The problem with letting a woman know you care about looks

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This conversation goes round and round on here, with men stating what they like, how they feel, and women trying to explain why the comments are a turn off. And the guys saying they are just being honest, women do it too, and so on.

I really felt a good example of the reason for the social rule happened on a silly reality TV show this week, of all things.

- - Edit: my reason for posting this is not to tell guys what to like or to think, but to let them know how some women feel about certain ideas and comments, because if they blurt it out in front of a woman they like who is offended by it, it hurts their chances with her. - -

A man on the bachelorette joked about a woman getting fat after marriage, Emily asked if that meant he'd stop loving her if she got fat, and he tried to split hairs by saying he'd still love her, but not on her.

And the funny thing is, he had no idea he had said anything wrong, probably because at the time he was surrounded by women who seem to take care of their looks.

Be aware that the naturally thin Emily was upset by this, as were woman all over the internet, and her explanation was this, not that she told him: she'd like to think that her husband falls in love with her heart, and not her looks.

Which, in a nutshell, is how all women I know in real life feel.

Make those kinds of comments, and women get turned off. Think all you want about fair or not fair, your right to be attracted, and so, but talk or think like that, and odds are good you move into the dud column with women you are interested in.

The right answer, in my opinion, and as agreed by women I know? If a girlfriend or wife gained weight, you can say you'd be concerned about her health, and would be willing to run with her or walk with her or cook for her to help her out, but you'd love her no matter what.

EDIT: I think the folks posting towards the bottom of page 17 explain things better than I did, so maybe just skipping over there and letting the rest of the thread die is for the best.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 09 Jun 2012, 8:29 pm, edited 4 times in total.

So women are incapable of taking people for granted?

*stands up and applauds* So many guys don't get that. They don't realize how much they are sabotaging themselves w/ that attitude.

I hope this won't end the topic too fast but loving someone 'as a person' never necessarily stops nor needs to, even though relationships often split for reasons outside of that. I don't think any guy who has anything to call a soul who admits that he couldn't go on in a relationship with someone who'd become unattractive to him means that he'd stop loving her as a person. The difference is that there's a sexual component in relationships where, if you're physically turned off by your partner, its going to be readily apparent to them when kissing them and so on is like pushing too positive magnets together. In a lot of ways, if the guy or the girl lets themselves go in any which way to where the other becomes unattractive (weight's just one of many, ambivalence and drift happen even more often than weight gain being the core culprit), the relationship itself is in a lot of trouble.

I think that's mistaken by women for thinking that they're throw-away based on weight. Its really a different set of dynamics at work in most cases.

I do wonder sometimes about people around here. They want to know how to make women like them, but when they're told by people who know (ie women), they react with criticism and hostility. It seems very bizarre and irrational.

Exactly.

If the crux is that women can't handle truth or criticism (ie. the Reality Show example) I don't know that I can necessarily go along with that - I've met enough who are textbook to what the OP said, and I've met enough who aren't like that.

I guess it just takes making every effort to discuss the matters like adults and clarify as much as possible. If and when that's still to harsh....well... its a little less about empathy and more about people making a fundamental decision regarding where they stand when it comes to meaningful conversation on the topics. A hypothetical date half way around the world getting shattered by the wrong thing getting said vs. the potential to learn - that may not be a significant tradeoff.

I do OK, and it's not irrational. The OP's basically saying the guys here should be total walkovers. If you're desperate, then fair enough. That's your lookout.
If someone's unhappy and they're the cause of their own unhappiness, complains of their self-loathing often and yet they refuse to do anything to do anything to help themselves, then being supportive and trying to help can only go so far before it becomes an issue.

Last edited by ZX_SpectrumDisorder on 30 May 2012, 4:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

To me the issue here is just tactfulness. Yes ... if a woman acquires flesh-eating disease on her face, the sexual relationship is going to come to an abrupt halt most likely. But there's no need to point out their flaw.

On the one hand women should recognize that there is in fact something of a physical element to sexual attraction; the above example illustrates this in a way I think women ought to be able to appreciate. It does not necessarily mean that a person isn't loved, either. If something like that would kill love (and not just sexual attraction) then there was never any there to begin with, so that was not lost. All that was lost was sexual attraction - perhaps that's all there was to lose, perhaps not.

On the other hand, pointing out a person's flaws when they are most likely already aware of them is pointless, harmful, and bound to cause a bad reaction - and rightfully so.

A flesh eating disease is a completely different scenario from doubling in weight.

Threads that go this way make me proud to look like Mick Avory.

In real life, I don't see that women are less caring about the men's looks.

Both men and women have tenuous, shallow, and seemingly arbitrary rigors that the opposite sex puts them through. The trouble we get into by being here - its a support forum, the black boxes of both sexes will often be opened because of that, and there's not much we can do about people being appauled by someone they thought they liked aside from applauding them both for revealing their true nature, for receiving the others true nature (even with hostility), and for voiding a relationship that probably shouldn't have happened anyway if the two hypothetical people in question were willing to be honest with themselves. The only other solution - no L&D folder.

If a man isn't attracted to someone, he's shallow. If a woman isn't attracted to someone, it's "lack of chemistry".

The title is sexist because it implies that only men express their caring of looks while women are non-shallow angels who are only about the inner-self: Total BS, I see girls and women all the time talking about men's looks and even negatively talking about some guy's looks.

spongy, you should lock this sexist thread.