Of course not—most importantly, I cannot deal with obese, big curves are fine, folds not. However I can deal with almost everything else—no heels, hair, no make-up, so being “plain” is totally OK for me. On the whole “plain” women make good partners, because they tend to take things easy and comfortable, not stressing.
The thing is, from the profile text and messages exchanged, I heavily filtered for intelligence / compatible personalities, and those who passed it about 30% had acceptable looks.
My point is here that I don’t understand why people think looks are some kind of a birth lottery thing. They are 90% made—weight, clothes, hair and all, they are a series of decisions where intelligence and personality plays an important role, and people who are compatible on that department have a decent chance of being compatible in looks.
I mean, look at me. OK I have a belly. I am also fairly strong, I was always better at exercising than not overeating. I dress a bit professorish, comfortable but kinda elegant, suit jacket with simpler pants and never a tie etc. My hair is short but cut only about once a month. What kind of a personality does it suggest? Intellectual interests with somewhat contradictory masculine values, and some akrasia. And that is perfectly correct. So if any woman likes my personality type, “the hobby philosopher who likes to box and is not very well organized” type, she can pretty much predict my looks from it and will accept those too. And more or less it works the same way for women. For example I am pretty sure any woman whose personality I like will not sport short blue hair.
(However a potential bias here: maybe one reason I don’t see looks as birth lottery is that I am tall and have a deep voice, so everything that is not so attractive about me is my own damn fault. I guess a short man with a chirping voice would have an entirely different view about looks being made, not born.)
Of course looks is to a certain extent a birth lottery: as much as I would try, I could not change my height, the depth of my voice, the symmetry of my face, the color of my skin, my genetic potential for muscle developement, etc.
Part is also upbringing: if I’ve lived my whole life in a family where everyone is obese, I would find a lot harder to shape my body thinner, and it will probably take years to accomplish. So even if some things are mutable, they could change in a timeframe so long that for dating it’s normally useless.
Part of what you can change, also, is stacked against fat/ugly men and women: a fit men will probably be good enough with almost any dress, while a fat/short guy will have to make a very careful selection of dresses, limited also by the available budget. And I suspect that for women it’s even worse, at least psychologically.
So no, as someone who has not won the genetic/upbringing lottery in almost any sense, I would revise the percentage of what you can consciously and significantly improve in your looks at 15%.
those who passed it about 30% had acceptable looks
This is a very promising percentage. Did you selected them before meeting them in person, say asking for a photo, or you met them and judged after?
Of course not—most importantly, I cannot deal with obese, big curves are fine, folds not. However I can deal with almost everything else—no heels, hair, no make-up, so being “plain” is totally OK for me. On the whole “plain” women make good partners, because they tend to take things easy and comfortable, not stressing.
The thing is, from the profile text and messages exchanged, I heavily filtered for intelligence / compatible personalities, and those who passed it about 30% had acceptable looks.
My point is here that I don’t understand why people think looks are some kind of a birth lottery thing. They are 90% made—weight, clothes, hair and all, they are a series of decisions where intelligence and personality plays an important role, and people who are compatible on that department have a decent chance of being compatible in looks.
I mean, look at me. OK I have a belly. I am also fairly strong, I was always better at exercising than not overeating. I dress a bit professorish, comfortable but kinda elegant, suit jacket with simpler pants and never a tie etc. My hair is short but cut only about once a month. What kind of a personality does it suggest? Intellectual interests with somewhat contradictory masculine values, and some akrasia. And that is perfectly correct. So if any woman likes my personality type, “the hobby philosopher who likes to box and is not very well organized” type, she can pretty much predict my looks from it and will accept those too. And more or less it works the same way for women. For example I am pretty sure any woman whose personality I like will not sport short blue hair.
(However a potential bias here: maybe one reason I don’t see looks as birth lottery is that I am tall and have a deep voice, so everything that is not so attractive about me is my own damn fault. I guess a short man with a chirping voice would have an entirely different view about looks being made, not born.)
Of course looks is to a certain extent a birth lottery: as much as I would try, I could not change my height, the depth of my voice, the symmetry of my face, the color of my skin, my genetic potential for muscle developement, etc.
Part is also upbringing: if I’ve lived my whole life in a family where everyone is obese, I would find a lot harder to shape my body thinner, and it will probably take years to accomplish. So even if some things are mutable, they could change in a timeframe so long that for dating it’s normally useless.
Part of what you can change, also, is stacked against fat/ugly men and women: a fit men will probably be good enough with almost any dress, while a fat/short guy will have to make a very careful selection of dresses, limited also by the available budget.
And I suspect that for women it’s even worse, at least psychologically.
So no, as someone who has not won the genetic/upbringing lottery in almost any sense, I would revise the percentage of what you can consciously and significantly improve in your looks at 15%.
This is a very promising percentage. Did you selected them before meeting them in person, say asking for a photo, or you met them and judged after?