Women need to stop overstating the importance of a guy's personality.

[MomsSpaghetti]

Women on this site try to make it seem like personality trumps all. They usually support their statement by saying, "I was went out with a guy who wasn't good-looking at all, but I was drawn to his magnetic personality." (Nevermind the fact that the other 5 guys they've dated were each good-looking.) Women here are giving guys false hope. What happens is that guys think, "Oh, this is great news. I'm gonna work on my social skills, my humor, my confidence. Can't wait to see how much better I do with women." And then they'll come back here more jaded after seeing that their new-and-improved personality isn't helping them get women, that the women are continuing to go after good-looking (or rich) guys who are not personable at all. I'm sorry, but personality is overrated. Most guys who notice they got a lot of attention with women after becoming more confident and social are guys who were good-looking to begin with and just needed to get over their shyness. It is, quite frankly, insulting to tell a guy who's bad with women that he needs to improve his personality, especially since a lot of guys have great personalities that get them very far in life outside the dating world

[PlumPrincess]

There is this guy at work (I'm not even sure if I can say "guy" anymore, since he is married and probably a respectable family dad), quite average looking, I didn't really think in the beginning that he was attractive at all. We do not have to work together closely, just sometimes we have to exchange information, but on these few occasions I noticed that he has a quite nice, pleasant demeanor and a gentle voice. I find these things to be very attractive about him. If he was younger and single, I might be interested in him.

[KathyM]

There are plenty of men out there who are average or below average looking that have girlfriends or wives. How do you think these men got a girlfriend? Thinking that you have to be great looking in order to get a girlfriend is deluded. I know plenty of men IRL who are just average looking, or not even that, who have either a girlfriend or wife. Some even have girlfriends or wives much better looking than themselves because the guy has a very likeable personality.

[Anela]

Women, as a whole, do not need to do anything that you espouse, thank you very much.

[MomsSpaghetti]

There is this guy at work (I'm not even sure if I can say "guy" anymore, since he is married and probably a respectable family dad), quite average looking, I didn't really think in the beginning that he was attractive at all. We do not have to work together closely, just sometimes we have to exchange information, but on these few occasions I noticed that he has a quite nice, pleasant demeanor and a gentle voice. I find these things to be very attractive about him. If he was younger and single, I might be interested in him. [Emphasis added]

 

You say he was "quite average looking", but women consider average-looking to be the 80th percentile of looks. So I'm guessing he was at least decent in the looks department.

[jphcbpa]

women in general are less sallow then men when it comes to looks. there are plenty of guys that are way "over chicked" in terms of looks.

[ThaWholigan]

You guys need to stop overstating how difficult dating is and pointing the finger at women over it. Face it, everyones part of the problem.

[PlumPrincess]

You say he was "quite average looking", but women consider average-looking to be the 80th percentile of looks. So I'm guessing he was at least decent in the looks department.

No, he was average.

[MomsSpaghetti]

No, he was average.

 

Ok. I was just alluding to the study where women considered 80% of men to be below average in looks.

[PJKino]

That is true if youre unattractive to women at best all a good personality will do is get you in the friendzone

[PlumPrincess]

Which means he's actually more attractive than 80% of the guys

 

Your Looks and Your Inbox « OkTrends

I would say 50 %. But it doesn't really matter. On the website, they say:

 

When it comes down to actually choosing targets, men choose the modelesque. Someone like roomtodance

2/3 of male messages go to the top 1/3 of women.

above gets nearly 5 times as many messages as a typical woman and 28 times as many messages as a woman at the low end of our curve. Site-wide, two-thirds of male messages go to the best-looking third of women. So basically, guys are fighting each other 2-for-1 for the absolute best-rated females, while plenty of potentially charming, even cute, girls go unwritten.

 

The medical term for this is male pattern madness.

 

As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh. On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable.

And I think the bolded is what matters in the end.

[PJKino]

How are 80% of men below average looking that doesnt even make any sense:laugh:

 

Which means most women arent actually attracted in a lustful way to their husbands unless hes extremely good looking, they just get married because of pressure to have a family

[MomsSpaghetti]

Which means most women arent actually attracted in a lustful way to their husbands unless hes extremely good looking, they just get married because of pressure to have a family

 

Is the first time you've figured this out?

[Southern Cal Dude]

Personality always takes a back seat to physical appearance. I've been obnoxious at times and people would still think I'm funny. They would call me blunt, honest, and straight forward. People wouldn't look at me and think I'm an a**hole. Anyone else would have been alienated.

 

And IMO, just about everyone settles when it comes to a long term mate. Men don't get the beauty queen they want and women don't get the high status male that's desired by other women.

[PlumPrincess]

Personality always takes a back seat to physical appearance. I've been obnoxious at times and people would still think I'm funny. They would call me blunt, honest, and straight forward. People wouldn't look at me and think I'm an a**hole. Anyone else would have been alienated.

 

And IMO, just about everyone settles when it comes to a long term mate. Men don't get the beauty queen they want and women don't get the high status male that's desired by other women.

I rather think most people secretly think, "What an idiot... What the hell did Mother Nature think to give him such good looks and so little brain?!"

[HoneyBadgerDontCare]

Women on this site try to make it seem like personality trumps all. They usually support their statement by saying, "I was went out with a guy who wasn't good-looking at all, but I was drawn to his magnetic personality." (Nevermind the fact that the other 5 guys they've dated were each good-looking.) Women here are giving guys false hope. What happens is that guys think, "Oh, this is great news. I'm gonna work on my social skills, my humor, my confidence. Can't wait to see how much better I do with women." And then they'll come back here more jaded after seeing that their new-and-improved personality isn't helping them get women, that the women are continuing to go after good-looking (or rich) guys who are not personable at all. I'm sorry, but personality is overrated. Most guys who notice they got a lot of attention with women after becoming more confident and social are guys who were good-looking to begin with and just needed to get over their shyness. It is, quite frankly, insulting to tell a guy who's bad with women that he needs to improve his personality, especially since a lot of guys have great personalities that get them very far in life outside the dating world

 

I actually agree with this. It has certainly been true in my experience.

 

Looks are very important. If you don't have them, you will get few women and will have to almost perfect in every other way to get and keep the few that you do.

 

You will never be in the top 20% of guys.

[Carenth]

If we go by OP's logic then I'm in the top 20% and by god help us if that is the case.

 

I'm not ugly but I'm no bloody model either. I consider myself quite average and I've had very little trouble getting dates or relationships.

 

However I have been on the other side of the coin. I was skinny as a kid then pubity kicked me in the ass and my metabolism slowed right down. So I was your typical fat nerdy guy in highscool, depressed etc whatever. I was sad that I was missing out on what others were experiencing so I really do empathise with the guys on here. However I know from personal experience that they are also their own worst enemies. You have a serious negative outlook on life the people around you will pick up on that. It's not attractive at all.

 

One day I decided I had enough of moping around having the pity party for one, wishing my life would change. I made a plan to change myself for myself. I lost a ton of weight which I have kept off successfully for the last 6 years and by god I'm never letting myself slip again. I got myself an education and have a stable job doing better than most people I know who are my age but I'm by no means rich.

 

I find that empathy, mutual respect go a long way. That doesn't mean you have to bend over like a wet noodle to please women. Having jaded views of the opposite sex is counter productive and achieves little other than sabotaging your chances.

[ScreamingTrees]

Your Looks and Your Inbox « OkTrends

 

Y'know, after reading this, the only thing I'd really taken away from it is that, according to some ****ty OkCupid blog article writer, that women overrate their attractiveness and underrate men's attractiveness. That men are considered to shoot for the stars, while women's curve also tends to lean heavily towards the cream of the crop, but it curves noticeably where one can assume that many go for men they don't particularly find to be attractive, according to the other curve.

 

I just gathered that men seem to be thought to be going for the cream of the crop, while women seem to think that they're all beautiful models who are more "realistic" in settling for the 80% of relatively unattractive/"average"/"meh" dudes? Or at least that's the point of view of whoever typed out that ****ty OKCupid blog article, going by the graphs and statistics they'd included.

 

I don't think my attraction is towards models. I don't really care if it is, if they're also attracted to me. If they're "settling", I also don't care, they're only hurting themselves in looking down on me as a "lesser" while at the same time choosing to be with me. Makes no sense, but I guess much of this life is a mystery.

[tbf]

that women overrate their attractiveness and underrate men's attractiveness.

Or maybe, it's that a woman's concept of attractiveness differs from what males consider attractive.

[fortyninethousand322]

The reality is if you're single, there's a reason. It's usually biological. Meaning, your genes are just not meant to reproduce.

 

Faulty genes do not always manifest themselves in good looks or great sociable character. Unseen, yet undesirable traits can subconsciously turn women off.

 

It's just evolution weeding out the bad seeds...

[HoneyBadgerDontCare]

If we go by OP's logic then I'm in the top 20% and by god help us if that is the case.

 

I'm not ugly but I'm no bloody model either. I consider myself quite average and I've had very little trouble getting dates or relationships.

 

However I have been on the other side of the coin. I was skinny as a kid then pubity kicked me in the ass and my metabolism slowed right down. So I was your typical fat nerdy guy in highscool, depressed etc whatever. I was sad that I was missing out on what others were experiencing so I really do empathise with the guys on here. However I know from personal experience that they are also their own worst enemies. You have a serious negative outlook on life the people around you will pick up on that. It's not attractive at all.

 

One day I decided I had enough of moping around having the pity party for one, wishing my life would change. I made a plan to change myself for myself. I lost a ton of weight which I have kept off successfully for the last 6 years and by god I'm never letting myself slip again. I got myself an education and have a stable job doing better than most people I know who are my age but I'm by no means rich.

 

I find that empathy, mutual respect go a long way. That doesn't mean you have to bend over like a wet noodle to please women. Having jaded views of the opposite sex is counter productive and achieves little other than sabotaging your chances.

 

Have you ever considered that you actually might be?

 

This is not something that is heavily studied by the academic world (I believe there are certain reasons for this that go beyond the scope of this thread). There have been some people that have done unofficial research into this and have found it mostly true (Dr. Helen Smith, for example, found it to be 75/25, which is pretty damn close).

 

Anyway, I also doubted this possibility, based on my own experiences. After seriously thinking about it and analyzing my experiences versus the experiences of those around me, I have found that I am, in fact, in the top 20%. You may be too.

 

For us, it just takes an attitude adjustment and we have many options. For most guys though, it is not this simple at all.

[ScreamingTrees]

Or maybe, it's that a woman's concept of attractiveness differs from what males consider attractive.

 

Perhaps. But the graph was based off of the specific question of men's physical appearance, I'm assuming? That's the whole purpose of the article. Regardless, the women deemed the majority of men below average physically.

 

Perhaps the women in general don't care as much about what the person they'll have sex with, share their lives with and generally have to associate with actually looks like? I don't know how else we can spin some of the info.. Although I don't totally buy it, it's just a single data set, it does provide a bit of insight, it's probably not that dissimilar from any other dating site I guess.

 

Bottom line, a differing concept of "attractiveness" has nothing to do with women being asked to rate the average male's physical attractiveness.. And then having to read this, straight from the horses' mouth:

 

"As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh. On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable. But with the basic ratings so out-of-whack, the two curves together suggest some strange possibilities for the female thought process, the most salient of which is that the average-looking woman has convinced herself that the vast majority of males aren’t good enough for her, but she then goes right out and messages them anyway.

Just to illustrate that women are operating on a very different scale, here are just a few of the many, many guys we here in the office think are totally decent-looking, but that women have rated, in their occult way, as significantly less attractive than so-called “medium”:

 

I see plenty of guys who may be douchebags, or about as interesting and fun as watching paint peel, but they're still not physically unattractive. In a truly "objective" sense, that's independent of one's personality.

[PlumPrincess]

"Just to illustrate that women are operating on a very different scale, here are just a few of the many, many guys we here in the office think are totally decent-looking, but that women have rated, in their occult way, as significantly less attractive than so-called 'medium'"

I thought the first two guys were quite cute. And the others were also ok.

[Weezy1973]

OP - the thing to remember is that personality is only one factor when it comes to attraction. And there really isn't such thing as a "good" personality when it comes to attraction; it's more about a compatible personality. So basically women who emphasize personality are saying that they are most attracted to men that have a personality that is compatible to their own.

 

I personally think that makes a lot of sense, and I'm the exact same way (and I'm a guy)!

[ScreamingTrees]

I thought the first two guys were quite cute. And the others were also ok.

 

Well, for argument's sake, the study is saying that most women found those guys "as significantly less attractive than so-called “medium”"...

 

But if one was to check out that article again and scroll up and down and compare the dudes on the bottom of the page who are supposedly perceived by most of the OkCupid females online as significantly less attractive than the "so-called medium", the individual third person may look at the young male/female examples shown and decide that there is no real difference in the general level of physical attractiveness between the two groups.

 

Because there isn't.. There are people that look like all of those examples getting together and having ONS and relationships and whatever they may please.. I don't believe that the average woman finds the average male grossly unattractive or below average..

 

Maybe women just get big heads when they online date, as it favors females? Too many choices leading to hesitation and doubt? There we go, an all-too-common dating theme discussed regularly online from LS to the river Nile..