The bell curve of attraction

[solacean]

I viewed a pair of very informative programs about the physiology behind romantic attraction last night. They went through a variety of biological attributes which are independently and consistently favorable or unfavorable to attraction, and frankly it was a wider variety than I'd previously considered. As I watched, I found myself hoping to see that there would be some attribute in which a guy like me could be seen by women as having something to offer, but it was quite disheartening to find that in each and every attribute that was discussed, including the ones that I'd never even thought about, my own characteristics fall right at the objectively undesirable end of the scale. Furthermore, it was apparent that even relatively unattractive people who established relationships were still doing so based upon one or more possibly obscure attributes of attraction that produced a biological response, and that when there are no such attributes, attraction is simply not physiologically possible.

 

This lends scientific support to three things I'd already come to suspect based upon my own experiences:

 

1) Attraction is not subjective - it is physiological, quantifiable and predictable, even in its most obscure aspects.

 

2) With such a variety of attributes that can contribute to attraction, the great majority of people will have something to offer in at least one or more ways, even those that fall short in the obvious areas. So most people should certainly keep on trying and hoping to eventually meet that person for whom their hidden good attributes will prove to be a match.

 

3) A very small minority of people (like myself) will still have drawn the short stick in every attribute of attraction, although the majority will seldom acknowledge the possibility of such a situation because it is so rare and foreign to them they are unable to comprehend that it can and does happen. Members of this small minority eventually need to accept that romantic relationships are not an option for them and find other things to give their lives meaning and import, because otherwise they will end up not having played any role whatsoever in this world - they will have been non-people.

 

In short, you don't have to be anywhere close to perfect to have something to offer in the area of attraction, and fortunately the vast majority of people fall into this category. But there are also going to be a few people who will need to eventually accept that they have nothing to offer or gain in this area, and the old platitude "there is someone for everyone" is simply untrue. (A metaphor for this might be "even a lowly 1 can become 1,000,000 if multiplied by 1,000,000, but 0 multiplied by ANY other number is always equal to 0.")

[mr me]

Well i guess where to start, i think your taking this too serious. I think you take a scientific approach to life and that can be very helpful at times but numbers and stats cant tell you everything. I also would like you to see how helpful or positive you can seem to for others but how negative you seem to be about yourself. I dont think anyone would be born or created in this world if there wasnt a chance to continue with the race because you would have no purpose. I would say for one you seem really smart and thats a good quality to have eventho you seem to see that you have no good qualities based on this study. I guess maybe that makes you feel better to stay in that comfort zone but in the end what does it really do for you. I would also look at anomalies and how things dont always go according to plan. I think usually what causes anyone to have difficulty when it comes to relationships is more the mental part or emotional issues. You are basically looking at this study and basing your life on it. You kinda remind me of this type of person that is always going by what the world thinks to be true which is really just your perception of the world. Also a person that is holding themselves back based on what they think to themselves or what they should be doing. I think sometimes you just need to live life and see where it takes you and just guide it in hopefully the right direction.

[SpeedingCars]

I still think there's someone for everyone. There are so many elements that come together when you meet somebody. It's about timing, being in the right place at the right time, etc.

 

So if one attractive person is in the RIGHT place at the RIGHT time with someone deemed as unattractive, who knows... something could happen. It has to do with being "in the moment" and everything else.

[solacean]

Well i guess where to start, i think your taking this too serious. I think you take a scientific approach to life and that can be very helpful at times but numbers and stats cant tell you everything. I also would like you to see how helpful or positive you can seem to for others but how negative you seem to be about yourself.

 

I believe my original post is actually positive for most people, as I did say that there are quite a few non-obvious traits that can make one attractive. So a lot of the people who think of themselves as unattractive based just on looking in the mirror will have unseen physical attributes that can still make them attractive to the right person.

 

It's just that for me, every one of those unseen traits that was covered last night also just happened to be an area where I fall short. Most people won't have that kind of bad luck, but obviously a few people will, just through random chance.

 

I dont think anyone would be born or created in this world if there wasnt a chance to continue with the race because you would have no purpose.

 

This is related to was what I was getting at with the "non-person" comments, except that I disagree with you that not being someone who has a chance to produce offspring must make you a non-person. If you are one of those few people and you continue to put all of your eggs in reproduction as the contribution you can make to the race, then you could end up having no purpose, but there are other ways to make a contribution rather than just reproduction. I assume that if a man had no chance to reproduce but managed to cure some horrible disease in his lifetime, you'd agree that he had a purpose and made a contribution even though reproducing his own genes in the next generation wasn't a part of it?

 

I would say for one you seem really smart and thats a good quality to have eventho you seem to see that you have no good qualities based on this study.

 

Thank you, but being smart isn't attractive, not on the physiological level where it really matters. Someone may appreciate intelligence in concept, but it doesn't contribute in the slightest degree to attraction ... there's no physiological reaction associated with it. Now, if being intelligent happens to lead to wealth, THAT is definitely and dramatically attractive according to the studies in question - and the attractive quality of wealth, by the way, is one of the results that I did not expect and have not believed in until now. But it takes more than intelligence to achieve wealth, and I'm very unlikely to get there anymore, not at my age and with my health problems.

 

I would also look at anomalies and how things dont always go according to plan.

 

Good one - that's a point I can accept as plausible. However, I believe it would be foolhardy to base my expectations or hopes upon the idea that an anomaly might happen to work in my favor, any more than I would try to walk through a wall in the hopes that quantum mechanics will happen to allow me to pass through unhindered. If such an anomaly happens, then great, but the odds are by definition very much against such events. And even if such an anomaly did cause someone to find me attractive in some way, what are the odds that the anomalous behavior would be permanent? I.e., she meets me and for some anomalous reason believes me to be attractive in that moment (i.e., perhaps I'm wearing some other guy's shirt and she smells his more attractive scent on me), but then her friends tell her that she's crazy, or perhaps she simply comes to her senses after I change clothes.

 

You are basically looking at this study and basing your life on it. You kinda remind me of this type of person that is always going by what the world thinks to be true which is really just your perception of the world.

 

You can trust me that I'm not basing my life off of any study. This has been the path I've been forced onto for many years now, based solely on my own history and experiences, and without really understanding why it happened. What I've just now learned from the studies in question simply goes a long way toward explaining things I've already spent a lifetime experiencing. I'd remain on the same track regardless of whether I'd ever learned about any of these studies - I just would have remained more confused about why my life is as it is.

 

Thanks for responding, and for attempting to look at this topic in the objective and unemotional fashion in which I endeavored to present it.

[Bartok]

I'd love to see this list of attributes.

[solacean]

I'd love to see this list of attributes.

 

I'm sure I've already forgotten some of them, but aside from the obvious ones (masculine facial structure, height, etc.) I remember that deep vocal timbre is one, another is wealth and/or social status (which many might consider predictable, but I wasn't expecting it to be proven so decisively in a study) and another is that a man's ability to resist various diseases is detected by women as components of a male's scent. The latter one was particularly interesting as they determined that women use scent subconsciously to select men whose resistances complement their own rather than duplicating them (thereby producing stronger offspring), and that this also historically acted as a deterrent to incest (which of course has its own negative impact on reproduction) because it means women naturally avoid scents that match those in their own family.

 

I wish I could remember more of them ... it was rather interesting.

 

EDIT: I just remembered another one: male aggression. Not confidence, but literally aggression, the inclination to push around other males and assert dominance.

[ok08]

Did you watch 'Science of Sex Appeal' and 'Anatomy of Sex' on the Discovery Channel? I saw those shows too. They were interesting.

[solacean]

Did you watch 'Science of Sex Appeal' and 'Anatomy of Sex' on the Discovery Channel? I saw those shows too. They were interesting.

 

You've got it.

[somethngwrng]

I still think there's someone for everyone.

I do have to disagree with this. I'll make my point through an analogy.

 

In the animal kingdom, only those males at the top of the pecking order will have sex with the females, impregnating them. Some animals even go as far as to mutilate lower status male's genitals - not that it has anything to do with the analogy.

 

So how does this apply to the human species - surely it doesn't? We're not feral afterall... Well, actually, it does. The males who get to have sex... get to have sex with a lot of different women. The males who don't, nearly never get to have sex. If they do, usually it's by a fluke or because they lowered their standards so they could get laid.

 

Even an average woman is desirable to a man. But the average man is not desirable to women. Like wealth, the top 1% of males get to have 90% of the world's sex*.

 

*By no means accurate. It was in fact, an attempt at humour.

[Clarity]

Having sex with as many women as possible and being successful in a romantic relationship are two very different things.

[somethngwrng]

Having sex with as many women as possible and being successful in a romantic relationship are two very different things.

Not the point. Those who are never having sex are also never in a relationship. They are not attractive, thus, not having sex.