10 ms·

I think the article severely downplays the importance of attractiveness. If the other party finds you attractive, the bar is lowered to the point of you simply

by xor1 10y ago

I think the article severely downplays the importance of attractiveness. If the other party finds you attractive, the bar is lowered to the point of you simply being normal/average in terms of intelligence, wit, and whatever else you want to include in your definition of what makes a person "interesting". You basically need to be a vapid idiot to give anyone a bad impression as an attractive person. It's a huge factor. I've started putting some of my big programmer bucks into improving my appearance before I hit 30, starting with braces (family couldn't afford them as a kid), eyelid surgery to fix some mild ptosis, and a nose job. I've also started using sunscreen and moisturizer on my face on a regular basis. The past few years have made me realize that your appearance only becomes more important as you age and progress in a white-collar career -- not less, as I was led to believe as a child. This is especially disheartening to realize while working in CA/NYC tech, which have always been billed as one of the most meritocratic and progressive sectors. Getting into shape only takes you so far. I consider myself average now, but I want to be hot.

dkarapetyan 10y ago
Are you for real? Develop substance my friend. The rest is all cosmetic and won't take you far.
- matrix_escape 10y ago
  You are wrong actually. Maybe you havent had the experience of being bad looking, but people will treat you very differently in everything they do. Objectively, its a big advantage to being good looking, once you get past your own biases of not wanting to believe it.
- xor1 10y ago
  I have substance. You're completely delusional if you think that being good-looking will ever be anything other than a benefit. An extremely significant one at that.
  - marklgr 10y ago
    Those benefits have a cost--financially, emotionally, and time-wise. So the whole question is, is it worth it, past a certain point.
    - infinite8s 10y ago
      What is the financial cost to being attractive?
- gliese1337 10y ago
  Given that the whole point of the post you're responding to seems to be precisely that cosmetics do in fact take you quite far, and substance isn't, in his experience, as important as he was led to believe... I rather doubt simply asserting that looks don't matter is going to change his opinion.
- mdekkers 10y ago
  He is for real, no doubt. Also he is correct. I have seen this depressingly often. Anecdote from the trenches: A dev team of about 15. They are working an an algorithm that did some language-type matching. One guy was regarded as the expert on the subject, came up with the algorithm, wrote a paper on it that was the basis of his Masters thesis, and essentially the whole company bowed down in front of him. When I joined I quickly learned that he looked good, had a smooth talk, and was far from a good developer. His work was chaotic and his software was ill behaved, stupidly resource hungry, and based on a flawed hypothesis (it provably didn't work well, and made mistakes). There were two issues with this. Firstly, it cost us a fortune in providing the resource to keep his software running and available, and secondly it had a real negative impact on people's lives. The other devs' on the team were aware of this, and many had solid ideas to improve. I worked with some devs after hours to built a solr-based alternative that took a week to build and test (as opposed to the countless man-years that went into this guys algorithm), and I organised a presentation to the CEO (I was senior exec there, and was on the highest level management team). The presentation was a success, and by all metrics what we cobbled together was faster, cheaper, and most importantly, better. We were congratulated on our success, but after a few days the CEO declined to implement the change. I know that the person in question spent a lot of time lobbying against us during this period. The next move we made was to find a US based company that made software that did the exact same thing, had a solid US Government track record (which was important to our client base - mostly US banks) and was ridiculously cheap. To compare, they did what we did on a laptop. We had 4 racks in a colo to do the same thing. Annual licensing cost was a months dev wage. That plan was also deep-sixed. I personally left shortly after that, but I spent a lot of time wondering why two obviously superior solutions to real problems were ignored. The dev in question was charming, handsome, spent a lot of time worrying about his looks and was a smooth political operator. Look and impressions matter more. This is just one of many stories, and it is the primary driver behind me setting up my own shop years ago. I cannot stand this kind of idiocy.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    I think you're staring the point right in the eyes, but are missing it: > was a smooth political operator This is it right there. It doesn't matter so much how attractive he was. If he can do politics, it's game over for everyone who can't.
- rimliu 10y ago
  If you are not attractive the likely scenario is that not many will want to be around you long enough to discover substance.
jaequery 10y ago
Idk, although I kind of get the gist of what you are saying, I've met plenty of unattractive people who are pleasant to be with. And for whatever reasons, I'm more attracted to talking to these (unattractive) people than some Brad Pitt look-a-likes. They tend to make me feel more at ease. Different strokes for different people I guess.
- xor1 10y ago
  >And for whatever reasons, I'm more attracted to talking to these (unattractive) people than some Brad Pitt look-a-likes. They tend to make me feel more at ease. I'm actually really interested in why you feel this way, if you could go into more detail.
  - jaequery 10y ago
    I might be coming at this from a different angle but I think it comes down to competition. Well, I don't have any scientific proofs per se (bleh) but I think we are generally hard-coded from our DNA to try/want to be the most attractive. It's only when you are well aware it's not a threat, you'd be able to lower your guard down. Now, if we are talking about opposite sex, then that's a whole another type of conversation.
    - xor1 10y ago
      I am going to assume that you don't consider yourself to be exceptionally attractive. Correct me if I'm wrong. So, with that assumption, if you were able to wake up tomorrow morning and be on par with a "Brad Pitt" lookalike, how do you think that your reaction to interacting with them would change? What about with the other group of people that you currently prefer to engage with? After thinking about that, would you still prefer that things remain as they are? >Now, if we are talking about opposite sex, then that's a whole another type of conversation. This matters too, of course, unless you don't plan to interact with them at all in a professional environment :)
      - jaequery 10y ago
onmobiletemp 10y ago
Please stop, you are wrong. Im attractive and people hate me. Have you ever considered whats its like to be attractive? People are instantly jealous of you and hate you. And they make sure to lay judgement into you -- if you arent whip smart they will tear you down just like anyone else. I know ugly, average looking and good looking people who all do very well with people and in life. It comes down to your intelligence, not how you look. Please dont mutilate your face like a south korean teenager. Just like them you will find thay its not worth it.
- throwayedidqo 10y ago
  Are you female? Most of my attractive male friends are surrounded by both sexes but being an attractive female seems to make you a pariah.
  - onmobiletemp 10y ago
    Im a guy
- xor1 10y ago
  >Please stop, you are wrong. Im attractive and people hate me. Have you ever considered whats its like to be attractive? People are instantly jealous of you and hate you. And they make sure to lay judgement into you -- if you arent whip smart they will tear you down just like anyone else. Sorry, but I've never seen anything like this happen after high school. Attractiveness is respected, especially if you can keep or improve it as you begin to age. >Please dont mutilate your face like a south korean teenager. If you're referring to the eyelid surgery, it's not THAT kind of eyelid surgery.
- jaequery 10y ago
  "Please stop, you are wrong". After reading the article, I can sort of see where the problem lies. Judging people does no good. =D
- im3w1l 10y ago
  Question for you and xor1. Are you talking about going from a 1 to a 5, from a 5 to an 8 or from an 8 to a 10? My intuition is that at the deformed end of the spectrum, any improvement is going to be 99% positive and that it starts to become more of a mixed blessing as you approach perfection.
peterwwillis 10y ago
Attractive is not physical appearance or good looks. Attractive is a culmination of all the factors that can be observed or known that will give a positive impression. It is usually much more important to carry yourself as attractive than to be beautiful. Confidence, honesty, friendliness, integrity, etc all can be assumed by a picture of a beautiful person, but in practice it's body language that portrays these qualities better. In addition, things like humor and other tips in the article can control someone's impression much more than looks. Make yourself hot if you want. But if you're still insecure or unhappy inside, it's going to come off as unattractive. (Unless you then act more alpha as a defense mechanism to this... Behavior is complicated)
- xor1 10y ago
  >But if you're still insecure or unhappy inside, it's going to come off as unattractive. What makes you think that I'm insecure or unhappy to begin with? I see this as an investment in myself.
  - scrollaway 10y ago
    I certainly didn't think you were either, but now you took what was pretty clearly a generic statement as a personal one and I can't help but rethink that.
    - xor1 10y ago
      I don't see how you think that it wasn't personal given the preceding sentence.
- ThrustVectoring 10y ago
  Yeah, how you carry yourself is a huge part of it. A year of dancing is worth at least a standard deviation of attractiveness, IMO. And in terms of speech, I think it's much more how you say it than what you say.
- m_fayer 10y ago
  Absolutely. A face will change in subjective attractiveness depending on the mental temperature of it's owner. Benevolence, tranquility, conspiratorial crackling wit, real empathy - seeing these on people's faces makes them immensely attractive. And both your personality and your face get used to these mental dispositions and settle into them. So eventually we all get the face we deserve.
mercer 10y ago
On the whole you're correct and there are many studies that confirm that attractiveness is a big advantage in countless ways. However: 1. attractive is relative. Many, of not most people who are not considered attractive are also not considered unattractive. Just average, like most other people. Being average in looks can be compensated for in many other ways. I know many people who think they're unattractive when they're perfectly average. 2. I believe a strong confounding (or mediating?) variable is confidence and 'niceness'. Pretty people experience less bullying, more positive interactions, etc., which in turn makes them more confident and 'nice' (no need to hate the world, so to speak), which then makes them more attractive. Some of the most popular, nice, successful people I've known were far from attractive, but they were confident and nice. Or even just confident.
throwayedidqo 10y ago
Thank God I'm not the only guy that wears sunscreen! I've shared the same opinion as you for most of my life. I really got a strong dose of truth in highschool. I got tired of getting picked on and being out of shape in freshman year. I was a loner and a punching bag for kids having a bad day. I started exercising to stop people from bothering me. I still kept to myself and maintained my outsider status at first, but it didn't last long. The swimming and wrestling coaches wouldn't leave me alone by junior year, and soon after they noticed everyone else did to. The attention I got from being in shape and attractive was extreme and foreign to me. There was maybe a year lag time that I associate with everyone consciously forgetting who I used to to be. After that, shit got real. I started getting attention from the popular kids even though I maintained my "loner" friends. I suddenly had several groups of friends that didn't want to be seen around each other. I was asked to join several sports, and in my senior year I gave in. Once I broke through to sports my popularity was official, and I started getting invites to the richest most popular people's parties. The craziest part of the attention was the girls. I got groped by women all the time. Women would openly comment on how attractive I was fairly often. Sometimes women in public would catcall me. My mom's friends would openly try to set me up with their daughters. On more than one occasion while drinking, girls I knew but had never touched would literally jump on me and start making out. And before you think I'm too much of a douchebag, I'm overweight and rather old now. A lot of people will say "it's all confidence" but I'm just as confident as I ever was. Now that I'm not attractive and older it's just called "disgruntled". It's hard to tell anyone that has been attractive that attractiveness is not important. I've seen it for myself.
- bardworx 10y ago
  Ahh dude, you were sooo close but missed the point entirely. Issue with being attractive in HS is it's cheap. You may actually be disgruntled because you sorta miss the "old you". Problem with this whole post is that your attractiveness didn't permeate to the core of your person. I also had a similar story as you, except when I joined the football team and hung out with the cool kids, I didn't give a shit what anyone said about my old friends and went back to hang out with them. They were good people and their company never accompanied snide remarks about your choice of clothing, music, etc. One thing I've learned is being the cool guy give you this amazing ability to actually conversant with many different groups and bring people together. That particular ability will earn you way more social browny points then anything else. It will also make you happy, because people will be happy to see you because of you, not because of how you look or who you hang out with. Just my 2 cents. Who knows, I could be wrong.
elorant 10y ago
The problem with being attractive as a male is twofold. You're constantly antagonized by other males, even in the most trivial things, and it's harder to been taken seriously because most people correlate good looks with low intelligence. Bottom line is that you have to try harder than everyone else because everywhere you go you'll face hostility, especially in the corporate world. For example, it took me a lot of years to realize why men where constantly bragging about their lives when I first met them. Initially I thought that this is common, that everyone does it. But it turns out that they do it because I'm good looking and they feel disadvantageous, even if I downplay the way I look. Imagine how it feels if pretty much everyone you meet comes with you with a fake personality. It wears you down and makes relationships too difficult.
- xor1 10y ago
  >because most people correlate good looks with low intelligence Where is this coming from?? I'd argue the opposite of this, if anything.
  - colanderman 10y ago
    I think a lot of people (myself included) subconsciously assume that good-looking people got where they were based on looks rather than merits, especially if they hold a customer-facing role. (I'm certainly not claiming that this bias is valid.)
    - pacificleo11 10y ago
      This is true and its true for women too. So often it's assumed that attractive women irrespective of their job type got where they were based on looks rather than merits
scandox 10y ago
Don't confuse looks and attractiveness. In person attractiveness is mostly not about looks. One of the ugliest men I know is also the most attractive to others (yes both sexes): confidence, warmth, a dash of rascality and a great sense of vitality and fun. People want poetry in their lives...not to admire each other's perfect eyelids.
- puranjay 10y ago
  I've felt that the most 'attractive' people I know are also the most energetic. They just have a fun energy about them, a very "Let's Go!" attitude to ideas and things. Being fun and energetic trumps 'attractiveness' any day in social situations. Of course, good looks help, but it isn't the only weapon in the game.
prolly_a_moron 10y ago
>The past few years have made me realize that your appearance only becomes more important as you age and progress in a white-collar career You don't think the same shallow people judging your looks will judge your plastic surgery?
bane 10y ago
Yeah, a related and very funny satire of this truth was the old SNL skit on sexual harassment. http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/sexual-harassment/2751966?snl=1 http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/sexual-harassme...
- joncrocks 10y ago
  For anyone outside the US that can't access the video, there's a transcript here: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/04/04qfunhouse.phtml http://snltranscripts.jt.org/04/04qfunhouse.phtml Be Handsome.. Be Attractive.. and Don't Be Unattractive.
- probably_wrong 10y ago
  The video is available also on Vimeo, for those that cannot see it: https://vimeo.com/30042289 https://vimeo.com/30042289
M_Grey 10y ago
I think you're confusing two very different kinds of personal appeal, and this can be seen most in the way that attractive people are often allowed to talk, but aren't required to listen. On a separate note, I'd warn people (as someone to whom people have always freely talked) it can be a bad thing! You might not see this, and I understand that a lot of people here struggle socially, but it can be terrible to be a "go-to" person. If it's your friends and family, it's a good thing most of the time, but how about in a large or casual group? The old, the infirm, the lonely... they're the first to realize that I'll be polite, listen, and engage. Sometimes they latch on, and it can be exceedingly difficult to shake them off without hurting them. Then, the crazy people and the broken people sense compassion and an ear, and they come running. To paraphrase a comedian's description of cleavage, being someone that people love to talk to does not discriminate. Sure, you attract the people you want to attract, but you attract EVERYONE ELSE too. It can be exhausting...
criddell 10y ago
Can you recommend a decent everyday sunscreen? The stuff I use is kind of gross and I only apply it when I know I'll burn if I don't.
- xor1 10y ago
  https://www.amazon.com/Olay-Total-Effects-Anti-Aging-Moisturizer/dp/B00HB2JQNM/ https://www.amazon.com/Olay-Total-Effects-Anti-Aging-Moistur... Don't buy it off Amazon, you're likely to get counterfeit product, and it's also much cheaper in stores.
- ddorian43 10y ago
  Goto dermatologist ? My dermatologist said some brands and from those I chose Rilastil 50+. Get the white-color one.
- kaybe 10y ago
  How about women's morning moisturizer? Some of them contain sunscreen and don't feel icky at all.
throwaway382822 10y ago
"men age like wine, women age like milk"
Nomentatus 10y ago
Believe it or not, the size of the place you live matters a lot here (re physical attactiveness.) In a big city, everyone tends to create a shiny superficial persona designed to make a good fast impression, 'cause you ain't seeing them again; and we tend to admire those who have that necessary big-city skill, too, even when we know them well. It's that important. Physically attractiveness really helps creating a compelling instant personna. But all this just doesn't fly in much smaller places such as a small town. Other factors rise to be at least equally important, such as both semantic and emotional honesty.

by xor1 10y ago

dkarapetyan 10y ago

Are you for real? Develop substance my friend. The rest is all cosmetic and won't take you far.

matrix_escape 10y ago
You are wrong actually. Maybe you havent had the experience of being bad looking, but people will treat you very differently in everything they do. Objectively, its a big advantage to being good looking, once you get past your own biases of not wanting to believe it.
xor1 10y ago
I have substance. You're completely delusional if you think that being good-looking will ever be anything other than a benefit. An extremely significant one at that.
- marklgr 10y ago
  Those benefits have a cost--financially, emotionally, and time-wise. So the whole question is, is it worth it, past a certain point.
  - infinite8s 10y ago
    What is the financial cost to being attractive?
gliese1337 10y ago
Given that the whole point of the post you're responding to seems to be precisely that cosmetics do in fact take you quite far, and substance isn't, in his experience, as important as he was led to believe... I rather doubt simply asserting that looks don't matter is going to change his opinion.
mdekkers 10y ago
He is for real, no doubt. Also he is correct. I have seen this depressingly often. Anecdote from the trenches: A dev team of about 15. They are working an an algorithm that did some language-type matching. One guy was regarded as the expert on the subject, came up with the algorithm, wrote a paper on it that was the basis of his Masters thesis, and essentially the whole company bowed down in front of him. When I joined I quickly learned that he looked good, had a smooth talk, and was far from a good developer. His work was chaotic and his software was ill behaved, stupidly resource hungry, and based on a flawed hypothesis (it provably didn't work well, and made mistakes). There were two issues with this. Firstly, it cost us a fortune in providing the resource to keep his software running and available, and secondly it had a real negative impact on people's lives. The other devs' on the team were aware of this, and many had solid ideas to improve. I worked with some devs after hours to built a solr-based alternative that took a week to build and test (as opposed to the countless man-years that went into this guys algorithm), and I organised a presentation to the CEO (I was senior exec there, and was on the highest level management team). The presentation was a success, and by all metrics what we cobbled together was faster, cheaper, and most importantly, better. We were congratulated on our success, but after a few days the CEO declined to implement the change. I know that the person in question spent a lot of time lobbying against us during this period. The next move we made was to find a US based company that made software that did the exact same thing, had a solid US Government track record (which was important to our client base - mostly US banks) and was ridiculously cheap. To compare, they did what we did on a laptop. We had 4 racks in a colo to do the same thing. Annual licensing cost was a months dev wage. That plan was also deep-sixed. I personally left shortly after that, but I spent a lot of time wondering why two obviously superior solutions to real problems were ignored. The dev in question was charming, handsome, spent a lot of time worrying about his looks and was a smooth political operator. Look and impressions matter more. This is just one of many stories, and it is the primary driver behind me setting up my own shop years ago. I cannot stand this kind of idiocy.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  I think you're staring the point right in the eyes, but are missing it: > was a smooth political operator This is it right there. It doesn't matter so much how attractive he was. If he can do politics, it's game over for everyone who can't.
rimliu 10y ago
If you are not attractive the likely scenario is that not many will want to be around you long enough to discover substance.

jaequery 10y ago

Idk, although I kind of get the gist of what you are saying, I've met plenty of unattractive people who are pleasant to be with. And for whatever reasons, I'm more attracted to talking to these (unattractive) people than some Brad Pitt look-a-likes. They tend to make me feel more at ease. Different strokes for different people I guess.

xor1 10y ago
>And for whatever reasons, I'm more attracted to talking to these (unattractive) people than some Brad Pitt look-a-likes. They tend to make me feel more at ease. I'm actually really interested in why you feel this way, if you could go into more detail.
- jaequery 10y ago
  I might be coming at this from a different angle but I think it comes down to competition. Well, I don't have any scientific proofs per se (bleh) but I think we are generally hard-coded from our DNA to try/want to be the most attractive. It's only when you are well aware it's not a threat, you'd be able to lower your guard down. Now, if we are talking about opposite sex, then that's a whole another type of conversation.
  - xor1 10y ago
    I am going to assume that you don't consider yourself to be exceptionally attractive. Correct me if I'm wrong. So, with that assumption, if you were able to wake up tomorrow morning and be on par with a "Brad Pitt" lookalike, how do you think that your reaction to interacting with them would change? What about with the other group of people that you currently prefer to engage with? After thinking about that, would you still prefer that things remain as they are? >Now, if we are talking about opposite sex, then that's a whole another type of conversation. This matters too, of course, unless you don't plan to interact with them at all in a professional environment :)
    - jaequery 10y ago

onmobiletemp 10y ago

Please stop, you are wrong. Im attractive and people hate me. Have you ever considered whats its like to be attractive? People are instantly jealous of you and hate you. And they make sure to lay judgement into you -- if you arent whip smart they will tear you down just like anyone else. I know ugly, average looking and good looking people who all do very well with people and in life. It comes down to your intelligence, not how you look. Please dont mutilate your face like a south korean teenager. Just like them you will find thay its not worth it.

throwayedidqo 10y ago
Are you female? Most of my attractive male friends are surrounded by both sexes but being an attractive female seems to make you a pariah.
- onmobiletemp 10y ago
  Im a guy
xor1 10y ago
>Please stop, you are wrong. Im attractive and people hate me. Have you ever considered whats its like to be attractive? People are instantly jealous of you and hate you. And they make sure to lay judgement into you -- if you arent whip smart they will tear you down just like anyone else. Sorry, but I've never seen anything like this happen after high school. Attractiveness is respected, especially if you can keep or improve it as you begin to age. >Please dont mutilate your face like a south korean teenager. If you're referring to the eyelid surgery, it's not THAT kind of eyelid surgery.
jaequery 10y ago
"Please stop, you are wrong". After reading the article, I can sort of see where the problem lies. Judging people does no good. =D
im3w1l 10y ago
Question for you and xor1. Are you talking about going from a 1 to a 5, from a 5 to an 8 or from an 8 to a 10? My intuition is that at the deformed end of the spectrum, any improvement is going to be 99% positive and that it starts to become more of a mixed blessing as you approach perfection.

peterwwillis 10y ago

Attractive is not physical appearance or good looks. Attractive is a culmination of all the factors that can be observed or known that will give a positive impression. It is usually much more important to carry yourself as attractive than to be beautiful. Confidence, honesty, friendliness, integrity, etc all can be assumed by a picture of a beautiful person, but in practice it's body language that portrays these qualities better. In addition, things like humor and other tips in the article can control someone's impression much more than looks. Make yourself hot if you want. But if you're still insecure or unhappy inside, it's going to come off as unattractive. (Unless you then act more alpha as a defense mechanism to this... Behavior is complicated)

xor1 10y ago
>But if you're still insecure or unhappy inside, it's going to come off as unattractive. What makes you think that I'm insecure or unhappy to begin with? I see this as an investment in myself.
- scrollaway 10y ago
  I certainly didn't think you were either, but now you took what was pretty clearly a generic statement as a personal one and I can't help but rethink that.
  - xor1 10y ago
    I don't see how you think that it wasn't personal given the preceding sentence.
ThrustVectoring 10y ago
Yeah, how you carry yourself is a huge part of it. A year of dancing is worth at least a standard deviation of attractiveness, IMO. And in terms of speech, I think it's much more how you say it than what you say.
m_fayer 10y ago
Absolutely. A face will change in subjective attractiveness depending on the mental temperature of it's owner. Benevolence, tranquility, conspiratorial crackling wit, real empathy - seeing these on people's faces makes them immensely attractive. And both your personality and your face get used to these mental dispositions and settle into them. So eventually we all get the face we deserve.

mercer 10y ago

On the whole you're correct and there are many studies that confirm that attractiveness is a big advantage in countless ways. However: 1. attractive is relative. Many, of not most people who are not considered attractive are also not considered unattractive. Just average, like most other people. Being average in looks can be compensated for in many other ways. I know many people who think they're unattractive when they're perfectly average. 2. I believe a strong confounding (or mediating?) variable is confidence and 'niceness'. Pretty people experience less bullying, more positive interactions, etc., which in turn makes them more confident and 'nice' (no need to hate the world, so to speak), which then makes them more attractive. Some of the most popular, nice, successful people I've known were far from attractive, but they were confident and nice. Or even just confident.

throwayedidqo 10y ago

Thank God I'm not the only guy that wears sunscreen! I've shared the same opinion as you for most of my life. I really got a strong dose of truth in highschool. I got tired of getting picked on and being out of shape in freshman year. I was a loner and a punching bag for kids having a bad day. I started exercising to stop people from bothering me. I still kept to myself and maintained my outsider status at first, but it didn't last long. The swimming and wrestling coaches wouldn't leave me alone by junior year, and soon after they noticed everyone else did to. The attention I got from being in shape and attractive was extreme and foreign to me. There was maybe a year lag time that I associate with everyone consciously forgetting who I used to to be. After that, shit got real. I started getting attention from the popular kids even though I maintained my "loner" friends. I suddenly had several groups of friends that didn't want to be seen around each other. I was asked to join several sports, and in my senior year I gave in. Once I broke through to sports my popularity was official, and I started getting invites to the richest most popular people's parties. The craziest part of the attention was the girls. I got groped by women all the time. Women would openly comment on how attractive I was fairly often. Sometimes women in public would catcall me. My mom's friends would openly try to set me up with their daughters. On more than one occasion while drinking, girls I knew but had never touched would literally jump on me and start making out. And before you think I'm too much of a douchebag, I'm overweight and rather old now. A lot of people will say "it's all confidence" but I'm just as confident as I ever was. Now that I'm not attractive and older it's just called "disgruntled". It's hard to tell anyone that has been attractive that attractiveness is not important. I've seen it for myself.

bardworx 10y ago
Ahh dude, you were sooo close but missed the point entirely. Issue with being attractive in HS is it's cheap. You may actually be disgruntled because you sorta miss the "old you". Problem with this whole post is that your attractiveness didn't permeate to the core of your person. I also had a similar story as you, except when I joined the football team and hung out with the cool kids, I didn't give a shit what anyone said about my old friends and went back to hang out with them. They were good people and their company never accompanied snide remarks about your choice of clothing, music, etc. One thing I've learned is being the cool guy give you this amazing ability to actually conversant with many different groups and bring people together. That particular ability will earn you way more social browny points then anything else. It will also make you happy, because people will be happy to see you because of you, not because of how you look or who you hang out with. Just my 2 cents. Who knows, I could be wrong.

elorant 10y ago

The problem with being attractive as a male is twofold. You're constantly antagonized by other males, even in the most trivial things, and it's harder to been taken seriously because most people correlate good looks with low intelligence. Bottom line is that you have to try harder than everyone else because everywhere you go you'll face hostility, especially in the corporate world. For example, it took me a lot of years to realize why men where constantly bragging about their lives when I first met them. Initially I thought that this is common, that everyone does it. But it turns out that they do it because I'm good looking and they feel disadvantageous, even if I downplay the way I look. Imagine how it feels if pretty much everyone you meet comes with you with a fake personality. It wears you down and makes relationships too difficult.

xor1 10y ago
>because most people correlate good looks with low intelligence Where is this coming from?? I'd argue the opposite of this, if anything.
- colanderman 10y ago
  I think a lot of people (myself included) subconsciously assume that good-looking people got where they were based on looks rather than merits, especially if they hold a customer-facing role. (I'm certainly not claiming that this bias is valid.)
  - pacificleo11 10y ago
    This is true and its true for women too. So often it's assumed that attractive women irrespective of their job type got where they were based on looks rather than merits

scandox 10y ago

Don't confuse looks and attractiveness. In person attractiveness is mostly not about looks. One of the ugliest men I know is also the most attractive to others (yes both sexes): confidence, warmth, a dash of rascality and a great sense of vitality and fun. People want poetry in their lives...not to admire each other's perfect eyelids.

puranjay 10y ago
I've felt that the most 'attractive' people I know are also the most energetic. They just have a fun energy about them, a very "Let's Go!" attitude to ideas and things. Being fun and energetic trumps 'attractiveness' any day in social situations. Of course, good looks help, but it isn't the only weapon in the game.

prolly_a_moron 10y ago

>The past few years have made me realize that your appearance only becomes more important as you age and progress in a white-collar career You don't think the same shallow people judging your looks will judge your plastic surgery?

bane 10y ago

Yeah, a related and very funny satire of this truth was the old SNL skit on sexual harassment. http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/sexual-harassment/2751966?snl=1 http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/sexual-harassme...

joncrocks 10y ago
For anyone outside the US that can't access the video, there's a transcript here: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/04/04qfunhouse.phtml http://snltranscripts.jt.org/04/04qfunhouse.phtml Be Handsome.. Be Attractive.. and Don't Be Unattractive.
probably_wrong 10y ago
The video is available also on Vimeo, for those that cannot see it: https://vimeo.com/30042289 https://vimeo.com/30042289

M_Grey 10y ago

I think you're confusing two very different kinds of personal appeal, and this can be seen most in the way that attractive people are often allowed to talk, but aren't required to listen. On a separate note, I'd warn people (as someone to whom people have always freely talked) it can be a bad thing! You might not see this, and I understand that a lot of people here struggle socially, but it can be terrible to be a "go-to" person. If it's your friends and family, it's a good thing most of the time, but how about in a large or casual group? The old, the infirm, the lonely... they're the first to realize that I'll be polite, listen, and engage. Sometimes they latch on, and it can be exceedingly difficult to shake them off without hurting them. Then, the crazy people and the broken people sense compassion and an ear, and they come running. To paraphrase a comedian's description of cleavage, being someone that people love to talk to does not discriminate. Sure, you attract the people you want to attract, but you attract EVERYONE ELSE too. It can be exhausting...

criddell 10y ago

Can you recommend a decent everyday sunscreen? The stuff I use is kind of gross and I only apply it when I know I'll burn if I don't.

xor1 10y ago
https://www.amazon.com/Olay-Total-Effects-Anti-Aging-Moisturizer/dp/B00HB2JQNM/ https://www.amazon.com/Olay-Total-Effects-Anti-Aging-Moistur... Don't buy it off Amazon, you're likely to get counterfeit product, and it's also much cheaper in stores.
ddorian43 10y ago
Goto dermatologist ? My dermatologist said some brands and from those I chose Rilastil 50+. Get the white-color one.
kaybe 10y ago
How about women's morning moisturizer? Some of them contain sunscreen and don't feel icky at all.

throwaway382822 10y ago

"men age like wine, women age like milk"

Nomentatus 10y ago

Believe it or not, the size of the place you live matters a lot here (re physical attactiveness.) In a big city, everyone tends to create a shiny superficial persona designed to make a good fast impression, 'cause you ain't seeing them again; and we tend to admire those who have that necessary big-city skill, too, even when we know them well. It's that important. Physically attractiveness really helps creating a compelling instant personna. But all this just doesn't fly in much smaller places such as a small town. Other factors rise to be at least equally important, such as both semantic and emotional honesty.