I’ve dated women that were much more attractive than me and vice versa. I always found the interaction dynamics interesting when dating someone less attractive than yourself. Your conversations and body language change dramatically as you honestly don’t care if things work out or not. This of course just makes you more confident which makes the other person want you even more. That then leads to him/her being clingy which pushes you away even further.
Yes. In college I dated a guy who was downright ugly and had really bad acne. He was a wonderful guy and I consider him my favorite ex-boyfriend, but I just couldn’t keep dating someone who was so unattractive. I admit that it matters to me to some degree what other people think so that was a part of it, but the main problem was that I would look at him and think “ick.” That’s just not good.
Over the past few years, I’ve done a good bit of online dating. From that, I’ve developed the concept of the “minimum standard of non-hideousness.” Like anyone else, I try not to get too caught up in a guy’s looks, especially before I get a chance to get to know him a little. And I succeed for the most part. But I noticed that with a lot of guys, I took one look at their pictures and knew the answer was an unequivocal “no.”
I think most people have a minimum standard of non-hideousness, even if they don’t name it that.
In the absence of other factors, the general rule is that the more good-looking someone is, the more attractive they seem. But it’s not a smooth curve. While the level of attraction will drop as you move down the scale, for most people, there’s a point where it abruptly plummets to zero. That’s the minimum standard of non-hideousness.
So, for example, let’s say that you would be extremely attracted to a 10, attracted to an 8, and willing to consider a 6, but unwilling to date anyone lower than a 6, then your minimum standard of non-hideousness is a 6.
Personally, I like a guy to be well above the minimum standard. Who wouldn’t? But when other factors come into play, then the less good-looking guy can seem much more attractive than the adonis. But once somebody is below that minimum standard, forget it. He could be the greatest guy in the world, but I just wouldn’t be attracted to him.
This might explain situations like Bricker’s and gytalf’s. (Judging on what you say. I haven’t reviewed your pictures.) You might indeed be less good-looking than the women you have relationships with, but you’re certainly above their minimum standard or they wouldn’t be with you.
And I think there is a lot of variation in what a person’s minimum standard is. For most people, it is indeed probably tied to their own general level of attractiveness. We all know that some guys have an unrealistically high standard. For others, their minimum standard might be much lower than their own level.
And by the way–we have a lot of guys here claiming that their women are better looking than them, and fewer women saying the opposite. I think that’s because women have more options to improve on their basic attributes than men do. For example, I’m a redhead with pale lashes. A little mascara and liner go a very long way in making me look better. If I were a guy, I’d be stuck with walking around with beady little eyes. 
Women also have more choices for hair and clothing. The upshot, IMHO, is that it’s easier for a female 6 to make herself look like a 7 than it would be for a male 6 to do the same.
Oh, no. Bricker is genuinely hideous.
Just kidding. 
Yes… the most obvious options for males upleveling themselves permanently seem to be limited to going to the gym, and …uh, going to the gym. 
Actually, that may not be completely true. I have heard that choosing certain clothes can uplevel one in the eyes of the beholder (“every guy looks better in a tuxedo”), but for an overall upleveling you need to get into things like social skills training.
…
I have said this before in other threads, but I think that it bears repeating here:
I virtually never see “attractive male/unattractive female” couples. On the other hand, I see “fat/geeky/nerdy/not-so-attractive” males coupled with attractive females quite often.
(I work on a university campus, by the way.)
I do not know what this observation means in terms of differences in male/female standards of attraction; it is just something that I have noticed!
Thanks!
My wife is a former cheerleader and is still quite pretty, though on the BBW side. A former girlfriend is just friggin’ gorgeous. Another more recent ex (we had a fwb relationship while both being married to others) was constantly getting hit on and is very pretty with a bubbly personality. She’s a redhead, so that kinda helps, afaic. She was married to a prominent attorney and hung around all the society-types; a proper lady to most of the world, but a total nympho to me.
My late (common law) husband of 23 yrs. was, by conventional standards, rather less attractive than me. I’ve been told I’m fairly presentable to beautiful/stunning (and as far as I can objectively say, yeah, I’m not too bad to lovely, depending on the day;))
I had at least a handful of people say something to the effect of “WTH are YOU with HIM?” over the years.
Thing is, trite as it may sound, he was beautiful to me. I loved HIM, and I could have cared less if he was tall, skinny, geeky, had a crooked nose, knock knees, a bullet head, and wasn’t otherwise classically “good looking”. (fortunately, our kids inherited mostly MY looks:))
He was a great friend (best I’ve ever had to date), debate partner, lover (YES!), father, and man, overall. He had his faults like we all do, but all things considered, I’d have rather had him than some male model lacking his assets.
I find it interesting when people take note of differences in appearance and poke fun; please consider that he may be with her because of something other than physical “beauty” as it is currently defined and vice versa. Physical beauty tends to wither and fade over time. Unless a relationship is built on more than that, it will too.
I never said shit to those who questioned my “selling myself short” to be with this man. They were idiots.
No, I have no regrets. It worked out that we had 23 yrs and then he died.
I laughed out loud, I did.
I suspect it has something to do with the differences between the sexes in terms of maturity and attraction.
It has long been suggested (and indicated by studies) that women tend to be more interested in qualities like humor, intelligence, character than in looks (though of course, this is just in general and maturity also factors in…some women of any age and more of younger age, tend to focus on money, power, looks, dick size, etc…)
And women have been found to under-estimate their attractiveness (except for those superficial, materialistic whores aforementioned, who tend to think their genitals are made of gold…screw them:mad::D)
Some studies have found, otoh, that men tend to reach beyond their grasp when it comes to women…they OVER-estimate their appeal and it sometimes pays off.
Funny i think that’s why Pierce Brosnan sticks out so. His wife is older, slightly larger and not what you’d imagine. (okay sue me i was perusing Ok i think…)
Television and movies always find a way to pit a very attractive female with a guy who in real life you’d never see. I remember that god-awful sitcom with Jim Belushi and Courtney Thorne-Smith.
I never can figure out where i stand… in my current relationship I just feel lucky to be with someone as beautiful as they are brilliant…
No, I’ve only dated two people and while maybe others would consider me more attractive than them, I think I’m around the same level objectively. We all have nice figures and regular facial features with big, pretty eyes.
I’ve known a lot of couples who I consider mismatched in looks. But I think people in general tend to date people who they personally feel are ‘in their league’. It doesn’t seem that many of the couples I think ‘why is she with HIM?’ based on looks alone feel that way themselves.
Looks are pretty subjective. A lot of people consider fatness to be an ‘ugly’ trait, but I know many couples where one person is larger to very fat, and the other has a slim figure or even an unusually conventionally attractive body.
Yes on both. I have never gone for looks as it doesn’t really matter to me. I have had some outrageously handsome boyfriends and some that were average and some with below average looks. The way they looked was by accident because it was not why I got involved with them.
I don’t care about looks. Looks, lots of money and power mean nothing to me if he is just a pretty box with nothing inside. If there is no chemistry then why bother? When I meet a man I am listening to him more then looking at him. Not in a sizing up way but in a what makes you tick way.
I’ve dealt with both. The hottie was a foreign student attending the university in my city. I met him at a dance club and he was SO dazzlingly gorgeous to look at; I mean, I am talking mesmerizing, is-he-for-real, Calvin Klein model territory. (I was thin enough, trendy, not unattractive, but a real plain jane next to him.) And he was rich! His father was an oil executive (he said) in Morocco. He said let’s get together next week, but would I mind picking him up because his car was in the shop. So I actually did go to his dorm and waited for him to get ready to go out. I waited quite a while as he fretted over his closet full of expensive clothes, and waited even longer as he styled his long blond hair and primped in the mirror and doused himself with Christian Dior cologne. We dated a few times, but it didn’t last too long as he left at summer break to go to Paris, and I was left to work at the popcorn counter at a movie theater. :rolleyes:.
So now I can always say, “yeah, I dated a drop-dead gorgeous jet-setter rich guy, but I broke it off because he was kind of conceited” :p.
The much-worse-looking? He was THE love of my life. We had a 5 year long affair. He was a bona fide ‘bad boy’ in his past, now a hard working solid citizen. SO smooth, accomplished, intelligent, confident - there was nothing that man couldn’t handle, he never turned a hair at any bad situation, there was no drama, no angst, he was utterly utterly superhumanly ‘cool’ and we were madly madly madly in love. I was sort of aware of his looks - he had really bad teeth, a beak of a nose like a toucan, and a bad case of scoliosis (he was born after WWII of displaced refugees from the Ukraine, somewhere in Europe, they were of course beyond poor, but they all came to live in the US and become citizens right after he was born). My friends told me to my face that this guy was really ugly and WTH did I SEE in him, anyway? I was told that one of my acquaintances called us Beauty and the Beast. (I was the Beauty :D). Hey. Love IS blind. The chemistry between us overruled any silly little superficial things like good looks!
InterestedObserver, just wanted to say I’m sorry you lost your beloved husband. You wrote about him with such obvious and genuine love. I’m so glad you had a lot of good years together!
Like many others, I’m not all that great at gauging my own looks. I don’t think I’m conventionally attractive by most women’s standards, though I guess I do pretty good.
I started dating my ex-wife when I was 21 and she was 29. She was pretty hot. Over the subsequent nine years, she let herself go, both mentally and physically. I knew we were pretty mismatched when, one Mother’s Day in the waning years of the relationship, a sales clerk at the mall remarked about how sweet it was that I took my mom shopping for whatever she wanted.
My current fiancee is smokin’. Also, she’s hilarious, and she’s not crazy.
More so now than when I was younger. I’ve never dated anyone who I consider below me in looks though. Yep, I’m shallow that way.
I’ve just started a new relationship where she is way better looking than me. I mentioned it in the ongoing Dating Advice Thread that we have going on now. I told her that she was out of my league (she laughed but didn’t dispute it either).
As others have said in the dating thread, she has apparently married good looking men before and it hasn’t turned out well, so she is trading down this time. (thanks guys)
Hey, it works for me!
If you’ve dated since then, did you go for more conventionally attractive guys? Or dance with the one who brought you, as it were?
**Have you ever been in a relationship with a person much better/worse looking than you?
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Even as I type. SWMBO is by far the better looking one in our pair.