I'm seriously starting to believe women are better off dating men that are a little "out of their league" physically..

plein_old · 2016-11-25T17:11:51+00:00

Rather than worrying about "leagues" why not just choose men who love themselves and truly appreciate women?

A man who dislikes himself and who (perhaps secretly) has contempt for women... such a man can give you calculated compliments at times. But can he give you love?

electrokiwi · 2016-11-25T09:17:37+00:00

This is fascinating, because I firmly believe the opposite and have read the opposite in studies.

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.livescience.com/7483-beautiful-women-marry-attractive-men.html

In my experience, the uglier guys appreciate you more, are more willing to provide etc. I'm a decently attractive girl and I always date guys a step or two below my attractiveness level because otherwise I tend to feel insecure as to how he values me. The unfortunate side effect is that a guy with low self esteem and less attractive will turn into a total beta, so the guy has to be secure in himself in other ways.

ta8421 · 2016-11-25T14:37:45+00:00

This seems to be part of the don't waste time with men who aren't very attractive to you principle. Relationships don't work when people settle. If you're truly in a LTR with them, they're not out of your league, you've just picked well, and are inspired to be the trophy you are.

If you're with a dimwit, and they compliment your intelligence, it doesn't mean much to you. Conversely, if you're with an incredibly intelligent, competent, person, and they compliment your intelligence, you're likely very intelligent yourself, and it feels good that you both know it.

Kiivaa · 2016-11-25T19:52:31+00:00

I think it's almost impossible to analyze this because people are so unreliable at both self-assessment and judging the looks of their partner (who they presumably love/are highly attracted to).

There's a different forum filled with ladies that had a thread a few months back, and the idea was to post a picture of your husband alongside the celebrity he most resembles. Ladies, it was hilarious. There were guys who I literally would rank as a 1 or 2 looks wise, and their wives were absolutely, earnestly convinced that they looked "just like" David Beckham or Tom Brady. It was crazy reading the descriptions and then seeing the guys who were being described. Many of the women numerically referred to their guys as a 9 or 10, and they objectively were not even 5s.

My point is, I think what matters is finding a guy you personally think is super attractive and who thinks you're super attractive. If he loves you and treats you well, and you have a great sex life, that means you match.

I think what many women are saying here is that they dated a guy who was more attractive and who treated them better than the guy who was less attractive. Well...it's also possible that the "less attractive" guy became less attractive to you because he was inattentive and didn't make you feel sexy. Maybe the "more attractive" guy isn't more attractive because of the width of his biceps or his jawline, but because he has a sweet smile, treats you well, makes you feel feminine, and surprises you.

The way someone makes you feel is way more important when it comes to attraction (for women) than whether someone is a 5 or a 7. If you go way out of your own range I think there'll be issues, but in general you'll end up with someone very close to your own looks. That said, I think it's adorable that every woman thinks she's got a super hottie.

lidlredridinghood · 2016-11-26T01:35:29+00:00

My captain is certainly "above my league" (I'm working to raise my SMV) and my previous partners have all been equal or below my league, except for one, who I think I was a plate of.

Gotta say, this relationship is working way better for me. Sometimes I feel insecure, that he can get any girl he wants (which is statistically true) but he really listens and gives a fuck that I'm feeling insecure. No one else has ever tried as much as this guy does.

Boygzilla · 2016-11-26T13:47:34+00:00

This one's easy. The two guys "below" you were letting their insecurities show, the latter using jealousy tactics to try to raise your perceived him image of him closer to you. The former was trying to lower your self-perceived image closer to him by sending out criticisms. It's a low-value male move. The only way a guy can date a girl at par or above him physically is through extreme confidence and emotional stoicism, maintaining a self-assured playfulness. Any sign of beta won't be well tolerated by a girl who has even the slightest hunch she can do better.

Back to whether a girl should date out of her league: I'd say yes, but they've got to be cognizant of their age and objective attractiveness. Decent looking girls through their mid to late 20's have a ton of options and can easily date men above them looks-wise. Can't tell you how many times I've caught myself adjusting my assessment of a girl on a dating app once I see their age.

PinkTulipz · 2016-11-25T13:14:14+00:00

While I don't think there is a direct causation, this has been a bias I've had in mind myself for a while.

The two best looking guys I've dated (including my current), I considered physically out of my league initially. They're also the two most generous and kind boyfriends I've had.

I do think people who have shortcomings in certain areas always try to overcompensate to make others believe they have more value in general - so that may apply here.

More importantly though, I don't think that it's as difficult to score a good looking "out of my league" guy as I once believed. For men, their potential partner pool is smaller. Even the most attractive guy has to work harder for sex than an average or below average girl. So long as you take care of yourself well (good health, hygiene, personality), it balances out the dynamic and you can aim for a more attractive man.

Natural_RP · 2016-11-25T22:16:37+00:00

It is my personal and anecdotal experience that women VASTLY overestimate their attractiveness. On the "real" one to ten scale that is bell curved.

Example Margot Robbie is an 8, honestly. But most average girls that aren't fat think they are at least an 8, if not a nine.

TL;DR You're probably not as hot as you think you are and most likely "dating" out of your league always. This is kind of explained by the 80-20 rule.

rainyweathergirl · 2016-11-25T16:42:52+00:00

I can second this. I am personally about a 4. I am short and dumpy with bad teeth. I have gone for guys in my league and they were not open to a relationship with me. The only men who have actually been open to a relationship with me are the nicest looking ones I have dated. My DH and the father of my kids is cute and Asian and is about a 7. He just has the most handsome face and the hottest body. He's very awkward and shy in his personality though and never had a serious relationship prior to me. He loves it and it really turns him on when I compliment him and tell him how handsome he is. The guy I was dating before him was a 6 foot muscular Asian guy who was so dreamy looking but he wasn't very stable and he had a tendency to be really flaky. I have showed interest in less attractive and older men and I was happy to date them but they didn't want to know. Strange.

Waterboo2 · 2016-11-25T20:36:58+00:00

go back and read the sidebar here and maybe even TRP. this AWALT post is literally the exact cause of the cock carousel, alpha-widowing, "not attracted to you anymore" divorce, and "she's not haaaaaapy". date in your league or below it. any advice you are ever told to date above your league is not redpill... it's AWALT.

With tbe guy out of my league, I felt sexy as hell.

when a guy is physically more attractive than you, the only way for you to get attention is by giving up sex without commitment. it's easy for him to use that to compel your sex without you getting any commitment at all.

you're getting tingles all the time. you are no longer the keeper of sex. he is. but since he's the keeper of commitment, he's now the keeper of sex and commitment. you have no control in the relationship. this is the classic scenario of the cock carousel, hooking up on tinder, and the post-wall pump-and-dump.
especially if you have no other redeeming qualities (e.g. true common interests you can spend multiple hours a day doing together [sex doesn't count], cooking skills, housekeeping), your only value to him is sex.
female's physical attractiveness only goes down starting at about age 25, and plummets when she hits the wall around 30. staying in shape, wearing shitloads of makeup, and having surgery only slows down how much you're losing. it will never get you more attractive than you were 21-24. in contrast, men can easily rise in physical attractiveness until mid 30s. if he's not a lazy ass, and has good genes, he can stay in shape and barely lose any looks into his 40s and even early 50s. so if you're 25+ and already behind, that gap is only going to get bigger.
most of all, this alpha widows you. when you're dating a guy out of your league (chad), you're usually shirking commitment and giving up sex to keep his attention. most guys in this scenario will leave you when their options get better. your looks are getting worse past 25, so the likelihood that you'll attract a guy above this chad falls to zero. you will forever compare every guy you date (and fuck) to chad even if you didn't get commitment from chad. so when hit your late 20s or early 30s and you finally seek commitment, you will realize that the only guys you will be able to attract and get commitment from will be significantly lower than chad. and these guys will disgust you. if they don't immediately, they will eventually disgust you. you will transition to the stereotypical "she's not haaaaaapy" girl, and eventually to "not attracted to you anymore" divorce.

do not do this. you will permanently damage yourself.

thescarletlilly · 2016-11-30T04:56:48+00:00

I think the solution involves fixing imbalance, rather than needing to go for someone above your league.

I've been with less attractive guys, and they DO get insecure and abusive; especially if they are very Liberal. They have no issues using a woman for sex, but they are terrible about their fear of being used for money. Uncontrolled insecurity often leads to abuse. They also wanted all the traditional female gender roles, but to give none of the male roles, and to ensure the lady pays for everything and is educated too. They often want no kids. It's a have your cake and eat it too situation, I've noticed.

Now that I am dating a guy who is similar to me in attraction ( though I am slightly more attractive), he is above me in terms of family and earning potential ( we are both in University, but he is doing his masters and has money saved up, and no student debt, whereas I have no savings and student debt).

My being slightly more attractive in the sexual market place balances things out.( He thinks I am beautiful and very attractive, but I am more harsh and 'realistic' on myself.) I feel a bit insecure financially, but I know he does not care about that stuff. He wants a pretty girlfriend he can be proud to take out and show off, who is loyal, who he can get along with, and can build a family with. He knows he can get that from me, and we have that together. He treats me very well and steps up his game when needed.

Other boyfriends who did not want to build families or who were really into money and female independence were just horrific. They also tried to make me less attractive, wear less make-up and clothing, and flipped out whenever another man looked at me. They knew I was above them and that they were not giving a good trade, at least subconsciously.

While I know I am only a little bit more attractive than him, I still have step up my game to be a good girlfriend to him, and maintain my attractiveness; he gets a lot of good looking girls in his class and who he has to work with.

It may sound like I am humble bragging, but I have a lot of behavioural and cognitive changes to make( you can see my humiliating post on this board), along with house work and cooking, hence my being here.

The point is, we see the value in one another, we both know we need to step up our games and maintain ourselves to work, and we appreciate what we have in one another, skills and contributions wise.

This is why I personally disagree with this article, I hope I am being respectful when I say this. When the newness fades and the 'sex high' goes away, what's left is what we trade with each other and work on in balance, it seems.

I am very happy you found someone who makes you feel sexy and treats you well. You may also be just the type of attractive he looks for, and you may be too hard on yourself as well. Some men find some actresses I find incredible looking to be unattractive, and vice vera. He chose you, so surely he finds you attractive.

( sorry for the long post, and i hope it wasn't too personal and was constructive)

HappyLollie · 2016-11-25T12:19:45+00:00

I actually agree with this, my SO is definitely a bit out of my league, he's a very attractive guy that definitely grabs women's eyes when we're out and about! Although I'm not bad myself, he's probably the better looking one out of us. He dated a few 'models' before dating me and although they were beautiful and all, he didn't really enjoy their time together they also usually had the wrong sort of attitude. he'd rather have a pretty girl with a great personality than a stunning girl with nothing else going on.

VigilantRedRooster · 2016-11-25T20:57:30+00:00

There's a common expression that goes, "Women marry up, men settle down." Happy stable couples tend to be within a point or so of each other.

mwait · 2016-11-25T17:01:13+00:00

I do believe that this is a real thing...

Trying to be as objective as possible, I consider myself to have a very high SMV. 30yo male, 6'4", very fit/lean, good career/income, etc. My face is probably my best attribute, though. I have, historically, had my best relationships with girls who were ~1-2 points below me. The women I have dated who were the "hottest" typically lacked in other areas, which made them poor candidates for a true LTR. The tended to use their looks as a fall-back and didn't put nearly as much effort into other areas of the relationship.

However, the girls who were 1-2 points below me seemed to realize that they had a man who was slightly "out of their league", and put a huge amount of effort into maintaining the relationship. Whether this was keeping things together around the house or trying extra hard in the bedroom... these relationships were much more fulfilling to me. These girls also tended to be smarter and have much better personalities, on average.

FWIW, I also felt much more secure in these relationships. I don't consider myself to be a jealous guy by any means... And I am generally quite secure. However, as bad as this may sound, there is something to be said for knowing that you are the physical superior to the typical mate your SO would be able to obtain.

ElfFey · 2016-11-26T14:31:00+00:00

Although I attribute it to the low confidence I had in my early 20s, this was my experience too. I dated men severely below my league and they all went through phases where they seemed hell-bent on shaking my (already minimal) confidence. Since finding rpw I had to ask myself why I ever went out with those guys...It was a mistake due to not knowing my own worth.

When I was 25 I dated a guy in his 40's who lived with his mom. Now I find out he is at least 10 years older than he told me he was. Fast forward two years later -- focused on study and self improvement. I'm now dating a guy who is 2 years older than me (so a little young for me), has his own apartment, 2 jobs, one being a fitness trainer (so he has a great body), he's incredibly smart... Like I kind of think I wasted my early 20s because when telling him he looks good he says "You should have seen me before!" When we go out women flirt with him it drives me crazy as I've never had to deal with this. I just never thought I could attract a man like this. But I studied rp (the stuff on the male sub about self improvement I actually started with, very low confidence) and then rpw, the caliber of men that pursued me after that was from another class. One of my exes had told me I'm not even pretty.

My mom told me it's the difference between the coffee grounds on the bottom and the cream on top.

JackGetsIt · 2016-11-28T02:47:16+00:00

There's a lot of debate in this thread and good discussion. I think the redpill answer is simple.

Women need to respect, envy, admire and in general look up to their men.

It helps in the chemical bonding process, it makes for better orgasm in women (which also helps the bonding process), it creates a sense of security women desperately need and above all if a man is too close to a women in her real or perceived SMV she will be tempted to cheat or end the relationship for greener pastures (which will conveniently appear to be all around as a result of the mismatch!). Men don't need to marry 'down' per say but they need to marry a women who they have resoundingly vetted as 'loyal' and this is normally someone a bit lower in SMV then he is capable of superficially or short term attracting. A man's SMV may shift due to job loss or illness and a women needs a strong initial bond and a feeling that he is above her for her to ride out these emotional waves. Of course if he's too high in value she will live a life full of anxiety and fear, so of course there needs to be careful considerations made by both partners during courtship.

Interestingly several of my own LTR's have ended because I've done too good of a job of raising my partners SMV (helping her lose weight, dress better, deal with stress in life, counseling, etc). I'm not going to stop doing this but I've always wondered if this is the motivation behind why some guys mistreat their wives/LTR's. They secretly don't want them to realize that they have value and can do better. Young men are often taught to treat em like dirt and they stick like mud and unfortunately it works on many many women.

Waterboo2 · 2016-11-29T06:37:56+00:00

Studies have shown that marriages where the woman is better looking than the husband have higher rates of marital satisfaction for the wife and the husband. The purported reasoning behind it being that men care about beauty but women not so much. But women care about having supportive husbands. Men will be more supportive if their wife is better looking than them because they feel they need to give something extra to provide the necessary value for having a better looking wife. And since the wives care less about the man's looks, but care a lot about his support, it feels like she is gaining with no downside. And since the husbands care much more about looks than they do about giving support, it feels like he is gaining with no downside.

see: http://www.livescience.com/7483-beautiful-women-marry-attractive-men.html

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/do-looks-really-matter-yes-and-209451

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/marriage-study_n_4299002

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2510479/Love-Trust-No-GOOD-LOOKING-wife-makes-happy-marriage-according-men-.html

The two studies in question:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18266540

"Abstract Physical appearance plays a crucial role in shaping new relationships, but does it continue to affect established relationships, such as marriage? In the current study, the authors examined how observer ratings of each spouse's facial attractiveness and the difference between those ratings were associated with (a) observations of social support behavior and (b) reports of marital satisfaction. In contrast to the robust and almost universally positive effects of levels of attractiveness on new relationships, the only association between levels of attractiveness and the outcomes of these marriages was that attractive husbands were less satisfied. Further, in contrast to the importance of matched attractiveness to new relationships, similarity in attractiveness was unrelated to spouses' satisfaction and behavior. Instead, the relative difference between partners' levels of attractiveness appeared to be most important in predicting marital behavior, such that both spouses behaved more positively in relationships in which wives were more attractive than their husbands, but they behaved more negatively in relationships in which husbands were more attractive than their wives. These results highlight the importance of dyadic examinations of the effects of spouses' qualities on their marriages."

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2013-35735-001

"Abstract Do men value physical attractiveness in a mate more than women? Scientists in numerous disciplines believe that they do, but recent research using speed-dating paradigms suggests that males and females are equally influenced by physical attractiveness when choosing potential mates. Nevertheless, the premise of the current work is that sex differences in the importance of physical attractiveness are most likely to emerge in research on long-term relationships. Accordingly, the current work drew from 4 independent, longitudinal studies to examine sex differences in the implications of partner physical attractiveness for trajectories of marital satisfaction. In all 4 studies, both partners’ physical attractiveness was objectively rated at baseline, and both partners reported their marital satisfaction up to 8 times over the first 4 years of marriage. Whereas husbands were more satisfied at the beginning of the marriage and remained more satisfied over the next 4 years to the extent that they had an attractive wife, wives were no more or less satisfied initially or over the next 4 years to the extent that they had an attractive husband. Most importantly, a direct test indicated that partner physical attractiveness played a larger role in predicting husbands’ satisfaction than predicting wives’ satisfaction. These findings strengthen support for the idea that sex differences in self-reported preferences for physical attractiveness do have implications for long-term relationship outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)"

Look at it numerically like this. Men weight beauty in a spouse with a 10, and weight receiving support from a spouse a 1. Women weight beauty in a spouse a 1 and weight receiving support from a spouse a 10.

So a woman who picks a 7 in looks husband, instead of a 6, will be getting a 1 unit increase in value due to how she weights looks. So the 7/10 in looks will have 1 more point in value than the 6/10 in looks.

But if that 6/10 in looks is a 7/10 in support and that 7/10 in looks is a 6/10 in support, than the 6/10 in looks will have 10 more units of value compared to the 7/10 in looks due to the 1 unit more in support, because of how women weight support from husband. (The 6/10 in looks has 1 more support unit than the 7/10 in looks and since support has a weighting of 10, then the 6/10 has an extra value of 10.)

So the cumulative value relative to each other for the 6/10 in looks and the 7/10 in looks is;

6/10: (0 for looks, 10 for support=10 total) or* (-1 for looks, 10 for support=9 total) 7/10: (1 for looks, 0 for support=1 total) or* (1 for looks, -10 for support=-9 for total)

*which one you use depends on whether you perceive a lack of some quality as a detraction from one's overall score or as a lack of an addition to one's overall score.

The above example is just a hypothetical. I am not saying those are the precise values attributed to each variable and the precise way they interact with each other. It was just an attempt to show how a different weighting of the same variables that two people value in an exchange can result in what is perceived by both people as a mutually beneficial or win/win exchange.

tomega · 2016-11-25T18:52:13+00:00

Interesting theory, could well be true

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