Note that this is just my personal opinion. You can say I’m coping, but whatever.

I’ve always thought it was bullshit when women talked about the “female gaze” because, I mean, just look at who’s the most attractive to women - the same type of guy: tall, white, handsome, athletic looking, etc. It would feel like women were lying about how they “don’t care about looks” because we have eyes and can see what women respond to.

I’ve realized now that if there’s one common denominator in attracting women, it’s how you make a woman feel. The vibe, the energy.

Now, that’s not to say that looks don’t matter, because they obviously do. It’s my belief that physical characteristics contribute to your vibe and charisma. Being tall and strong looking just gives you a cheat code to a masculine presence, which makes women feel a certain way about you. If you’re also a kind and sweet person on top of that, you’d give protector vibes. On the other hand, some men just have a nice looking face, and it’s my belief that a nicer looking face tends to express emotion better. A person with a nice smile will absolutely make other people feel good.

I think the whole “vibe” thing is precisely why women often don’t really understand why they feel attracted to a man. They see man, they feel some way. The vibe is the proxy for looks. It’s not looks -> hot, it’s looks -> vibe -> hot. The lower level contributions might just be harder to dissect for them.

It kind of makes sense now why some women go for me, the nerdy guy. They don’t even have to know that I’m a nerd, they see it and feel it. And they all go for other nerdy guys too. Like, I didn’t even realize I gave off the nerdy vibe. And surely that’s also why many other women aren’t attracted to me, because maybe I give too soft of a vibe (on top of being short) which I suppose isn’t exactly masculine.

Power is also clearly a powerful tool. It’s why some ugly powerful men manage to have a hot wife. It’s not just because “gold digger” (though certainly that’s a factor). Social status and money have the power to make women feel things too, or at least change how they perceive you.

This whole thing makes sense on dating apps too. The problem for most guys is that if you don’t have physical characteristics on your side, you literally cannot make women feel anything by just existing in your pictures. It’s like “cool, there’s you. You are in a picture.” But what else? Nothing. Why would they swipe on you? So that really only leaves the guys they know are physically attractive, the 6-foot, handsome jacked dudes. And even then, there clearly are tall dudes who do not get matches, and even pretty decent looking tall dudes who don’t get many matches (e.g. the dude in the blackpill type YouTube vid, called something like “Average men dating app experience”).

Women really are emotionally different. Think about all the women who just go crazy and scream at concerts. Why do they do that? The artist doesn’t even have to be sexy, just good at music that makes them feel the right feeling.

My ex would pick restaurants based on what looked cute or had funny names, whereas I’d pick based on ratings and what I felt like eating. She would cry from random dreams she had. She’d read astrology charts and just liked them even though she “knew they weren’t real.”

I think this has kind of opened my eyes as to why I’m not where I want to be in my dating life. I’m still aware of looks and height being a factor. In fact I think the woman I recently went on a date with was taken instead by a man from The Netherlands (FUCK MY LIFE, that hurts me). But still, a valuable lesson learned for my mindset. Years of struggling with my body image and I’m kind of starting to get it. And I have every reason to not cope and just give up (5’6” and brown).

I’m still gonna go to the gym and try to improve my physique (I like doing it for myself anyway) and work on my physical aspects, but this is kind of an important realization for me.