband for 23 years. I'm just as attracted to him, physically, as I always was, moreso in fact. OK, he's still young (44, but looks much younger). But, when you love someone, you can still see their beauty, even if it isn't so obvious to everyone else. I'm getting older too, so it's two sided, anyway. I'd say he's more attractive than me, although he'd probably say the opposite. He doesn't believe how attractive he is and I seem to be the only one who spots the admiring glances he gets. But, our relationship is not founded on physical attraction, it's more like an attraction of brains.

<< Moved from GAD to L&D >>

If I see somebody with an ugly personality, although I will still acknowledge they're good-looking I can't bring myself to be attracted to them physically. It's an impossibility.

What is attractive is highly subjective. For example; I find Taylor Lautner very physically attractive, but yet many people find him ugly. That doesn't make him any less good looking to me. Another example is Steve Buscemi. Many would agree that his looks aren't his finest point, but yet he's still considered attractive by many women. How? Charisma, confidence, personality, charm.

There's also other things to take into account such as a persons pheromones and other genetics. When we're searching for a mate, we don't only rely on visual information. We take in a lot of information on the person such as how they talk, what they sound like, what they smell like, what they're interested in, how they carry themselves, etc. A bodybuilder could fall in love with someone obese because that obese person might understand them in a way no one else can. In the end, love really is truly blind. If you asked Steve Buscemi's wife if she thought her husband was handsome, she'd probably say yes and she wouldn't be lying.

As to why people lie to get laid? Because they try to make up for their short comings. A guy who lies about having money is really self-conscious by the fact he doesn't have any and he thinks that if had more money, he would be more desirable and more lovable. Which, by the way, isn't true.

Yea I know I'm shallow on this topic that's why I'm trying to understand it in a deeper way.

And I just say "ugly" to make the point, I do feel that there is a level of aesthetic beauty that all humans recognize. Now there are differences like with skin color and body weight, but I think it's been proven many times that the human face can have mathematically more aesthetic faces than others.

I mean what 21 year old falls in love with an 80 year old (not including marrying for money)?

So if two 21 year olds get married one day they might both be 80 and not attracted to each other anymore.

And isn't sex largely based on physical attraction? I would think for two 80 year olds the act would be much more disgusting than pleasurable.

That's just an extreme to make the point. I can't help the way I see these things. I know women especially may see this as shallow but women also want the tall/dark/handsome man that can take care and protect her.

I do agree with that comment that a big part of it is that our physical desires are connected to good genes. That just takes the "soul" out of the picture, or the personality.

For me, I'm very OCD about things. A better example would be I couldn't stand a girl who had poor hygiene. So if we got married then she stopped taking showers or something I wouldn't be able to be around her. And I've never been in love so I don't know how much that connects a person, if it does to a point they don't mind their partner aging or not.

The thing is if it's all about love then why don't you see "ugly" people with "pretty" people?

Ok, I still think the whole thing is illogical. Mating to me makes sense in the animal kingdom but doesn't for humans with self awareness. Just my opinion though. I hope to God I don't end up a 40 year old virgin either. I want to get married to a beautiful girl who is pretty on the outside and most importantly on the inside.

It's just what happens when that initial passion ends? So many people get divorced when it does. It seems to me people who stay married are passionate for a while, then turn to very good friends.

(Steve Buscemi is awesome, I love his acting. That is a good point. I am attracted to him as an actor, I enjoy seeing him act in things like Boardwalk Empire. But if I saw him on the street and didn't know his personality I would have no interest in getting to know him).

Ok, so how do people with Aspergers show the good parts of their personality? I am just so shy. People have said I'm good looking but no one ever see's my personality. It only comes out when I type sometimes.

But a 21 falling in love with an 80 year old isn't the same as both 21 year olds growing to be 80.

Ten years ago, I was attracted to other teens and considered people my current age "old," especially if you had asked me whether I wanted to have sex with them! Now, I feel no attraction to people ten years younger than me, not just because we have nothing in common but because that type of physical attractiveness isn't what works for me now.

On purely physical grounds, if you show me someone age 15-20 and someone else 25-30 I will pick the older person every time. When I am 80, I will almost certainly feel similarly; even though people that age don't look attractive to me now, they will then. For most people, it's not a question of settling, it's about your personal standards changing as you get older.

For me, there's no such thing as universal, global attractiveness, and I've felt much better since I decided that many years ago.

I grew up surrounded by the usual cultural notion that the top film and music celebrities were the pinnacle of visual excellence, and I largely took it as read that this was the upper calibration point. But even in those days, a lot of those celebrities looked quite creepy to me. Another blow to the mainstream dogma was delivered when I mistakenly labelled a girl as too ugly to be of any value, only to find that she was more respected and cared about than I was, and she did OK in relationships too. It was lucky that I'd kept my dismissive thoughts to myself. The people around us at the time were decidedly non-mainstream, which probably explains why she was doing so well, but what you eventually realise is that this beauty thing really is in the eye of the beholder. I was surprised how much better looking she became, in my eyes, once I'd acquired a bit of respect for her.

So these days I see it as much more of a "horses for courses" thing, and feel sad about all the millions of people who still take what the media and society says as their standard of beauty. To my mind, they are simply wrong. They are sublimating their real, individual feelings about visual attractiveness.

I can see that there's a "health" dimension to global "attractiveness" that's fairly valid........if somebody looks diseased then I don't feel good about jumping into bed with them. If they look healthy, they might be good child-bearers, and although I don't particularly want any more children, that might still appeal to me unconsciously. And some illnesses are contagious, so I can see why people keep their distance from those who look unhealthy.

I can also see how the "youth" dimension operates, but I don't find younger women particularly attractive, at least not consciously.

The worst aspect of all this global attractiveness lark, for me, was when I discovered the concept of "sexual capital." The idea that, in all walks of life, most people discriminate in favour of individuals who manage to come over as the most sexually attractive, by mainstream standards. The idea that bald men and women with no makeup should be sent to the back of the line, and that the girl in the low-cut dress and the man with the smarmy chat-up lines are treated like gold. To me, sexual capitalism is as corrupt, unfair and unhealthy as financial capitalism.

So my advice would be to try and get off the "must have a film star looker" thing, and appreciate people for what they do rather than what they look like, though naturally if you don't find somebody sexually attractive TO YOU PERSONALLY, physically, then if you take them on, it might be a while before you've learned to enjoy a sex life with them. Really, I'm not highly sexed by any means, and am quite happy to wait many months for a relationship to become sexual, but over my long life I've enjoyed sex with a variety of women of all kinds of shapes and sizes, and I didn't enjoy it any less, or lose interest more quickly, in the ones who society would have called plain, or even in the ones I would have called "not really much to look at."

It can be quite surprising to discover how many of what one sees as one's own preferences are in fact illusions imposed by society.

I disagree, I think there is beauty we can put a finger on.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt207483.html

And for most people, from what I have seen in life men prefer the 18 year old range until they die. Just look at the porn market (I know, but it's a good example). What age group do they market? "Barely Legal". What's the average age of someone in a magazine like Playboy?

I think it's genetics, that women are most fertile at a certain age and that's when men are most attracted to them.

And this is why I am so alone and different in this world. Everyone is running off emotions and chemicals in their brains and I am using logic. I'm sorry if I offended any ugly people (I'm joking).

Well, attraction has an emotional component too. I remember a pair of girls I know, one of them had a personality I didn't like, and the other was awesome. Looking at the first one I felt somewhat quesy, while the second one brought warm feelings whenever she was near. And in a group conversation, someone else said how the two of them looked so similar, like sisters, and my first mental reaction was "how can she say that, the two of them are completelly different!" but when everybody agreed, and I looked closely, I noticed they had similar proportions and haircuts, and in general, objectively speaking, their bodies were alike. I had to conclude that the differences of attractiveness between the two of them were purely in my mind.

In general, I believe that people start looking more attractive as you get to know them better and like them more, the golden ratio, hip to waist ratio and those things are likely important, too, but emotions are stronger than that, at least for me.

I wasn't saying that you can't collect a set of parameters that are demonstrably popular among a stated audience. The apparent preference of men for young girls doesn't surprise me, as people show more blemishes and signs of ill health as they age, a young girl has more child-bearing years than an older one, and she is easier to control, at least in a culture that supports male dominance. The popular turned-up nose is said to be down to it being essentially a feature of children. We are indeed influenced by biological stimuli, and if we contrive to send out an amplified stimulus, then we will amplify our attractiveness to the target.

What I'm saying is that we don't have to be that tunnel-visioned about it, or to be in its yoke. Relationships are serious matters which draw on millions of human characteristics. If I had the luxury of a choice between a sexual firecracker and the proverbial girl-next-door, I'd be more hopeful about the latter, because she would seem immediately more "real" to me somehow. Chances are that a complete sexpot has learned to get their own way by the use of their high sexual capital, because it works, at least materially, and so they're less likely to know how to cope in life as an ordinary mortal who can't get favourable treatment by simply looking and acting "cool." That may translate into a partner who came over as a narcissistic liability, and when you've got to live with somebody, raise children with them, etc., sooner or later it's not going to be enough that they are pretty. You get used to that, just as you get used to a scary face once you realise the person behind it has become dear to you by way of their behaviour towards you. I'm not saying a person can't "look attractive" and also have brains, just that the two don't always go hand in hand, and that a looker of either gender will to a palpable extent be carried through life by their visual admirers, to the detriment of other life skills.

Imagine a situation where a peahen was smart enough to know that the peacock's tail was only air and feathers, and she selected instead by really looking at the peacocks and working out which was REALLY the strongest, healthiest bird. That peahen might be considered insane by her peers, if they could consider at all, but her DNA would survive better, because she'd worked out that fine tail-feathers don't make the finest birds. Most mainstream humans don't seem to have made such a leap in their thinking.

I believe that sexual relationships, once they begin, are usually so intoxicating that none of us can be expected to think clearly, so we need to work out what kind of partner we want before it gets to that stage. If you want "beautiful" high on the list, fine. But don't forget that you're appying a restriction there, reducing the size of your selection pool. You will find other important parameters that are also somewhat rare, especially as your experience with relationships grows and you see what makes the difference between success and failure. By the time you're done, unless you're pretty damned good at relationships, you'll be wishing you weren't so picky because there won't be many people left who fit the marrow bill. So please make sure that all those criteria for rejection are worth the pool reduction......I never yet heard of a relationship going wrong because of one of the partners not being handsome or pretty enough. Relationships go wrong because of communication problems, immature or abusive behaviour, and similar behavioural and emotional factors.

It depends on what you mean by "not so attractive anymore physically". Do you mean they gained weight? Do you mean gravity takes its effect on skin, boobs, bits, or whatever? Do you mean pattern male baldness? Elaborate. Personally, the initial attraction has to be there for things to happen, and people are attracted to someone they find a common thread of themselves in, so that could explain why both partners are similar. And like Mummy of Peanut says, you see something in that person that other people don't see. Maybe you're not seeing something in people? And too, when people are equally as healthy, they care about each other, want to bring out the best in each other, and studies have linked healthier spouses together because a man is more likely to be healthy when his wife is.



Sounds like you have impossible standards. Which means, to succeed, you have to find the source of why you have these impossible standards. Do you feel like you must have someone who is more experienced, or more held together than you for your own stability? Do you feel like you'll never succeed, so therefore you have impossible standards to thereby just set yourself up as a way to proven that you've failed? Were you raised around males with impossible standards, i.e. males who cannot appropriately appreciate a female correctly? Do you just in general not feel attraction to women? (whether it's from being asexual or even possibly being gay). Or you could just be shallow. Which means you're limiting your selection by not letting someone new outside of what you would've originally considered to grow on you. People also tend to be attracted to those who are like them. Perhaps by finding flaws in them, you are not looking inward at fixing the flaws in yourself.



Because they know that they are just the same as their partner, and thereby not grossed out by it?



You're assuming said "ugly" person comes equipped with riches or power either one. And ones that don't? You're assuming that they're going to set themselves up on an impossible standard for themselves to achieve like it's realistic when it's not. I find it funny you correlate pretty people with "dating" but "ugly" people with "settling." Personally, I think as you are limiting your selection of people for you to potentially date, that you are the kind who would "settle."



Get out of that assumption. Bar trolling does not usually lead to stable relationships, just sh*tty drunken one night stands. You're more likely to meet a potential spouse at another place, like school instead. And of course, you're also assuming that males who can get in good relationships usually act like boorish alpha males. My uncle was laughing when he went to his high school reunion a while back (and this one was the 40th one, so it had been some time). He mused that all the geeks/nerds, and people who cared about academic success were the ones who were happily married, yet, all the jocks and vain "alpha" males who liked bar hopping who always teased him for not being able to pick up a date right away, were entering old age being single, alone, and unhappy.



???????? Ok. First. You talk like you think you deserve someone that is not "ugly". You dump girls as soon as you find flaws in them. Afaik, you seem like one of those vain vampire people who cannot find the light within so they have to drag everyone down with them, and who doesn't want to follow, gets extinguished. And I'll be honest, most of the people who get tricked, are dumb as a brick anyway. You're wasting your time and you do not realize it yet.



Well, that depends on what kind of aspie or autie you are. If you're old enough to check out the adult boards here, you will find that it is about 50-50 with those of us on the spectrum. Half feel like they are asexual, and half seem to be hypersexual. If you "pleasure yourself" frequently, you are probably in the second half like I am. If you do not see an attraction with it, then you are probably asexual. If you are hypersexual, you will probably like it with enough experience barring sensory issues if you have them. If you're asexual, you will probably not get much out of it.



you're assuming a lot of things, for one, that sex is based solely upon physical attraction. It's great, yeah, but that's not all there is to it. Part of it is passion, part of it is feeling. Part of it is the closeness of being linked to someone. Part of it is animalistic desire. And that's only the start of it.



UMMM you are assuming a lot there buddy. I'm not some helpless dumb broad. Granted, you can think whatever you want of the fact that my bf is a tall man who is 2nd black in karate, but that doesn't mean that I can't attempt to protect myself as well when the occasion comes. I already had a crash course by going to a school full of harassment where guys would randomly pick people up to bully them, jump them, smack girls on the butts, and grind on them. One idiot thought he was going to grab me by the wrists, grind me and feel me up. He got an elbow to the nuts. Another tried to do something similar and limped away with a charlie horse when I was through with him. Another guy thought it would be fun to attempt to throw me (the smallest girl in my gym class) in one of those big drum trashcans. Instead of falling in I kicked off the wall and bit him in the ear. You would think that would've been enough of a deterrent and he would've walked away with enough humiliation, but he was dumb enough to try again with the 2nd smallest girl. This girl's friend threw him on the ground and rammed him in the head repeatedly with a wheely janitorial mop bucket like 50 times. I would've helped further had her friend not walked up, but I was too busy on the floor dying with laughter when she got there in a hurry and had him on the floor getting rammed in no time. Afaik, he not only had to go to prom with a scar on his head from that mop bucket, but he still has that scar on his head to this day. & Girls can't be tough? Yeah right.



More like, I hope you didn't jump instantly on getting married, as eventually everyone shows their true colors, married or not. Also,. if you're having a hard time getting her to shower, maybe you should take her in there with you. I bet you didn't consider that as possibility.



Love trumps old age. If it doesn't, then there are other problems going on. Personally I don't mind if I'm old and still having sex with my boyfriend at 80. At 80 we'd have already won-- meaning we've already have outlived a lot of people, and if we're having sex on top of it, then that's even more special-- the fact that "it" could still get up and it'd sure be a testament to our overall physical fitness. Because most people who don't eat right don't even live to be 80, nonetheless still be active at 80. As long as I'm not looking like, that old diseased hen at the supermarket with her sagging buns hanging out of an old nasty pair of daisy dukes I should be ok. You need to reframe how you view sexuality outside of your narrow view.



And what if you do end up with a 40 year old virgin? Now what? I think you're overthinking it, and your strange strict impossible standards are not helping your odds.
I think your ocd might possibly be getting in the way, so you need to do whatever you can to get it treated in therapy. You need to find some way to let loose of all of these crazy expectations.



Again, you're assuming that it HAS to end. Some people find out they are incompatible, some men are too vain for their own good and get out of it, the couple has kids and sometimes this happens, but kids are not exclusive to the problem of when I couple stops making time for intimacy in their busy lives, bad expectations with it (like the idiot on the doctors show the other day who thought "take of your clothes!" was all that foreplay was when she was getting none), dissatisfaction in general. And if you don't use it, you lose it.


By... being... yourself. You have to believe that you have good parts of your personality first and dig them up for you to acknowledge their existence in order for them to even have the possibility of being shown.



And that depends on the sampling of these men asked. Married, partnered, long term HAPPY men, are less likely to go the route of porn market to satisfy themselves sexually. Which makes your point moot.