Over the past few days, in comments on PPD, I've struggled to communicate how I didn't understand for much of my life that looks were important for men to attract women. I don't think women think I was sincere when I stated this on PPD. I understand it can be hard to believe.

It occurred to me that my past self believed that looks might matter at least somewhat (but I wasn't sure - I got conflicting information on this). But if they did matter, they could always be compensated for by other things. So they either 1. didn't matter at all or 2. they were optional.

I thought women's attraction could be something like you needed 100 points to be attractive enough. You can be funny, responsible, kind, intelligent, adventurous, interesting, whatever, and if you have at least 100 points between them you could have 0 points in looks and you're still good. In this case, if you have any looks at all it's a nice bonus.

Of course it's not like that. I now think of women basically like men with regards to this topic. Both have a looks bar and both have a bar for personality, values, all the other things. You have to pass the looks bar first for either men or women. I don't judge women for having this bar anymore than I judge myself or other men. It's just something that is.

It was hard to grasp that we're more alike in this area because men and women talk so differently about looks. Men, or particular boys and young men, speak very overtly (often crassly) about how important looks are to them. Women tend to downplay, at least somewhat, to avoid being perceived as shallow. There is a bit of reading subtext that is sometimes necessary.

To me as a boy and young man this reinforced the idea that men and women were completely different, from Mars and Venus if you will. So I did not apply my own perspective in understanding women. But I should have. That was my biggest mistake.

I was just reading comments on this post and upvoting most of the top comments. They are explanations of what is attractive to women that I wish I had when I was younger. I'd suggest you check it out if you're feeling confused, like my younger self was.