Tuesday 20 July 2021

Male physical attractiveness brings about fewer options for relationships with women

 

“Heads I win, tails I only lose a little.”

  

Zachariah gives his life cycle of events with regards to his physical aesthetics on the back of this previous post, and asks for my input on how it can be manifested into some kind of reasoning:

Hi Vinay,

I love your writing. It's helped me more than you could know. 

I’ll ask this here because this article is the most relevant to my question. I know I shouldn’t seek validation from these interactions, but for a time I needed it to rebuild my self-esteem. Analysis does not have to preclude action. 

Anyway, does female attention decrease proportionally past a certain point of attractiveness? Phrased in another way, does female fake body language predominate over direct interest at some point?

 My experience has been this...

- I lost about 40 lbs to get to the average American BMI. Kinda
chubby, but not terrible. This is where I had the most direct
interest from women. Open flirting and whatnot because I
think from a numbers standpoint there are more women in that
range, of course.

- I got quite lean (not six-pack level), but I was lacking
muscle for my height at 6’2”. This is where I’d get deer-in-
the-headlight looks from cute women (like ~7+ range), and the
few conventionally attractive women would act coy with me and
give me approach invitations. Most other women started to
ignore me. This is also the point where I received the most
blushing from girls, giggling, blatant eye-fucking, gaping at
me, etc. 

- Now I’ve moved along the spectrum in leanness and
muscularity. I have a defined six-pack and I’ve added nearly
30 lbs of muscle to my frame.  I know that for sure as I’m
leaner than when I started, and it’s improved my face even
more. Several months ago I noticed women almost never looked
at me directly anymore. They would sneak glances a lot if I
was looking for it, but it was much harder to catch. The vast
majority of the time it feels like deliberate avoidance. I
also noticed something new happened. If a girl looked at my
face and looked surprised, she would rapidly turn her entire
body around to face away from me. It is an unusual body
language cue I started to see constantly. 

I'll give an example of a day from last week. I went to the doctors and there was a young girl there as an assistant. She helped me set up and I did have to take most of my clothes off. But we were just joking around and she was laughing a lot. Literally didn't glance my way once for 30 mins. She'd talk to the wall for the duration of the appointment. I'm not the type to stare and make others uncomfortable either. I have no expectations, but it's just odd to not look even once during conversation. Later that night I went out with a group of friends to several bars. It's like I was invisible there again too, which as I stated before is strange because I used to have women point me out or generally freak out in an obvious way when seeing me. That all happened when I was a bit fatter and I was far less muscular. 

I doubted my facial attractiveness because of my own dysmorphia, but it’s obvious that’s a large contributor to my attractiveness. Especially when I look back as a kid, but childhood trauma has an interesting way of destroying every shred of self-worth you have. I don't want to rely on this superficial attention from strangers, so I'm forcing myself to think outside of that and trust what makes sense. Regardless, I'm curious about your opinion.  


My response:

What you offer as information (and I have read it twice) is nothing that comes as a surprise.  Essentially you have experienced the lineal predictable response from women as you have become more physically attractive.  That is:

The hotter a man becomes = The more awkward the body language in the woman towards you

Your chronological experience was well explained by yourself, but to piggyback on that:

1) When you lost 40lbs and became average BMI, you in unwritten definition became average to a bit above average in terms of male physical attractiveness.  This as a by-product transformed you from being near on invisible to women, to attractive enough but still below most women in relative gender terms.  My guess is this was the time when a lot of below average, plain Janes and mildly cute women took an interest in you.  Fundamentally, you attracted women without placing their noses out of joint in any way.

2) Once you leaned out a bit but not to a ripped level, in conjunction with your ideal 6ft 2" height, you entered the above average level of male physical attractiveness (7/10 to 7.75/10). This would explain why the cute women and occasional hot women started noticing you with bed eyes. That said, I'm surprised in your explanation that it was only passive interest on their part.  I find that most above average looking men are always alongside cute to lower end hot women.  Maybe you weren't proactive enough to capitalize on this luxury?  In any case, women found you attractive but not unattainable or a god like vision.

3) Which nicely brings me onto the final stage.  Once you added 30lbs of muscle (which would also have sharpened your facial features up) to your already ideal height, you had the good luck/bad luck conundrum of reaching your physical attractiveness pinnacle but in turn becoming unattainable and a perception to women as poor/unsuitable partner material.  This fully explains the circumstance of their avoidance by and large.

What do I advise?

You now need to know that women construe you as the out of reach male specimen as alluded to.  On the basis you will not (and nor should you) go back to your less physically defined days, you need to approach women with self-assurance but not too much swagger.  You should show an interest in them.  Don't talk too much about yourself.  Ask her out in the first conversation, but don't waste time on her if she is just a time-wasting tease or attention-seeker.

The facts of the matter are that, even if you miraculously approached ten women who were all single, eight or nine will reject you on the basis of them preferring to be with a lesser looking male partner.  You need to accept this unfortunate actuality of life, and turn it into a back-handed compliment.

Other advice would be to look a bit more facially edgy (if you aren't already).  Maybe grow a full stubble or groomed beard which will, to a point, take away some of the pretty boy stigma.  Also, work on your nonphysical attractiveness offerings within feasibility.

Hope this helps, and all the best.

Vi.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks so much, Vi nay! 

    You elucidated a lot of what I suspected. You know it's downright impressive women's ability to blank you. I suppose since men tend to fixate their gaze, it's a remarkable feat to me that they can do it so easily. I don't need more attention but there are scenarios where it comes off as rude. 

    Despite all of that, there are hints. Usually looks/glances from much further away. If it's a large room like the gym then they'll only stare when they're on the complete opposite end now. As for point number 2….you're 100% correct. I was not proactive at that time in response to their signals. I haven't really for some time because of stuff I've been dealing with personally (health & family). Yet I'm an analytical person, so I was curious if my understanding of this made sense. I appreciate you following up with me and I'll always be a faithful reader :) 

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    Replies
    1. Absolute pleasure Zachariah, and glad it has maybe placed a few more pieces to the jigsaw. If you have any other queries or questions in your mind regarding the habits of our good lady friends, then feel free to ask.
      Cheers, and good luck.

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