You and Your Boyfriend - Hot or Not?

The world is populated with shallow and not-so-shallow people of all degrees.  What I know for sure: it is harder to find happines if you have a narrow, limited appreciation of others.  So go out and find your happiness.  Nevermind the shallow guys.  You probably wouldn't be interested in them anyway.

www.floridagirlmidwest.blogspot.com ( http://www.floridagirlmidwest.blogspot.com/ )

I guess we're both right Bill. :) Attractive people undoubtedly have a major advantage in life, but at the same time it doesn't guarantee they'll get whatever they want in the end.

Yes.  In the grand scheme of things, attractive people start out with an advantage which is easily overcome by someone less attractive yet more persistent or diligent.  Also, the jerks are eventually found out and become disadvantaged to some degree against "nice" people or at least people who TRY to do the right thing by their SOs.

The fact remains that more-attractive guys are going to have more women throwing themselves at them.  They're also more likely to have their advances accepted, so they have more opportunity, more choice, more everything.  Can the homely guy catch up by trying harder and offering more fringe benefits in the relationship?  Sure. :)  He just has to work a lot harder to get the same things the attractive guy gets thrown at him when he's not even interested.

As far as your examples of people in seemingly visually-mis-matched dating situations, that's what I mean about fringe benefits outweighing overall looks.  However, you also have to consider who chose whom... Meaning did the attractive person choose the less-attractive person on purpose, or did the less-attractive person work hard to shine in the eyes of the more-attractive person, thus endearing themselves to them?

Anyway... None of these are rules. :)  I'm just saying that the way the dating game goes in most places that I'm aware of, women do the choosing, but men are the aggressors.  Being that men have to be the ones to step up front and ask her out, etc, the initial choices they make are going to be visually-based and then work their way down from there.  If that weren't the case, there would be audio-based dating sites where you couldn't see women at all, just listen to their voices and what they had to say about themselves and then you would select your date from there.  There would also be demand for audio-based erotica instead of magazines and DVDs where women say as close to NOTHING as possible.

So, the more attractive a guy is, the more he's going to excercise his opportunities to select from a more-attractive pool of women that welcome his advances.  It's kind of like how because I live in New York, I'm more likely to meet New York women that live here than California women that are on vacation.

~ Bill ( http://billcammack.com/ )
I blog at billcammack.com ( http://billcammack.com/ )

( http://billcammack.com )

You're right at least to some degree, Bill, even if that's not the way we think it should be. It's true that attractive people are statistically more likely to be successful at work and to get married and have a lot of friends and everything else. That doesn't mean that average-looking or unattractive people don't get those things, it's just that attractive people have an advantage.

But I still don't think all the same patterns are at play for everyone as far as dating goes. There's always exceptions to rules, and everyone needs something different in a mate.

An attractive man might initially date a lot of very attractive women, but not connect with any of them and for whatever reason fall in love with a woman considered to be unattractive. When people ultimately don't feel they are being fulfilled by superficial things they will break that pattern. Looking at some of my friends (I feel really bad to be judging all of their appearances right now...) I see a man with a woman who is less attractive but who takes care of him and has been with him through thick and thin, and a woman with a man who is less attractive, who isn't rich or providing her with other benefits but who is fun to be around and shares her interests and intellect. There was nothing superficial that brought me to my partner, and that's part of how I know I want to be with him for the rest of my life.

In the end, who really knows what brings people together and breaks people up?

I can agree with that, Abgirl.

What I would add is that without being a good judge of character, we can't know whether we're dealing with shallow people or not.  There are lots of shallow guys around who don't care AT ALL what a gal's bringing to the table other than how good she looks (to him) and what she's willing to do sexually.  There are lots of shallow women who will give that up in return for money, free food or riding in a fancy car.  Without being able to determine why someone is attracted to us, we can imagine all we like that they respect us for being Award-Winning video people,when it might be as simple as we turn them on and they like how they feel when they're around us.

The fact remains... Attractive People Get More Stuff.  Period.  More opportunities for jobs, sex, relationships, intimacy.. When was the last time you saw a Hollywood Movie cast with unattractive people in it, without that being a specific goal of the film to portray "ugly" people for some reason?  Soap Operas?  How come EEEEEEVERYBODY'S in shape on those shows? :D  How come EEEEVERYBODY'S cute?  How come EEEEEVERYBODY'S datable?  They'll have guys 58 years old running around still getting chicks like they're in college and looking fit and trim. Even television news anchors have to pass standards of looks... JUST to tell you what happened today.

As far as the general topic that Liz brings up:

Did you know that men date women better looking than them, but never a woman who is less attractive than them? Did you know that this is the natural order of the universe? No? Neither did I. I guess I missed the memo.

I'll try to explain my position in a different way.

This statement would only be verifiable if men judged mens looks and women's looks similarly.  There would have to be only one scale.  A man would have to say something like "I'm an 8 and she's a 6 on the exact same scale, so I'm going to be a snob and not date her, because she's not good-looking enough".  I could see that scale being used if the guy intended to have kids... like saying "I wouldn't have kids with her, because she's less attractive than I am and I want my kids to be good-looking".  I can't see that scale being used for dating, except by shallow guys that only date women as armpieces and so that other guys can sweat them for the good-looking women the've "bagged".

So that's not what I'm saying.  What I AM saying is that the more attractive a guy is, the more options he has.  The more women want to talk to him and the more women are going to accept his rap when he steps to them.  Having more women to choose from is going to make him more likely to choose a very attractive woman (not "more attractive than he is, because men and women aren't on the same scale") than an unattractive guy, who has fewer options and whom shallow women aren't interested in dating because of his looks.

So that's why I say that "Attractive men are likely to date women more attractive than they are and unattractive men are likely to date women less attractive than they are".  It's an issue of availability and privilege, like how rich people are more likely to buy a new car and poor people are more likely to buy used.

~ Bill ( http://billcammack.com/ )
I blog at billcammack.com ( http://billcammack.com/ )

( http://billcammack.com )

I think what we're really talking about here is the dating habits of shallow men versus shallow women, rather than simply men versus women. I think men in general are more visual in terms of attraction, so a shallow man will date or try to date exclusively women he finds visually appealing and therefore attractive.  Shallow women are more likely to be attracted to something cliche like money, power, popularity etc. Some say this is changing as women are becoming more financially and socially independent, but I think that our "wiring" is just different--I simply don't get sexually excited just by looking at an attractive person, whereas a man might. 

So just combine what shallow men are looking for with what shallow women are looking for, and you find attractive women with unattractive men who are rich/famous/etc.

The rest of us date people we like for any number of other reasons because we're not superficial.

Certainly, "universal truth" doesn't exist.  Some guys would prefer to date women that look like the people in these "Dance Your Ass Off" ads plastered all over BlogHer today. :D

I suppose my point is that if we're going to entertain the notion AT ALL that guys only want to date women that look better than they do (which obviously isn't the case, because some guys will date a way less attractive woman because she's better at sex, so there goes that concept out the window), that my explanation of the situation is that the more choice and opportunity a guy has, the more likely he's going to end up with a more attractive female, *IF* he decides to choose one at all.

There's no reason for him to choose, because the more attractive women are available to him on a regular basis.  However, if he does, he's choosing from a larger and more attractive dating pool than the unattractive guy next to him.. And to continue your point, unattractive could be mentally unattractive, having no class, disgustingly out of shape, not handsome, whatever... It's not just a "looks" issue.

As far as the title of your reply, "Attractiveness" is a combination of a lot of things, but the first thing a guy's going to do is SEE a woman and decide that he want to 'get to know her' or not.  Therefore, the better-looking women are going to have more opportunities to demonstrate their personalities than the less-visually-attractive women.

Attractive people will always be in more demand.  This is why they hold auditions for television shows and films.. to make sure they get people in their movies that people actually want to look at or will come to the box office to see.  Visual presentation is a very important part of an entertainer's career.  Similarly, more-visually-attractive people will catch the eye of more people in general, putting them in a better position to hook up with a similarly-attractive person.

Also if you look at erotica produced for males, it's visually-based.  Yes, there are "fetish" categories, but those are similar to the side-show at the carnival.  So, yes, I thnk that most men who have any say in the matter would choose to date a woman they'd rather look at than a woman they'd rather NOT look at.

~ Bill ( http://billcammack.com/ )
I blog at billcammack.com ( http://billcammack.com/ )

( http://billcammack.com )

At its most fundamental we're talking about what attracts a woman to a man and a man to a woman. For some, on both sides, it is looks. For others it is much more complex - and I don't think that's driven by gender.

I would never expect anyone to date someone they are not attracted to, but to assume that all men are only attracted to women who they judge physically more beautiful then themselves - Well, I think that's flawed both because it assumes a simplicity on the part of all men that I don't believe exists and because those sorts of assumptions are always based on inaccurate, narrow definitions of beauty while individuals are uniquely attracted to a variety of looks.

So while I believe, Bill, what you're saying about yourself and your circle of friends, I don't think you're speaking to a universal truth. And, of course, attraction also has to do with who you're looking for and why, as you've touched upon.

Liz Rizzo ( http://blogher.org/blog/liz-rizzo )

I blog at Everyday Goddess ( http://everydaygoddess.typepad.com/ ).

Bill, you seem to express the very view that I think Liz's post was arguing against.

I guess that it's a very universal view, that an "attractive" guy is accomplishing nothing (interesting that you look at women as "accomplishments") if he's in a relationship with a conventionally unattractive woman. He's somehow not living up to his full potential unless he gets the "better" girl.

Maybe this is even true, if your goal is casual sex. But when you're in a relationship, you have to spend a lot of time with this "better" girl. And maybe the "better" girl, this model-gorgeous every-straight-man-wants-her woman, can't hold a conversation. And all she wants to do is shop. And maybe even the sex gets boring, cause she doesn't need to worry about pleasing her partner, he should be counting his lucky starts that he's been able to "accomplish" her.

From what you've written, I assume that when faced with such a predicament, you (or at least the guy in your scenario) might start spending more time with ONE of your girls on the down-lo, the not-so-attractive one, but keep trotting out the model-type in public so that no one would think you're slumming? Seems to be the logical solution...

In any case, one ex-couple I always think about as an example of a non-clasically-attractive woman with a handsome guy is Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Dansen. So some men are attracted by the sheer "amazingness" of a woman, the whole package as opposed to looks alone.

And all of the above, btw, assumes that most people have mostly the same standards of beauty in terms of what gets them hot. Which I'm pretty sure is not the case, even if you exclude fetishes from the equation.

This post is already longer than I intended, someone's probably already written a book about this anyway, but it is a really interesting question - how do you decide who or how "high" to "settle" for in dating and the extent to which physical appearance influences men vs. women.

Part of the issue of "dating for looks" is that you can only do it if you look good yourself.  It's kind of like a sliding and simultaneously inverting scale... The less attractive a guy is, the more you expect him to date unattractive women.  He doesn't have a choice.

So, if you see a mediocre guy with a very unattractive gal, you're like "Well... at least he found a way to get some".  Then, if you saw an attractive guy with the same female, you'd say "Why is he slumming?  Can't he do better than THAT?".

Meanwhile, you expect the attractive guy to be surrounded by attractive women and if you saw the mediocre guy with one, you'd assume he had hypnotized her or used some kind of underhanded tactics to pull her.

As far as winning awards, yeah, there are some guys that aren't going to care WHAT you accomplish, because... they just don't care.  All that matters to them is how attractive they find you and whether they want to kick it to you or not.  You probably don't want to date those guys anyway, so that's no loss to you. :)

Overall, the point is that attractive guys don't have to settle and unattractive guys DO.  There's no reason an attractive guy should be 'stuck' with an unattractive girl.  She might be ONE of his girls, but not his actual girlfriend.  There's just no point to it.  It's like he's accomplished nothing at all and may as well be single, since he could probably pick up a 'better' girl TO-DAY, and without trying very hard.

~ Bill ( http://billcammack.com/ )
I blog at billcammack.com ( http://billcammack.com/ )

( http://billcammack.com )

Hello, DelRey. :)

Yes.. I am definitely expressing the view that Liz's post is arguing against... as far as it pertains to dating.  The first thing guys are interested in, in general, is that a woman turns them on.  Period.  I don't know anyone in life that has specifically sought out a woman that was unattractive to date... Except in the case of gigolos, because the less attractive she is, the easier she is to game for money and sex, but that's business and not actual dating.

For instance, there's a popular and, IMO, very attractive anchorwoman right now.  She came up in conversation one day when I was around several friends, and one of the guys was like "I used to date her when I was @ Harvard".  He was very gleeful about this, and the rest of us were relatively impressed.. even though a) he could have been lying, because he knew none of us were going to "blow up his spot" and actually ask her about him, and b) he hooked up with her BEFORE she became famous.  Still, he got credit for his "accomplishment", because, clearly, I remember him saying that to this very day, hahaha :D

Which brings me to your second point.  I'll definitely stipulate to the fact that as far as dating, I (and lots of other guys) view women as accomplishments.  Actually, I hadn't thought about it that way before.  Thank you.  You've inspired a blog post.  I'll be sure to link back to you! ;)

This is a good thing and a bad thing.  It's good because you stay 'hungry'.  You feel like "I wanna tap that", and that's a good feeling to have.. Aggressive, Progressive... Makes you feel like you're actually doing something with your time and life.  The bad part is that once you've done what you wanted to do, there's no more accomplishment in doing it AGAIN, and again and again and again.... So that hunger doesn't lead to actual relationships... Just lots of instances of Good Times! :D

I don't think it's a living up to full potential issue, though I see why you would see it that way from what I wrote.  Chris Rock said (basically) "A man is only going to be as faithful as his options".  Those of us with fewer options will be expected to "settle for less", whether that "less" comes in the format of her looks, intelligence, common sense, body, sexual ability & willingness, earning potential, sensuality, charm, grace, whatever.  Those of us with more options, it doesn't make any sense to select a "lesser" female when "better" females are throwing themselves at you on a daily basis.  It's better to be single and take your chances in the street than to be stuck with a gal that you're "meh :/" about.

I'll also stipulate to the fact that a woman's looks have nothing to do with how she is to actually spend time with.  This is what all those John Cusack / John Hughes movies are about, where the guy chases the vapid, attractive girl for 88 minutes and kisses his mechanic-homegirl at the very end of the movie while they play Air Supply and roll the credits.  My point, though, is that if an attractive guy finds out that the attractive girl he's dating isn't worth spending time with, he's going to chase the next ATTRACTIVE girl, not an unattractive one that he can have great conversations with.  That's known as a... Friend. :)

For the record, I can't stand that, personally, and I rarely hang out with women that I don't enjoy talking to for hours... RARELY.

Interesting comment about "maybe even the sex gets boring"... Maybe it gets boring to HER, but it won't get boring to HIM, so long as he's physically aroused by seeing and being around her and WANTS to have sex with her.  It all depends on how he approaches sex with her.  If he wants HER to be the doER, you're right... It could get lame.  If he's inspired to hook up with her for his own purposes, she's going to be sexy to him without doing or saying anything at all.  It would take too long for me to explain that statement, but suffice it to say that there are lots of guys that have sex with women while they're physically ASLEEP, which should give you an idea of how much her movement/talking during the process is 'valued'.

Yess'M (I'll assume you're female from your tiny avatar, haha).  You've actually pegged my M.O. exactly.  I hang out with lots of women in public ( http://billcammack.com/category/photos/ ), but the women I *REALLY* spend my time with never hit my Social Media streams.  As a matter of fact, I've gone so far as to pick arguments with some of them in public, to the point where nobody would have believed that I spent every waking hour I could with her in her dorm room until she'd kick me out @ 3am every night and I'd head home.  It's partially an issue of not wanting to be seen slumming, but at this point, it's also an issue of keeping my personal business "out the street", being that I'm so active in Social Media.  Excellent Call! ;)

Back in my non-transparent days, I would have had *MUCH* to say about someone dating Whoopi Goldberg, haha but in these days of Twitter ( http://twitter.com/BillCammack ) connectivity, I have zero comment. :D

No.  I'm not assuming that everyone has the same standards.  That's actually part of the problem.  There are guys that genuinely like the looks of women that some of us would be like eeeeeew!  Unfortunately, as has been brought up by Liz's post and your comments, there's a lot of peer pressure involved.  Guys feel pressure to be "successful" in dating, lest they be pelted with the rocks of "Damn... That's all you could get?".  That pressure wears off, down the line, when a guy no longer cares about what his peers think about his abilities, but until that happens, it's A LOT of pressure.  Believe me.

Yes, it's a very interesting question.  Ultimately, "settling", for lack of a better term, should come down to the characteristics of a person that really float your boat.  You shouldn't be actually settling, but the personality/physical/sensual traits that the person exhibits should be enough to make YOU feel like you want to spend as much time with this person as possible.

My contention is that that threshold is way higher for attractive men than unattractive men, because they have many more women to choose from and get opportunities with new women way more quickly and easily.

~ Bill ( http://billcammack.com/ )
I blog at billcammack.com ( http://billcammack.com/ )

( http://billcammack.com )

...but then again, I think "looks" are subjective and culturally prescribed anyway. That said, I always date beautiful men. I always have, and I do now, too. 

Now, my friends may not have thought they were, but I always did. And I fully expected the men I date to think I was beautiful, too, and make me feel like the front-runner in any overall beauty competition judged by them (depsite my being quite average). It's the sum of the collection of quirks and anomalies that's really attractive, and Hollywood's never really managed to tap into my taste.

"Love is blind," they say and I think my girlfriends would agree in my case. Not just love, but attraction and passion, too. I can recognize a sexy man across the room as being very good-looking, but that's not the appealing factor to me. I like confidence and intelligence and a way with words. That's what draws me. A right chemistry keeps me for the night. A passion for living keeps me for much longer.

That's not to say I'm not a catty bitch in my moments. But I'm much more likely to judge a brilliant individual for dating a space case than for dating someone less attractive than he or she is.