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Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

How does that work? Is it an ethnicity issue?

My guess is ethnic male of average height.

Attractive in his native country where his ethnicity isn't a factor and the average height is much lower.

As a tall male with some success on the apps, I find women 5'10" or more are much more likely to match me than those who are shorter. They prefer taller men and for a tall woman that reduces my competition.

Still contemplating why those apps are so terrible, but the are.

My wife is 5'10" and she said she hated how all the tall guys wanted to date the short girls, leaving the tall girls with shorter guys than them

Shit I can drop like 3 (relative) points on the good ol' 10 scale just by traveling to different sections of my own city. And while I'm not bad by local standards I'm only like a 2 or a 3 in some cities I've visited. From "not bad" to "uggo" just by traveling to another city, without ethnicity being a factor.

how? Honestly I am not doubting you, I have just been married for a very long time so out of the game. Is it a presentation of wealth or dress style?

Largely fitness level and attention to appearance (very-nice well-kept haircuts, probably a little male use of makeup, that kind of thing). Skin care routines (say, consistency of applying sunscreen and wearing hats when outdoors, from early ages on) can vary wildly with local cultural norms and, notably, with class-related socialization, with the result that some cohorts have much nicer skin in middle age than others.

Plus I've been in a few cities where, frankly, it just looks like the gene pool's exceptionally good.

[EDIT] Oh and stuff like serious hair-loss treatments and plugs and such, and skin blemish removal, short of full-on plastic surgery. I can just about guarantee those are more common in rich areas and richer cities than in poorer areas and poorer cities.

That makes sense, I had never even considered regional based attractiveness. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

> how?

A small town 8(/10) can be an LA[0] 4 or 5. Then again a small town 10 can also be an LA 10. Samples can be biased in weird ways.

0. If you're fan of the LA aesthetic measures.

LA?

Los Angeles, California, USA. Or possibly Louisiana, but surely Los Angeles, from context.

Los Angeles: 19 million people and home to Hollywood. It's to attractive people[1] what Silicon Valley is to nerds (not saying there isn't an overlap).

To be completely honest, I also incorrectly thought LA was America's plastic surgery capital - but it turns out to be Miami.

1. Who want to be in entertainment/acting, but being attractive is almost a prerequisite.

Thanks both. :)

People find their tribes. A few years ago at work we were invaded by an intern army of what we affectionately called “dudebros”. They all had prince Harry style beards and talked about IPAs. By all accounts, the female interns were very polarized by the look.

"just be white", bro

you present this as some sort of negative? What is wrong with people being attracted to certain races? People cannot control who they find attractive and there is no racist component to it. People should be allowed to engage in relationships with whoever they want using whatever criteria they want.

There's a tension between the belief espoused by many on this thread that a man struggling dating is purely a matter of him being an unkempt, terrible person and the fact that arbitrary things like race can make dating a struggle.

I can agree that being a minority in a small pond can make things more difficult in regards to dating but I don't think that is anyone's fault or that anything should be done about it. I took the person I responded to as meaning that preferring a certain race or ethnicity is a negative thing. Perhaps I misunderstood their intent.

> you present this as some sort of negative?

I'm glad that you formulated this as a question. The answer is no, I presented it value neutral, both by intent and expressed written form.

Now that GGP has a search term, he might soon find out more about the concept and also might admit it into his mind as real and true, as I once did.

Mentioned in another post but I think I misinterpreted your statement. Based on the search term, this appears to be a concept held by the incel community. Are you positioning it as true and if so, as a solvable problem or just a fact of life?

People are attracted to attributes that cannot be changed even with effort. Face, height, skin color? There is no "solving" that.

> this appears to be a concept held by the incel community

Not exclusively. I would bet that many more people who are completely clueless about incelosphere hold that belief. After all, the belief is as old as the advent of mass communication.

> Are you positioning it as true

Yes, I already said that much; also I will consider it true until a preponderance of evidence comes along that blows the pile of current evidence away.

> a solvable problem

That phrase can be interpreted in two ways.

1. Can a person fake being white? I would say, if the goal is a convincing result, then it's difficult for most people because it would involve cosmetic surgery (expensive, non-negligible risk), and ISTR that the skin treatment to make it appear light in colour comes with nasty side effects that cannot be avoided. For a smaller group, suitable contact lenses might be sufficient. Broadly spoken, the trade-off cost/risk/reward seems bad, that's why we don't see much adoption of the practice, but I gauge that solely from canvassing in popular media. I would be very interested in what the sociologists are writing in their scientific journals.

2. Can society be changed to eliminate the JBW bonus? I don't see how, but since it is an entirely social construct, I admit that under the right circumstances, it could happen quickly. Also, as a white myself, I don't have a particular interest to make it happen.

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