Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Why do we expect and encourage the unattractive to have relationships? Yes. Disabled and ugly people deserve a shot at happiness. But there's a hell of a lot of suffering and tragedy that goes on there, and it may well be imprudent to bring children into that. If you're a dude who is 5'4" the least-bad outcome you can reasonably expect is marrying a woman twice your weight and watching her wind up in a nursing home age 44 because she sprained her ankle and couldn't take care of herself after that. And it only gets worse from there: I've known short guys who were with women that were child abusers. Serious shit - as in 'attempted murder' serious. It's no better for unattractive women: there's rapists and abusers and shitbags aplenty. Single motherhood isn't nice either.
I honestly don't get it: if you're unattractive as hell, whether that's partially in your control or not, dating and relationships will suck for you unless you are genuinely exceptional. The only short guy I knew that did OK with dating was a neurosurgery resident with enough charisma for a career in politics. The autistic woman I'm friends with - an emergency-medicine resident in California - wound up enduring a couple relationships with predatory, abusive shitbags before finding a decent guy. Shit fucking sucks, and there's a good chance that the best you're going to get is going to be straight up tragic.
There are literally, and trivially, at least a million happy couples of bottom 10% attractiveness people in the united states. They are not difficult to find. I don't think happiness is the highest thing to shoot for in life, but your claims are facially falsified by even superficial engagement with your surroundings, whether that be a population statistics database or your local church.
I mean...I have seen a few? But quite a lot of them have lots of problems caused by what's causing the unattractiveness. I know a woman who had a stroke at 27; she's about 300 pounds. She's doing OK, but her boyfriend had to help her recover early on. If you're very unattractive, you're going to be dealing with hospitals and health problems if lucky, jail and rehab if not.
Most obese people aren't 300 pounds, afaik, (the obesity cutoff for female heights is <= 200 lbs) and most don't have strokes at 27. And even if both partners have serious health problems, one being able to care for the other when one is weaker and the other is stronger seems like an improvement on being alone?
More options
Context Copy link
This is poor health (obesity in this case) you're confounding with whatever other set of metrics you're using to define "unattractive" (shortness of stature also appears to be loading strongly on your own scale of undesirable traits, at least for men.)
Hmm. Poor health IS a form of unattractiveness, more or less. There are forms of unattractiveness that are mostly cosmetic (short stature if male, burn victim, unfortunate facial appearance) and there are ways to be unattractive through poor health (such as schizophrenia, other disability, morbid obesity). All of these make people less desirable for partners.
I also believe that there is a small but significant chunk of the population that is extremely unattractive, often for reasons beyond their control, that we do not see much after high school. The disabled. The mentally retarded. Whatever you call the population of people that are frequent flyers in psych ERs or regular ERs for overdoses or suicide attempts. The institutionalized, more or less. Those people are out of sight and hidden from public view. It's not just me that's saying this...Fussell was saying it in the 80s, talking about the "bottom out-of-sight" class.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is utter bullshit. I'm not telling you my height, but just in case you think I am speaking from personal experience as some kind of statistical outlier, I have known many short dudes who do just fine in the dating department, and have happy relationships. Yes, their dating pool is more limited because a lot of women will automatically swipe left on a 5'4" guy, but the number of women who won't (and who are not landwhales or child abusers) is not that tiny.
I gotta be honest, you sound like a fellow I was following on YouTube for a while (because I have terrible taste and I like watching trainwrecks.) He's an incel who wasn't even short, but he was overweight and utterly convinced that he was so ugly that "he got fucked over by genetics" and thus had no hope of a happy relationship with a non-hideous woman. (He wasn't hideous - he wasn't particularly handsome, but losing some weight and cleaning up a bit would certainly have made him presentable enough to get dates.) And his videos were mostly rants just like yours: "If you are fucked over by genetics (like me), the best you can ever hope for is a 3 or less or a hooker, and we should stop lying to kids and just tell that short/ugly 14-year-old boy that he's never, ever going to have a girlfriend."
He deleted his channel in a burst of tears (literally) because even his fellow incels started telling him to quit whining.
I mean...I might have been a bit too focused on the male side of things. But from what I have seen from my unattractive female friends...it is NOT any better for them. Did I tell you about my autistic friends that were raped by assholes and wound up in abusive relationships? About the friend I had who was burned in a house fire when she was three and only got guys that wanted one thing, and then with a bag over her head? Yes, she found a boyfriend, eventually. Then they broke up. I don't know whether dude was a sack of shit or not, but she hasn't dated since that guy, and that was about five years ago.
As for the short man who wound up with the abusive shitbag wife: he was no chump. The wife was decent-looking. OK exterior, garbage interior. I shit you not: he was a colonel in the army, spoke four languages fluently. Special Forces, too. You don't get to become a special forces officer while being a lazy chump or being socially incompetent, do you?
I might be rambling here. But I sincerely believe that there is a small but decent number of men and women that aren't good candidates for relationships. Some people have schizophrenia, some are disabled, some are alcoholics, some are abusive shitbags. Some of this is under people's control, but some is not.
What is remarkable about these guys? I do know one short guy who's doing OK for himself: he's going to be a neurosurgeon and has enough charisma for a career in politics. The short guys I know that are medical students or residents and aren't going into neurosurgery are "focused on their careers"; internal medicine, family med, and emergency room ain't up to snuff if you're 5'4". Now. I do not see anything whatsoever wrong with this. A class of people chosen essentially by lot for celibate roles...maybe ones that do not mesh well with family...does not seem like a bad thing at all. That short 14yo boy might hit the books harder or learn to have a politician's charisma if people stopped telling him there was someone for everyone, not "My dude, your small ass has an Everest-size mountain to climb. And that's on a good day. If you want a decent partner, you're going to have to work your ass off and even then it's not nearly as likely as your taller friends. I understand if you choose not to date; there's ways you can be useful without having a partner, marriage, or kids."
We should stop
lying tobullshitting kids, and just tell that short/ugly 14yo boy that he should probably be celibate for life for the greater good, as the partners he can get will probably be worse than being alone - unless he likes lights, sirens, and either hospitals or cops in his life. Life ain't fair, and we probably could use some more celibate life paths. Like...it's not about just cosmetic ugliness. It's about things like nursing and caretaking. It's about lights and sirens and traumatized kids. About nursing homes for 45-year-olds and strokes and what most would consider tragedy.That is certainly true, but I think being short or even unattractive (for men) is only a small contributing factor, if any. Being fat and unattractive is a pretty big disqualifier for women, but even there, I know a lot of fat, unattractive women, and very few of them stay alone forever.
Nothing at all. That's my point.
Being short, fat, ugly, etc., means your dating pool is smaller, and thus being patient (and capitalizing on what you do have) is more important. And no, you probably can't pull a 10. It doesn't make you unfuckable.
I do not believe you that you know a bunch of 5'4" doctors who can't get dates. Maybe they can't get dates with the hottest, tallest nurses in the hospital.
No, telling him that would be lying to him, and projecting your own issues onto a kid in a cruelly abusive way.
I don't know what your personal experience has been, but maybe you need to get out more, because my personal observation is that even short, ugly dudes and fat, ugly women do in fact find someone more often than not, and no, it's not only by settling for the dregs.
I know them personally. I live with one. They can't get dates with anyone that is not morbidly obese. Now. These are residents, not attendings; maybe that changes something.
Fat women often find partners, I'll agree. Short guys? My sample size is...eight or nine. Only one guy was with someone that was sane and not morbidly obese. The SF colonel and ER resident wasn't part of that group Only the future neurosurgeon with politician tier charisma pulled it off at 5'4". You need to be able to do something as demanding and lucrative as brain surgery AND have top 1 percent charisma...just being hardworking and determined enough to learn four languages and become a Green Beret and colonel in the Army ain't enough. You need that million a year or at least to be on track to it.
I don't believe you. Sorry. I don't know what his standards are, if he has personality problems, or if he's rejecting anyone who isn't supermodel hot, but assuming he's setting his sights realistically (that does not mean "settling for morbidly obese women"), he is doing something very wrong if he's an otherwise eligible doctor whose sole drawback is being short.
I absolutely know 5'4" guys who are just average dudes who are married to decent women, and your 8 or 9 short guys you know personally, including Special Forces colonels and doctors, who literally can't get dates read like incel fan fiction to me.
The SF colonel could get dates. He just wound up making a terrible choice of wife. I don't know if he settled or not; I honestly think that the colonel got fooled by her when he was just a first lieutenant. The short docs? Yeah - they are "focused on their careers". Some are kind of quiet. One is an outdoorsy Asian guy that loves hiking and kayaking.
What does "setting his sights realistically" look like for a 5'4" doctor, if not being OK with someone who's morbidly obese...but still able to fit in seats, drive a car, hold a job and all that? Like...a BMI of 42, not 75. 75 is a sprained ankle from being bedbound or being in a nursing home. 42 is not. I'll give you that one of these docs turned down a single mom who was pretty attractive (and also sane); maybe that is genuinely having standards that are unrealistically high.
For what it's worth, only like three or four of the short dudes are doctors. Two, I shit you not, look like Greek godlets. They could compete in physique bodybuilding competitions, and one of them did. These godlets are with morbidly obese women. One's a personal trainer, another works as a lab tech. Another two short dudes are strong like bulls and built like fire hydrants. 5'5", around a buck seventy. I don't want to give out too much identifying information, but let's just say these guys are excellent powerlifters, deadlifting more than 500 pounds. I've seen video footage of their lifts. They do quite well for themselves at powerlifting meets. The bull-strong little guys work in IT; didn't go to college. Make OK money.
I am not shitting you. I have seen these dudes with my own eyes.
Okay. Lots of guys make terrible choices like that. Has nothing to do with height or attractiveness.
I mean, not wanting to date single mothers because you aren't ready to help raise someone else's kids isn't an unreasonable preference either. But if he could get a "reasonably attractive, sane" woman whose only drawback is that she had kids, then clearly he also was not undateable.
Maybe they actually like these women? I mean, did they tell you they settled because they couldn't do better?
All I can say is, if your stories are true, you live in a very strange bubble.
They didn't tell me that they settled; that being said...I only know one short dude that's with a partner that's sane and not morbidly obese. The charismatic future neurosurgeon.
What the hell would cause an autistic med student to live in a strange bubble like this? Like...what would somehow repel successful short guys from his orbit...while allowing taller successful guys to pass through? Shit's weird.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Ignoring the strangely binary classification you present, it is true that there are people for whom anything in life will be much harder than for others, through no fault of their own. I don’t think we should lie to them, but is it not the most noble expression of the human spirit to strive to overcome our own limitations?
Is it not better to want to succed as Nick Vujicic has than to be a basement-dwelling NEET? Would it be a better world if no one other than Usain Bolt ran track or no one other than Elon Musk tried to start their own company? Do we not respect people more who earned what they have through the sweat of their brow rather than had everything handed to them on a silver platter?
Hmm. I mean. Running track is fine, but 99 percent of people aren’t ever going to make a living at it. Most high-school sprinters, even hardworking ones, don’t even get college scholarships out of it. Track’s fine, but don’t hang your hat on it. As for starting companies…some people shouldn’t even try it, it’s risky and a bad idea for them.
There’s a lot of variation in ‘relationship outcomes’ and I think there are a sizable number of people who simply do not make good partners. It’s like…the US Army doesn’t take people in the bottom 15 percent of IQ, because they can’t even make them into good cooks or something. There’s a similar phenomenon for relationships…something like social IQ or something like this.
More options
Context Copy link
I think he’s a bit extreme, but he has a point. And it’s not just that they’re going to suck at dating or whatever, but that we as a society for whatever reason in most aspects of life oversell it, and while most of us get it quickly, for those with deficits, it can be extremely frustrating because you’re told it’s possible when it’s not. We tell kids who can barely do high school math that they can get rich doing something they love. Probably not true. A LD kid especially as we move into an AI world is probably going to be doing menial labor for very low wages. An autistic kid is told that he can date a good looking, well adjusted woman when realistically, no he won’t. Americans just seem to have a problem in general admitting that not everyone can have a good life.
I mean, fundamentally it isn't the job of society as a whole to give people this advice because society includes groups of people who need to hear contradictory things. People who are too assertive need to be told to be quiet and people who are too shy need to be told to assert themselves, people who are smart but lazy need to be told to buckle down and study engineering and medicine and people who are too dumb to master such subjects should be discouraged from going into STEM, etc. It should be the responsibility of one's parents, other relatives, and friends to give such targeted advice in private, but I would agree that among all the peoples in the world Americans seem uniquely unable to do so.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
One cynical answer is that someone is going to have to have to do the dissuading, and most people see that as too cruel an act to want to engage in themselves. Another cynical reason is that keeping people oriented in a hopeful direction is much better for society than whatever the pit of inceldom will produce (though there are some good critiques of society in that sphere).
And non-cynically, young men have a tendency to fall into despair that doesn't reflect the real difficulty of their situation (though for sure things are more difficult than they used to be) but they tend to grow out of this with age, and maybe some encouragement is going to help them to do that.
I mean...the problem is kind of a lack of meaning. Keeping some poor short bastard grasping for a brass ring he cannot reach is also not the best thing, when he comes to believe - rightly or not - that it was all just bullshit.
Become remarkable, or decide where you want the ambulances - if you want a partner at all.
More options
Context Copy link
deleted
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think the bar for "only possible relationships are so bad it's better to be single" isn't so high it covers the merely ugly.
Short men and ugly men have a hard time, certainly, and I'm grateful that even if I'm average in terms of looks, I'm tall and get by there, but you'd have to look for some really shitty partners to end up in those straits.
And since you're presumably talking about Western uggos, they've always got the option of saving up and visiting a third world destination like Thailand or the Phillipines to pick up a new bride, or mail order them in if that's still a thing.
It would take being short+ugly+uncharismatic+poor+ill for a person to probably end up entirely with options worse than being single.
More options
Context Copy link
Couldn't ugly but not literal child murderer men get with ugly but not literal child murderer women? Senseless cruelty, height and facial beauty are not on some shared axis where you get one or the other.
Yeah - short guys looking like Greek Gods can get with women two or three times their weight. Enjoy being 48 and having a 450lb wife that is a sprained ankle away from a nursing home. That might be the least-bad option, and 'we will choose some men by lot to be a kind of insurance plus nurses and caretakers' doesn't seem terrible. I don't know why you would want to raise kids in that kind of dysfunction, but maybe it is not really that bad. I've known decent people raised by shitbag parents, and watching Dad go buy a mobility scooter and extra-large van might not be too bad.
More options
Context Copy link
Women send love letters to literal child murderer men all the time (this applies to most serial killers that make the news, for that matter); that whole "life without parole" thing kind of gets in the way of the conjugal visits, though.
Phrased like this it sounds like this is a hobby for most women.
People rarely mention the loads of letters non-serial killer celebrities get in the same breath, too.
Almost as though there were an obvious implication that, according to common understanding, serial killers ought to be exceptional in some sort of way that other celebrities are not.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
No one is encoraging them. They just happen to get relationships through market sorting mechanisms. Revealed preference yada yada.
Its like why do shitty products exist? Well because some people buy them. And some products are shitty enough to be a pain to use.
Other "products" are worse than useless and only bought by fools and the desperate. They're chinesium at best and death traps at worst.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
deleted
The child survived, for what it was worth, with no lasting physical injury. They're gainfully employed and have a clean record. Yes, there are ugly people with good hearts. Yes, some people are in and out of institutions through absolutely no fault whatsoever of their own. Do you want a partner who has some kind of terrible autoimmune disease that means that they will never live independently or hold a job? That, too, is tragic; that is no one's fault. Upthread, someone compared it to driving. You might be a terrible driver because you like to get hammered and do 100mph down residential streets. You might also never be a good driver because you had the bad luck to be born blind or epileptic.
Simply being ugly is one thing. Being in and out of some kind of institution or other is quite another. Where do you want the ambulances?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's a basic human need. It's also tied to other basic human goods (e.g. more social links tend to buffer people against swings in fortune, depression and a lack of life satisfaction). The assumption is strongly held that You can't get rid of it, it's why we're here.
Also, to be more cynical, people don't say this (even if they think it) because it implicitly carries the message that you see such societal dregs as less-than. I've never heard a well-adjusted male be told to give up or to perform some ubermensch-like act of will and dispel their desire for companionship. Even the women who say it are usually playacting. It would be alienating to the person. Might as well say the polite thing -"there's someone for everyone" - and let them sink or swim on their own.
So what? If you're not a genius working will involve some level of hardship. Does that mean you shouldn't work?
Also: there's no reason why you should exist on the same package as an "exceptional" person? Nobody would buy or be happy in a house if that was the metric.
Perhaps I was a maladjusted college student. But I was told - in college, by a man who I considered a friend - that it was best if I never had a partner; he believed that all I could get was basically prostitution on a long-term contract. I've had other friends tell me similar things. I understand desexualization. I understand the idea that some people are just shit partners and garbage in, garbage out.
No. But if your choice is between living in a tent in the woods, and living in a house that's fucking rotting and condemned, full of rats and black mold...the tent seems like the better option.
More options
Context Copy link
It might be a basic human need...but is it better to be alone, or to marry and have children...only to find that your wife tried to kill one of them? Or to be with an abusive alcoholic? All of these things suck: are relationships truly the least bad option here?
Who does not work, does not eat. I suppose you could argue that some people are destined to work extremely dangerous jobs out of pure desperation and run very high risks of being killed and maimed, and that's better than nothing.
Obviously most people don't go into it and get that binary choice between a potential relationship and a baby killer. You might as well ask if it's worth driving if a semi might crumple your vehicle.
And, yes, our psychology is tilted such that we are broadly driven to downplaying those risks (some of which, like matricide, are relatively small here) and driven to be less satisfied with a parlous social network. Precisely because the benefits are manifold.'
I mean. The case of someone that is very unattractive attempting a relationship is like someone who is in the bottom few percent of driving performance considering driving. It may not make sense for them to do so - the risk of accidents is simply too great. With driving...we don't let blind people drive, we don't let people with more than a certain level of visual impairment drive, we don't let people with seizure disorders drive, we make people pass basic tests of roadworthiness before getting their license. "Don't suck donkey balls, or have a condition that means you're going to suck donkey balls, and you can and probably should drive a car."
You're assuming there's a correlation between how good looking someone is and how they are in a relationship. I could just as easily make the argument that attractive people are horrible partners because they never have to work for it and just assume the companionship of other people. Hence, attractive people are all self-centered jerks. Unattractive people, meanwhile, have to have great personalities to compensate for physical defects, so unless all you're interested in is sex you're better off with someone from the bottom of the looks distribution. It's not for nothing that Jimmy Soul sang back in 1963:
In all honesty I doubt there's any real difference
I mean it is more than just looks. Are you better off being a nurse and caretaker for your partner? What if they're unattractive because they're homeless and addicted to meth or some shit like that? If they're living on the street because they've got florid, untreated schizophrenia? It's not just unfortunate people that are still capable of working jobs and living independently. It's the 500 pound person in the mobility scooter. The paralyzed man with cerebral palsy that says he's going to kill himself because of despair at his homelessness, and winds up in the local psych ward five times a year. The really unattractive people? They're either at home or in institutions of one type or another. They're Fussell's bottom-out-of-sight people.
It's not just looks - many people would be very happy with someone who had a facial deformity but could work a job, any job, and live independently. It's about the goddamn ambulances and other institutions. It's about watching someone die, possibly to avoidable things like addiction, and being powerless to prevent that.
Getting beat up by the ugly stick is a very different kettle of fish to needing a nurse and caretaker. For the gentlemen: they are indeed looking down the barrel of a life of nursing and caretaking if they want partners. And that is the best many will do. For the ladies, it's even worse.
Surely the number of ugly-but-not-violent/requiring-a-nurse males and females is roughly equal? Can't the ugly dudes just find a nice homely girl and settle down?
No - women have more central tendency. Guys have more champs and way more chumps. Unattractiveness ain't just looks. It can be 'being a criminal shitbag', 'being a drug addict', 'being autistic', or any number of things that are more common for dudes.
More options
Context Copy link
This is almost certainly not true actually. Females have a roughly standard distribution in most traits, where most are about average. Males have a bimodalish, flattened distribution, where most males are either above or below average. Because of this, there are more men at either extreme. The peaks of humanity, and the dregs of it, are something like 10:1 male:female.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This underestimates the value of patient persistence in finding a suitable mate.
I think real despair and frustration can be mitigated by simply giving less attractive folks realistic expectations.
"Realistic expectations" means "Become exceptional, or decide where you want the ambulances". It means figuring out how to be OK with either experiencing terrible shit, or watching terrible shit happen - maybe preventable - and being unable to do anything about it. It is a hell of a thing to expect a woman to be OK with winding up with abusive rapists a few times as she learns how to date. It isn't quite as bad (but still bad) to expect guys to be OK watching their partners slowly kill themselves - and that's one of the better outcomes. Imagine coming home to find out that your wife's tried to strangle your nine-year-old son. Do you think that this causes any less despair?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link