A lot of women underestimate the importance of their personality when it comes to attraction

pentatonicartichoke · 2025-01-04T13:19:16+00:00

It is painful to lose a good friends. But because I care about my friends, I respect their choice to do what's best for them.

Corbast7 · 2025-01-04T13:56:42+00:00

I think to an extent both men and women do this. Underestimating the importance of our own personality/behavior and overestimating the importance of our looks is a pretty common coping mechanism. Because we all feel “good personality” is harder to grasp than “how to look hot.” It’s the first thing we tend to blame when we feel insecure about our dating lives.

Also, it’s typically TRPer men telling us women in here that our personalities hardly matter to men, and that our looks and youth are being underestimated, so…Lol.

Mentathiel · 2025-01-04T14:31:40+00:00

If she doesn't, it's a lot healthier for the guy in question to slowly dissipate the relationship (or outright end it) to prevent himself from becoming even more attracted to her overtime and get more and more bitter until he catches a mental illness.

This is not a normal experience unless you're a hormonal teen first getting into romance. Unrequited crush shouldn't be mental illness inducing. This is limerence and may go as far as BPD. You're not at risk of getting a mental illness, if this is your experience you probably already have one or at least unhealthy patterns that are very close to one.

It's especially cruel when it's a woman you are genuinely into from every possible point of view, but it can just never be since it isn't mutual. And the feelings will only grow if she proves herself to be even better than what you've envisioned.

This is, again, limerence. The more you talk the more it just sounds like it. Please read up on it. "Oneitis" often mentioned here is a very close concept to it.

Anyway, my point is that we understand personality and attraction stuff, what we don't understand is why are you like my attraction is my destiny and unless I fulfill it I will keep longingly looking at it forever and ever. Like, can you not just casually be attracted, accept it's going nowhere, maybe take some time to process that, keep interacting with the person, and get over it? In my personal experience, when you're not in the limerent thinking tunnel, getting to know a person better actually helps the crush dissipate, if you distance yourself you can fantasize them into whatever you want them to be, but if you are friends you figure out their flaws and random things that would bug you and see that they're happier with others and are like ah well it really wouldn't work. Whereas if they're kept at a distance, you can always have WELL IF SHE ONLY KNEW fantasies about how perfect it would be and how she would accept you for who you are and bring out the best in you etc. Whereas if she's a friend you're kind of grounded in reality, and while reality can be appealing to, it's never as good as your fantasies.

I'm not in support of these friendships if people are not comfortable with them, but that is precisely because many people do have emotional troubles, suffer a lot, have false hopes, and can make dumb impulsive decisions later on in life like getting drunk and hooking up and ruining relationships etc. But it's kind of a bad thing that people are like this so much and it should not be normalized, Idk. As in, I respect your ability to know your limits and extract yourself from a situation where you may end up hurting yourself or somebody else. But I think those don't have to be your limits.

Demasii · 2025-01-04T13:21:50+00:00

Women are typically told their looks and youth are the only things that are valued at PPD. All individuals with healthy self esteems believe that personality matters.

What you described isn't typically the reason why a woman get upset at a male friend having feelings for her. It's vulture like behavior that's upsetting after the woman goes through with a break up.

-SidSilver- · 2025-01-04T14:24:25+00:00

If she doesn't, it's a lot healthier for the guy in question to slowly dissipate the relationship (or outright end it) to prevent himself from becoming even more attracted to her overtime and get more and more bitter until he catches a mental illness.

Like so many, you've latched a lot of bad beliefs onto what are the seeds of an otherwise very reasonable point, and this right here is where you - intentionally or otherwise - jumped the shark.

As a dude I think most of my successful, long term relationships came from getting to know women first and then her real beauty starting to emerge over time. Or meeting someone whose looks didn't make my heart shoot out of my chest and have me drooling like a cartoon character, but who had a few distinctive, vaguely attractive things about her that grew into something irresistible as her kick arse personality emerged.

But dude. First of all, that's NOT how mental illness works. I think that's a whole other post though.

I also think a bit of space after being shot down is probably healthy for the guy... but don't sacrifice what could otherwise, long term, be a great friendship just because she won't date you (possibly just that she won't date you yet, you never know).

Ultimately the things that would make you guys have a good relationship will constitute a good friendship, too. Sure, you'll have to redraw some boundaries, but spend enough time with someone and generally you'll find things about even the most perfect person that will make you just as happy that you're NOT dating them as if you were. It happens in relationships and contributes to a lot of them failing, so you can take that and make it a positive thing, while keeping a decent relationship with a meber of the opposite sex that doesn't revolve entirely around complex, messy romantic feelings.

Don't close doors that don't need closing.

Mentathiel · 2025-01-04T14:31:50+00:00

If she doesn't, it's a lot healthier for the guy in question to slowly dissipate the relationship (or outright end it) to prevent himself from becoming even more attracted to her overtime and get more and more bitter until he catches a mental illness.

This is not a normal experience unless you're a hormonal teen first getting into romance. Unrequited crush shouldn't be mental illness inducing. This is limerence and may go as far as BPD. You're not at risk of getting a mental illness, if this is your experience you probably already have one or at least unhealthy patterns that are very close to one.

It's especially cruel when it's a woman you are genuinely into from every possible point of view, but it can just never be since it isn't mutual. And the feelings will only grow if she proves herself to be even better than what you've envisioned.

This is, again, limerence. The more you talk the more it just sounds like it. Please read up on it. "Oneitis" often mentioned here is a very close concept to it.

Anyway, my point is that we understand personality and attraction stuff, what we don't understand is why are you like my attraction is my destiny and unless I fulfill it I will keep longingly looking at it forever and ever. Like, can you not just casually be attracted, accept it's going nowhere, maybe take some time to process that, keep interacting with the person, and get over it? In my personal experience, when you're not in the limerent thinking tunnel, getting to know a person better actually helps the crush dissipate, if you distance yourself you can fantasize them into whatever you want them to be, but if you are friends you figure out their flaws and random things that would bug you and see that they're happier with others and are like ah well it really wouldn't work. Whereas if they're kept at a distance, you can always have WELL IF SHE ONLY KNEW fantasies about how perfect it would be and how she would accept you for who you are and bring out the best in you etc. Whereas if she's a friend you're kind of grounded in reality, and while reality can be appealing to, it's never as good as your fantasies.

I'm not in support of these friendships if people are not comfortable with them, but that is precisely because many people do have emotional troubles, suffer a lot, have false hopes, and can make dumb impulsive decisions later on in life like getting drunk and hooking up and ruining relationships etc. But it's kind of a bad thing that people are like this so much and it should not be normalized, Idk. As in, I respect your ability to know your limits and extract yourself from a situation where you may end up hurting yourself or somebody else. But I think those don't have to be your limits.

GridReXX · 2025-01-04T13:27:20+00:00

⁠Ohhh so now PPD men are willing to admit more than “looks” can trigger desire-based attraction /s 🧐😆
⁠She knows that. She’s just frustrated that the relationship dynamic has changed. She’s essentially grieving the loss of the friendship. Because both you and her know it will not be the same now that that knowledge of his crush/romantic desire for her is known.

missmireya · 2025-01-04T15:31:43+00:00

In the past, every single man who has befriended me- Developed feelings or had ulterior motives from the very beginning.

I never befriend straight men anymore because of this.

Years ago, I even had one supervisor at my job (not friendly with but civil to) was indirectly declaring his love for me. We worked alone together for a few months, which made me horribly depressed because I knew he was attracted to me. He even told me that we would have a "future together".... Huh?

Dude, you smoke like a chimney, you have a massive beer gut, you make inappropriate comments and ask even more inappropriate questions. You are also balding and ugly as hell. Not to mention nearly 18 years older than me.

I still cringe thinking about it.

missmireya · 2025-01-04T15:35:09+00:00

I should also add- Do not befriend a woman just because you are attracted to her and have ulterior motives.

I can smell those desperate lame dudes from far away nowadays. If I were a different person, I'd use every single one of them just to show them a lesson. But I can't be bothered tbh.

RoseyButterflies · 2025-01-04T15:35:35+00:00

Sure personality matters and some people can develop an attraction to a friend they weren't originally attracted to. Then they may even develop feelings or a crush.

It's fine if they develop a crush as long as they can control it and don't become strangely obsessed or keep trying to breach boundaries. Then it gets annoying asf.

If I tell them I only like them as a friend then they keep giving me unwanted sexual attention it's sooo annoying. Like can you fucking not.

Sometimes it comes to a lack of respect with some guys, if they have been rejected but keep trying with unwanted sexual attention anyway.

It can be really hard to be friends with the opposite gender period because like, you think you gave a good thing with them and a friendship but then theyre suddenly trying to convince you to do only fans and saying they can be your camera man and it's like wtf is this 😂 realize pretty quickly the guy is just using you in some way 😑

No-Rough-7390 · 2025-01-04T15:50:14+00:00

I’d have to somewhat disagree.

This 100% depends on the desperation of the man in question and his experience level.

If a guy doesn’t interact with many women, he is VERY likely to want to attach himself to a woman friend of his. So sure her personality matters in that they are friends, but there’s also likely some sneaky fucker shit going on where he is making her likes his.

This is also true of his dealings with more attractive women.

The more women a man has experience around, the more her personality will matter in that he’ll be less tolerant of bullshit and behavior he doesn’t want and looking for a personality that complements his life. Sure, looks still matter, but it doesn’t override a pain in the ass.

GGMcThroway · 2025-01-04T17:32:42+00:00

But I thought men's preferences boiled down to nothing more than "don't be fat" and "don't be a bitch"???

I certainly think that personality is important. But men are going to need to actually acknowledge that if they want it to amount to anything "Nuh uh, I don't care! Personality is feelings and feeling are dumb things for women!!!" and otherwise acting like a petty teenager is not a good way to get that point across.

Every_Pirate_7471 · 2025-01-04T13:22:29+00:00

I’ve definitely experienced meeting a girl, not being that attracted to her when we were hanging out, but gotten more attracted to her the more I spend time with her. I chalk it more up to desiring to spend time with someone I enjoy spending time with though, not romantic interest, as I’ve learned that mentally associating that desire with romantic interest is only going to lead to me getting hurt.

Flightlessbirbz · 2025-01-04T16:01:47+00:00

Well, men are usually the ones saying personality doesn’t matter. You can’t really blame women for believing it. No, I don’t believe this is fully true for all men. Usually physical attraction has to come first before he cares about her personality, however, that doesn’t mean personality won’t factor into his desire to actually have a relationship with her.

So of course, it can happen the way you describe. I’d say most of the time, neither party has any malicious intentions in these situations. However, if you don’t feel the same way about your friend, you still have to reject them and grieve the loss of the friendship. It’s natural for him to be sad that she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings, and it’s also natural for her to be sad that the friendship has to end.

It’s also true that there are those guys who seem to think that being friends with a woman is building up some kind of currency that should buy them a sexual relationship, and get pretty pissy when it doesn’t. This is not most guys, but most women have experienced this at least once.

toasterchild · 2025-01-04T16:37:47+00:00

I don't think that my personality matters nearly as much as what men fantasize my personality to be based on the handful of things they know about me.

It's statistically unlikely that i am the perfect person for you just because we both listen to 2 of the same bands. Its unlikely that I am the perfect match for you just because I like going fishing.

Salt_Mathematician24 · 2025-01-04T14:25:20+00:00

Oh I wonder why. Nothing to do with men outright telling women they're visual and mainly care about looks and youth etc.

harmonica2 · 2025-01-04T15:15:53+00:00

I've noticed that some women end up falling for their fwbs when it was the women who initiated the arrangements.

So are women more likely to fall for their male friends if they are already having sex?

Downtown_Cat_1745 · 2025-01-04T22:48:25+00:00

There’s a difference between having a friend say that trying to be friends is painful because they want more that they can’t have, and a friend becoming cruel because he believed he was entitled to something that he was not

DelDivision · 2025-01-05T04:20:26+00:00

Patrice oneal said it best, what it takes for a man to get a woman is what it takes for a woman to keep a man from leaving after sex.

Innocent_boi_77 · 2025-01-04T14:15:27+00:00

There are cases:

1). Hot Women bad personality = You loose attraction after getting to know her personality.

2). Women whom you neither find attractive nor unattractive:

a). Good Personality = Attraction goes up

b). Bad Personality = Attraction vanishes

3). Women you find unattractive = Not much here

As for being in touch with friends if they reject you, I don't get how can you become so attached to a single women, sure she would be good women but there are thousands like her. And even better. Being nice, caring and loving is bare minimum. If some women are all 3 doesn't make that very special, it is good maybe rare but no unique. You would expect that bare min from a women in relationship.

If x women does not find you attractive then it mean SHE does not FEEL attraction towards you NOT YOU are UGLY.

Heart Broken, geez. How can love be one sided?

Low-Cockroach7733 · 2025-01-04T18:34:13+00:00

It's also especially true that an attractive girl can become pump and dump/only hook up material as a guy finds out more about their personality and character. Personality is important for relationships. Ive known so many girls who think being pretty will be enough to get the guy they want and then they are surprised that they're pumped and dumped because the guy finds them too boring, basic 304s.

OtPayOkerSmay · 2025-01-04T16:22:59+00:00

I think just like attraction can generate over-time for someone you initially had not many feelings for isn't an exclusive experience to women. Men are perfectly capable of this.

Unless the guy is actively trying to make himself more attractive (looksmaxxing as it were), she won't lust for him just because time has passed. She might find him more appealing as a potential partner because his partner-appeal improved (status, finances, lifestyle) and she's tired of the guys she lusts for just wanting NSA/FWB, but she doesn't just magically find a settle guy attractive unless he has made leaps and bounds in terms of sex-appeal.

Women say they became attracted over time because it paints them in a way better light than saying "I don't find him attractive, but I can see the value he would bring to a long term relationship." Various women will say a lot of things that aren't truthful for social brownie points, and this is no exception.

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GuyInTenn · 2025-01-04T13:28:45+00:00

Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal had a thing or two to say about this. (personally, I'm going to have to go with Billy Crystal on this one)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEV_pQIf3Og

HereToShowOff123 · 2025-01-05T06:09:25+00:00

You can meet a girl, think to yourself "yeah she's fine but not really my type" and as she demonstrates attractive personality traits throughout the friendship, your romantic sensors start to tingle and you grow to find her attractive in that way.

Question: do you have any scientific evidence to substantiate this claim, or is this basically just "trust me bro" shit?

Because the science is pretty clear on this matter: your looks are your personality.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4873083/

Research on personality has shown that perceiving a person as attractive fosters positive expectations about his/her personal characteristics. Literature has also demonstrated a significant link between personality traits and occupational achievement. Present research examines the combined effects of attractiveness, occupational status, and gender on the evaluation of others’ personality, according to the Big Five model. The study consisted of a 2 (Attractiveness: High vs. Low) x 2 (occupational Status: High vs. Low) x 2 (Target gender: Male vs. Female) between-subjects experimental design (N = 476). Results showed that attractive targets were considered more positively than unattractive targets, and this effect was even stronger for male targets. Occupational status influenced perceived agreeableness (lower for high-status targets) and perceived conscientiousness (higher for high-status targets).

BUFFBOYZ4Lyfe · 2025-01-06T22:42:29+00:00

I'm convinced most women want a male friend for free attention or validation

Hosj_Karp · 2025-01-07T07:59:40+00:00

The weirdest hill RP men die on is the idea that personality doesn't matter to men.

Vivacious, confident, passionate women are so much more attractive than timid and reserved women and it absolutely can partly offset physical unattractiveness.

AntiHypergamist · 2025-01-04T13:07:31+00:00

It's pure projection from females, they think just because they are faking being nice that means men were faking being her friend to get sex. Lashing out just shows their true colors and how stuck up some of them are

mashedturnip · 2025-01-04T17:54:51+00:00

Attraction is about pussy, not personality, by definition

Otherwise, you would be fine being friends

Lust is easy and common; respect and amity is not

SituacijaJeSledeca · 2025-01-04T19:47:42+00:00

Hard disagree. Women do not need personality, if they did need it (or it was important) they would struggle with dating. We all know thats not true, women DO NOT struggle with dating or sex, only ones with absolutely delusional standards and their own looks do. Men, however, even with good personalities struggle to date. Look at Jeremy Meeks, cheater, kid beater, gun trafficker and pulled more good looking women then 99% of men ever.

Title	A lot of women underestimate the importance of their personality when it comes to attraction
Author	LevelCaterpillar1830
Upvotes	82
Comments	172
Date	January 4, 2025 1:00 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1htdw79/a_lot_of_women_underestimate_the_importance_of/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/a-lot-of-women-underestimate-the-importance-of.1540378 https://theredarchive.com/post/1540378

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