I’m not at all surprised that at least one Doper disagrees with me. I thought it would be far more. I am a little disappointed in who it is, though.
But good for her. She deserves to have high standards. It just doesn’t do me much good to assume that I don’t meet those standards. I’d be cutting myself off at the knees (or slightly higher!) if I did.
A lot of people, men and women, often sell themselves short. I totally used to do that, and I missed an awful lot of opportunities. In the past year, I threw out that line of thinking, and I met quite a few women that I consider truly beautiful.
And really, unless you are genuinely deformed, there are a lot of ways you can make yourself attractive to most people. I bet that if that guy **DianaG ** mentioned were younger, didn’t approach her in an off-putting way, had a nice haircut, and was wearing a nice suit, he would have been a lot more attractive to her. All of these things (except for age, which just limits you to people of similar age) can be changed. The catch is that most people’s “types” are based on *how *exactly you go about making yourself attractive. (Plus personality too of course, but your personality arguably *should *be reflected in the way you dress.)
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
ETA: Also, Pazu, it’s a lot better to link to a post by clicking on the little number at the top right of it and copying the URL from there.
I don’t understand the ‘too perfect’ category that some people have. It seems to be assuming that if someone is so mindblowingly beautiful, then they can’t possibly be worthwhile partners (for whatever reason).
I can’t use a scale, because there are several physical features that I rate higher than others, but even so, if someone who I considered ‘perfect’ came up to me and seemed nice and clever, etc, there’s no WAY I’d turn her away.
I don’t know, there’s just something off-putting about it. Like, perfectly toned, muscular bodies - I can kind of appreciate them aesthetically, but they don’t get my motor running, as it were. Plus, with a very exceptions, perfect beauty requires a lot of upkeep and maintenance, which suggests vanity, and I find vanity to be one of the most unappealing characteristics in a man. If you spend more time beautifying yourself than I do (and I don’t spend much time), I don’t want to know!
Different scales for different purposes. If I’m just doing an aesthetic judgement there’s more gradation and nuance. For dating, there’s basically just two categories - not attractive enough for me to consider dating, and attractive enough (to me) to consider dating. Although there might be a third category of actually too attractive for me to feel comfortable enough pursuing.
I really like the way you think about this. Instead of some subjective scale of 1 to 10 (or whatever) you seem to break it down to a binary choice* that once selected is then further broken down to subsequent, new binary choices as you gather more information about the dude (or chick).
It seems rather like starting with a simple “yin/yang” type dichotomy then refining further using fractals or Fibonacci’s Number or… something (dammit Jim! I’m a TV/film guy–not a mathematician!)
Anyway… it’s neat, tidy and maybe a little wonderful. I think (or hope) it’s the way I consider various women; refining the parameters as I get to know them better.
*& Yo! a quick shout-out to Aestivalis for thinking along these lines too. It’s… it’s … it’s… DIGITAL, man!
You have got a point there I Love Me, Vol.1, because ultimately it doesn’t matter HOW attractive someone is, if you’re up for it you’re up for it. For the record I don’t tend to discuss my ratings of others with people I know, it’s always in my head. But if I am discussing whether someone is attractive the answer is either “he’s attractive” generally without qualifier or “no thanks”.
I’ve actually started writing an essay on this subject, entitled “Yes, No, Maybe,” which is the game I play on the subway when I find I’ve forgotten to pack reading material (or my laptop battery has died), consisting of looking over every woman I can see between age 18 and age 70 on the subway car and instantly making the call. The essay concerns my mild surprise at finding how easy it is to make each call instantly (my rules demand that I make a call within 2 seconds of looking each one over) and how rarely I have to invoke a “Maybe.” Next-most-surprising is how often I say “No.”
