My handsome, successful male cousins are getting married to women I perceive as "average". None of them are with beautiful women. This also reflects what I notice in society (not including Hollywood). Am I missing something here?

SeemedGood · 2025-07-10T20:53:56+00:00

External and superficial physical beauty in women is dime a dozen, and women have such high overlap in what they find attractive that if you are a man who is attractive to women you will have plenty of opportunity with “hot girls.” Once the “hotness” novelty wears off (most of which is really rooted in our own insecurity about how we are perceived), so does a lot of the “hotness” value, and we become more sensitive to and focused on the things which actually turn us on and make women attractive to us, many of which are character and behavior based.

And what we often find is that “hot” women tend to focus on and rely on their looks which can spoil or retard character development and lead to poor behavior.

Show me the hottest woman in the world, and I’ll show you 3 men who no longer want anything to do with her because they’re tired of her nonsense.

What is much more rare (and sexy and pleasurable) are women who are a joy to be around and who truly enhance our lives with their presence. Once we no longer need the ego boost of arm candy, those characteristics become far more important than external and superficial physical beauty.

Think about it this way: for men who have decent access to “hot girls,” character and behavior is worth +2/-5 in the looks department (and yes the implication is that the average woman gets a -1.5 deficit for character/behavior). So a 9 with a shallow and shite attitude grades out at a 4 and a 6 who is cool, kind, introspective, and objectively self critical grades out at an 8.

Alone_Ambition_3729 · 2025-07-11T08:05:10+00:00

Super handsome/successful men get to pick any woman they want, with no chip on their shoulder to prove they can “pull”.

Most of the time the ultimate woman is a low maintenance 6/10 who shares his values and who is and has genuine unreserved fun in the bedroom.

Perfect_Sir4820 · 2025-07-10T21:25:52+00:00

Some men have different priorities in long-term mate selection than pure attractiveness. This isn't new ground or some weird mystery!

Schleudergang1400 · 2025-07-10T20:34:58+00:00

I'd like to think that you are just bad at rating their attractiveness or overall mate value. It's not that important to be looksmatched, if the overall mate value for the respective person is about equal. This mostly goes hand in hand with somewhat equal attractiveness.

kvakerok_v2 · 2025-07-11T08:24:46+00:00

As someone who's dated both 10s and 8s, and married an 8 before, there's something you don't know about the beautiful women your cousins meet and about the women they've married.

Extremely beautiful women live life on extra easy mode and are often spoiled to the point of being infantilized to the max and throwing batshit crazy adult tantrums when things don't go their way. Only a 10 will playfully throw a pitcher full of water at your head on date 5 and think nothing of it (yes, this is from experience). Down to earth 10s that keep it real are one in a million, if that. They're more rare than multimillionaires. They typically get snatched up back in high school and stay partnered up for the rest of their lives. Thus, by age 20 the vast majority of the single 10s of similar age you see are poison flowers. By 30 they're all poison flowers.

Consequently, the reason you see many attractive guys marry 8s, is because they are still pretty cute, but not to the degree where life turns them into entitled princesses en masse.

onlyaseeker · 2025-07-11T04:46:12+00:00

They likely prefer a 10 in personality with a 5-10 in looks, than a 8-10 in looks, and a 1-5 in personality.

I know people are more than their looks and personality, I'm just simplifying it.

It's a bit like being poor. If you're poor and you eventually end up with a better lifestyle, you appreciate it more. But if you've spent your whole life being privileged and getting handed everything, you don't tend to appreciate it And take it for granted.

In the context of a relationship, this looks like attractive people being not very good people, and less attractive people, being better people. It's not always the case, but quite often it will be because less attractive people have to get by on more than their looks. They don't have pretty privilege.

Also, not everyone who is attractive wants or is able to win over someone who is similarly attractive.

For example, I am not interested in women who are very conventionally attractive. I have a type and and certain values, and I am interested in people who are a match to that. To other people, such people may be less physically attractive than others. But to me, they are more physically attractive to me. Even if I acknowledge that some other people might be more conventionally attractive. It's subjective.

I find people who have certain values and traits to be more attractive than people without them, even if the people without them are more physically attractive.

You might find these videos helpful app explaining the dynamics:

https://youtu.be/N_0Q3hVuFtc

https://youtu.be/n4aMiAesXjE

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vh0hj9ZD9FY

https://youtu.be/RB1Ed_kvZNM

Throw_r_a_2021 · 2025-07-10T20:58:37+00:00

Hoeflation.

Look, maybe your handsome male cousins would have ended up with “mid” women at another time in history too, we’ll simply never know. But maybe your handsome male cousins ended up with mid women because that was the best deal they felt like they could get in the modern dating market.

throwaway73737828 · 2025-07-11T05:47:37+00:00

The typical relationship path of a attractive guy is this. When they were young, they fuck the most attractive women possible, however when they become 24-25 they tend to go for a 6 out of 10 women. Its because the women who are 6 out of 10 do more for him, they tend to be less angry, they are more peaceful. When you are dating a above 8-9 women, they are intolaretive when you dont do the thing they say they become angry, they do the bare minimum in relationship compare to 6/10 girl, she get constantly approached which will test your masculinity all the time and many more problems.

Thats why attractive men go ltr with a 6 out of 10 girl more often.

hostility_kitty · 2025-07-11T16:54:24+00:00

Throat goat Rebecca > pillow princess Stacey

berichorbeburied · 2025-07-10T20:01:17+00:00

I already understand it

After deep thinking. Most men do not get with women they are sexually attracted to. They get with women for other reasons. Or relative attraction. Relative attraction meaning more attractive than other women. More attractive than him or attractive enough compared to x.

But the moral of the story is they are not truly sexually attracted. They can have sex with them. Be intimate. But there is no burning desire and lust and sexual attraction for them.

They might watch porn. Might leer at other women irl in public or lust secretly. But the woman they choose does not reflect their lusts and desires

And tbh I don’t think many men actually know what they 109% lust for. They know what’s attractive. What’s more attractive than other things. But what they lust fir. What’s sexually attractive that’s a different story

Most men are not with their sexual fantasy that they want to have sex with everyday. Most men are with a woman they like. Or that’s ok. Or better than others. Or they care about. Or so they won’t be alone. Or just because she wants him or etc.

This epiphany I had makes a lot of sense and explains alot of what I see. I’m not really focusing on why women choose men. Because that’s irrelevant and has less to do with why these men are with the women u see them with. But they lust after women who look significantly better and/or different then the women they are with. Which always puzzled me until now

HolyCopeAmoly · 2025-07-10T20:36:20+00:00

I just don't want to end up with a fatty, what can I do to circumvent this?

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James_M_Croft · 2025-07-11T13:39:25+00:00

None of them are with beautiful women. This also reflects what I notice in society (not including Hollywood). Am I missing something here?

Nope. You seeing it correctly. Men are not (naturally) hypergamous, They don't go out of their way to get the best woman possible, even when for all intents and purposes they could or maybe even should.

They go for what surpass a subjective threshold. Men are satisfiers not maximizers, and a mid woman who is not too much of a burden is good enough for 80%+ of guys.

You could say men are more attracted to less negative traits than bigger positive traits, even if they can be compensated. (we all know a guy who is with a girl with big assets but is crazy for example, when she loses her assets she becomes a net negative and is left)

Path A) ...
Path B) ...

These guys, you will notice, are not actually going for the best individuals either. They are going for as many that are above their threshold as possible.This trait is called Polygyny by TRP. The Male impulse, it is not talked about or happen much because men do not follow their instinct without some serious rationale under it often.

catdog8020 · 2025-07-11T20:34:51+00:00

I think what your missing here is that the sexual market value for men has decreased due to hoeflation (dating market inflation for men due to OLD).

I also see this trend men’s value has decreased. If a man SMV is an 8 he will need to subtract 2 so his adjusted SMV is now a 6. For a women her value has increased so we add 2 for her. So if a woman is a 5.5 her new SMV is a 7.5.

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