how important are looks to you in a partner?

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This, this, so much this.

Looks certainly aren't everything but there should be a minimal level of physical attraction. I think my perception of physical attractiveness is lifted by other characteristics involved with the personality.

Looks have a significant role in whether I'm attracted to someone, particularly at the start. I don't tend to only be into classically hot girls though - they need to be attractive to me, not society. Someone can make themselves ugly very quickly with certain actions too.

id rather have someone with a brain. but personal taste does come into play, my big turn off is fat women. i understand they have a mind and are a person just like everyone else but if im not sexually attracted to them whats the point. you could be a rocket scientist with personality for days but thats only half of a relationship.

QFT.

Being attracted to someone is very important. I'm not sure how much of attraction is just looks based for me and how much it's affected other aspects of someone's behaviour and personality. Generally I'm interested in the geeky guys anyway - the male model look just feels very bland and empty so does nothing for me at all.

A lot of women say this, but then boom, they're dating some tall, square jawed pretty boy. They'll attribute reasons like his personality and confidence as to why they like him, but in the end, they're dating him because he's sexy. These guys can get away with so much more in relationships (infidelity, emotional distance, lack of a career, mental problems, etc) and can be far, far more direct when they're trying to get with a girl initially.

This is how I think it works: depending on the girl's self-esteem (especially body image), girls seek to date guys whose actual physical attractiveness matches or exceeds the girl's perceived attractiveness of herself. Gorgeous girls with low self-esteem end up with men that are not classically handsome because they feel a classically handsome man will leave them quickly for another woman when they meet one with less mental issues than her. However, they're still physically attracted to these classically handsome guys. If the classically handsome guy reveals some vulnerabilities, he can lower the girl's defenses and maybe date her until some girl with higher self-esteem comes around.

Not to toot my own horn, but a girl with model looks that I dated for a while did not consider getting with me until she saw me in a depressed state where I was kind of dressed down. Honestly, I feel like that's kind of insidious. She dated me because I seemed vulnerable and wasn't the "psychological juggernaut" she first met. Why would you ever want to date someone that seemed weak and vulnerable unless you were a kind of a predator yourself???

Here's another ridiculous example. At the beginning of the semester, I dated a girl for a few weeks that only appeared to be actually interested in me after I revealed to her that I've been on prozac for 11 years and have suicidal ideations every now and then. What the hell? Talking about depression/being a downer is supposed to be the key way to get a girl (or anybody, haha) to not like you. I literally told her that I thought sadness was the most profound emotion and that I enjoyed making myself sad sometimes. We had sex on the first date shortly after I talked about science, depression, and suicide (I hate sex on the first date, she got me so drunk/high that I'd be down to do anything!).

The current girl also knows about my OCD and depression issues, and I let her know about them on first date. She wants to hang out again tonight, obviously to try to hookup.

All of these girls are really pretty and do not give a crap about my rotten personality, haha. I guess I'm a romantic and really affectionate? I can't think of anything besides physical attraction which would make them want to date me (again, not tooting my own horn, these girls have low thresholds for what turns them on, lol).

Now, I'm not implying that you are one of these girls, hale_bopp, but I'm telling you right now what you're talking about is very, very rare. It wouldn't surprise me that someone with Asperger's wouldn't use looks as a heavily weighted criterion. My most heavily weighted criterions after looks are being a good listener, being a very empathic person, and being very affectionate. I fall in love with girls I can tell love me. It's like a spell. They don't have to be extremely attractive. Being pretty helps, but so long as a girl is slender, takes care of herself, and obviously loves me, I'll take her over a girl that looked like my ex girlfriend. I mean, she's gotta have some interesting things to say and be able to engage my mind, but really, kindness and a need (not neediness per se) for me in their lives is a huge deal to me. So, I guess I have some weird criterion, too. It definitely ties into my self-esteem being low and requiring someone with a gentle touch.

I stopped reading after this.
It's awesome how you know what all women think!

That's quite funny, blaming men for buying into the (essentially deceptive) glamours women cast on themselves. Isn't that the point?

Some people are attracted to people with problems, because they are 'fixer uppers'.



Some people might think that makes you deep or profound or something.



I find most of your post a bit hard to believe, but fair enough if you manage to be both good looking and suicidal and have a terrible personality and manage to date beautiful people. Fair enough. But I think you're trying to present your personal experiences as being some kind of rule.

I've seen it happen over and over and over again. It's a very general thing. There are outliers and exceptions to this like anything in human behavior, but I think my post applies pretty well women under 25 at least.

I don't think it's a bad thing at all. Dudes do analogous things all the time. Society makes female attraction some mysterious thing and gets guys erroneously thinking "Oh s**t, what if I said this, this, or that... then maybe she'd like me!" The truth is, she made up her mind as to whether she thought you were cute or not before you opened your mouth. If some girl doesn't like me at first sight, forget it. It's very easy to tell when they like you at first sight. They might do a double take, they might gaze into your eyes a little bit longer, they might smile. It's SO much easier to talk to a girl when she already likes you like that. So much so that I've given up on charming women, because guess what, things like game don't actually exist. Game is just the bare minimum social skills needed to notice and act on it when some girl gives you come-on signals.

Are these girls I get in this way vain or stupid? Absolutely not.

No doubt everyone is entitled to determine their own laundry list of preferences and attributes they seek in a viable romantic match.

For my purposes, I choose to place as much emphasis (if not more) on personality and cerebral attributes than on physical attractiveness. Although I contend mutual physical attraction is essential for a successful romantic relationship in most cases, I firmly believe the required meeting of the minds and hearts is the delineating factor (even a dealbreaker) for the sustained longevity of a solid relationship.

Perhaps, Marilyn Monroe said it best about physical beauty: "Gravity catches up with all of us." Not a one of us can avoid aging.

In my personal experience, a person who you love, respect and admire can become stunningly gorgeous to you by sheer virtue of how you feel about them (and vice versa). They become a Gorgeous, Sexual Creature! OOOOOOOOOOOOO LAAAAAAAAAAAA LAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! !

In an attempt to be crystal clear, by "total package" I mean perceiving someone as a combination of all their attributes - mental, spiritual and physical.

End of the day, I believe the mental/cerebral passion IGNITES the physical passion. The more intelligent a man is (life smart as well as book/intellectual smart), my jets become lit and it CATALYZES the physical passion. In the rare cases when someone just DAZZLES me, I become absolutely smitten.

When a man MAKES LOVE to my mind by sheer virtue of his intelligence, passion for life (while still being compassionate, kind and humane), I am inspired and he becomes GORGEOUS to me! Yes, this kind of synergy and attraction is rare - as rare as the Hope Diamond!

On this most glorious of Valentine's Days, I still believe firmly and steadfastly that viewing a viable romantic match as a "total package" is the only successful venue to find the rare, eclectic, elegant, erudite creature who is one's Hope Diamond!

Leslie Lee - a modern-day maverick Hopeful Romantic

Last edited by HopefulRomantic on 14 Feb 2011, 7:33 am, edited 2 times in total.

-Both of these girls actively smashed my self-esteem in really underhanded ways that I didn't notice until they were long gone. So, they weren't into the whole fixer-upper thing.

-My personal experiences aren't a rule at all, sorry if I make it sound authoritative in any way.

-All of the girls have low self-esteem. I'm not good looking, lol. People with low self-esteem find each other, I guess.

Looks are important, of course, because that defines my initial attraction to another person. It's not the only thing that's important. I've definitely met some good-looking people who had sh** for brains and zero manners and, therefore, were not worth my time. I also don't like the "pretty boys" like Brad Pitt or Jake Gyllenhoweveryouspellit. I like 'em rough around the edges.

Looks aren't all that important, but I do tend to attract very attractive partners.
I believe that if you are emotionally attractive to someone they will naturally become physically attractive.
I've dated people who didn't fit the norm of physical beauty, and I was very attracted to them.

It's very important to me that I'm able to find a prospective partner physically attractive, but I'm able to find a wide variety of types physically attractive if they can attract me mentally first.