Comment by tubalcain | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tubalcain | Hacker News Reader

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Most of what determines the success of a social introduction made in hopes of gaining a physical partner for men is predicated on their physical attractiveness, mostly through genetically determined factors such as height, facial bone structure, and other non modifiable characteristics.

Studying your own social interactions to see where you may have gone wrong is likely a fool's errand. Physical attraction is determined visually in milliseconds, which means there's little to nothing you can change via behaviors to increase success in that way.

The rise of simp apps like onlyfans reflects the total desperation of men who fail to meet the genetic standards for looks. You are correct that the reach of social media is responsible as it has isolated most average men, as attractive men are always a swipe away for any woman who is looking.

While your suggestion to be more social is healthy and helpful for most daily interactions, looking for partners requires more than just that, it requires looks.

Are you aware that you're speaking incel ideology? Sure, attractiveness matters, it matters much much more on a phone. Yet i still see "objectively attractive" women walking around with "ugly" men. If you think that every woman instantly hates you because your chin to cheek ratio or whatever is wrong than maybe they will act funny around you, but it's not because your cheeks. It's because of your attitude. Women are human beings and thus have highly tuned social compasses that can tell healthy from unhealthy social attitudes. To use the language, "betas" from "alphas". It has very very little to do with the way they look and almost everything to do with the way they act and speak. You aren't falling with women because of millimeters of bone in your facial structure, you're failing with women because you _believe_ your face is wrong, because you _believe_ that your going to fail no matter what you do.

I've known many incels and almost was one some time long ago. You gotta get off the dating apps, they aren't for dating, they're for making men feel so bad about themselves that they believe they must spend money to get a chance at any real women. That's what they do to you. Go to a bar with people if possible and try to speak to a stranger. Try to speak to a stranger in the train, on the sidewalk, at the grocery store. Leave it at a single sentence complement if you must, but do it. Smile with your eyes when you make eye contact with someone. Speak to people and leave those forums trying to blackpill you. They aren't your friends, they're just holding hands as you all slowly commit suicide.

The rise of incel ideology is a terrible thing for our young men. We should be setting better examples so the only explanation they have isn't "your fucking face is broken and you'll never be good enough"

Also go to therapy

When people start throwing ad hominems, and incredulous suggestions of getting therapy, that's when I know they know they have no argument.

Holy shit. Ugly people get laid all the time. They also have long term relationships and get married and make ugly children. Your "genetic Incel" shit is ridiculous.

Good looking people might have social interactions set to easy mode by it's simply stupid to say just because you didn't hit the genetic lottery means no one will ever get close to you.

You know a better determinant of good social interactions? Confidence. If you carry yourself well and don't act like a toxic man-o-sphere dipshit people won't avoid you. You can be ugly as sin but have a good personality and get laid.

Far too many young people fall prey to influencers and think they're just doomed to loneliness. Then they adopt the stupidest most toxic personality which only creates a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Be clean, don't slouch, smile, and tell some funny light jokes. People like that. No one gives a shit about bone structure. Humans aren't robots responding automatically to genetic programming.

I find it cliched but still interesting that the rebuttals to my opinion on this particular topic are so vitriolic and laden with, as the poster above you has done,ad hominems and emphatic statements of incredulity. It kind of supports the assertion that ugly people are so disliked that to even suggest that they might be at a severe disadvantage is fought against because giving them even a smidge of sympathy or acknowledgement due to the accident of their birth is simply untenable. It might also stem from a rejection of the concept due to inciting hopelessness in the rejector should they accept it as true. Or maybe it's unconscious yet ill informed benevolent dishonesty.

Nevertheless, there are countless scientific studies outlining the severe disadvantage ugliness inflicts on people in all aspects of life. This has been magnified by social media.

You can't really "bootstraps mentality" physical attractiveness outside of weight control. All the confidence in the world won't help a goblin be desirable. Plus, personality is as genetic as looks, and some people just aren't wired for extroversion.

I fear that pushing a bootstraps narrative for ugly people will just result in unwarranted self blame.

I am going to try to tackle this from the positive side, but there's a lot that could be said, and I'm not sure I will be successful.

There's no doubt that inherent physical attractiveness, extroversion, confidence and charisma, winning the genetic lottery, creates huge advantages. I've seen it in action, seen it open doors that will never open for an asymmetric, scrawny, socially erratic, introvert nerd with a high-pitched voice like myself. Seen how it affords choices and outcomes I will never have, no matter what I do.

Like so much of life, it is patently unjust and painful.

But it turns out there are enough other doors to open and ways of opening them, that me and all my similarly hopeless friends, got laid, got long-term partners and went on to experience the same relationship joys and failure modes as the beautiful people.

I wish I could warn my young self I'd be the comic relief in the mainstream mating game, but that it's OK, that I should try it, study it, realize and grieve my inadequacy, just get over it, get comfortable with who I am and what's achievable for me, and then go and play a slower, deeper game in a smaller, more congenial league.

What works? Sure, do the self-improvement stuff. Get fit, get a purpose. Find and live by your values. Practice fearlessness and not giving a crap what others think and leverage that into charisma (which is really hard but doable and I'm still working on it).

Find your tribe or social ecosystem and learn to love it (I had contempt for nerds that I had to get past. It was internalized shame at being mainstream-inadequate and it held me back for decades.) Explore adjacent social ecosystems. Get out there. Engage. Do not care about winning any specific outcome.

Have faith that it gets better, almost certainly, in most cases.

Most important, and in accordance with your values and self-respect, work hard to make ongoing net-positive social contributions (all kinds will work, interpersonal, social, material, intellectual, ethical, time, effort) with no strings attached. Use your strengths and interests.

I know this works. I am a weird intense socially-incompetent pedantic misanthrope, but I make the effort to spare my friends the downsides and I deliberately contribute positives. For example, I lead with my values in word and deed. They aren't a matter of consensus and I am contrary to my friends often enough. My super power is that I am entirely comfortable around opposing values. I will not conform to other people's and I don't care, on a personal level, if they adopt mine. Oddly, that combination results in a lot of approval and status. (I didn't plan this, it's a byproduct of my misanthropy, I figured it out after the fact, and realized I was on to a good thing.)

Sometimes at gatherings I can tell that I've just gone off the range, and I can see the look of friendly acceptance. “He's a freak, but he's our freak.” That group judgement of me reflects well and raises my social status considerably. I know my wife is proud of the social respect I've earned, even if the means are a mystery to her. It means nothing at all to some of the ladies, but it does to her.

This is just one example of how a skinny inconsequential nerd can project dominance without cash outlays, big muscles or a strong jawline. And there are so many other ways to be a social contributor or leader. Which equals reproductive fitness!

You, and every other “ugly person” out there has strengths. Find them. Develop them. Use them. Get over the fact that you can't succeed in mainstream competition. Just let it go. Look around, explore, and play in arenas you can win.

Remember (paraphrased) “behind every high-status female is a high-status male who is sick of her shit.” There's no particular advantage in winning one, and there are likely serious downsides. (And before y'all get mad at me the reverse is obviously true too. Married with kids, you know. And I can't speak to the generalization across gender permutations.)

I'm aware that online dating is a problem, and maybe there's a big problem in unrealistic expectations. Going to absolutely support the advice that you get your head out of that world. Play in the real world like it's 1970, 1980, 1990, whatever works for you. I have direct knowledge there are women doing the same. Society will figure it out in the long term and you will be ahead of the curve.

This is all good advice. Confidence isn't only "Gigachad" energy. Just being comfortable with yourself and accepting whatever you are displays confidence. Constantly looking down at yourself and whatever problems you have is not in any way productive. No one will ever be attracted to a guy prattling on about facial features ratios or other Incel cult bullshit. Not even attracted, no one wants to listen to that because it's just cult programming promulgated by people using your feelings of inadequacy to sell you or sell you something.

Very few people look like Sloth from Goonies, someone you can easily describe as a goblin in terms of looks. Being overweight, scrawny, or having some unflattering features does not make anyone a goblin by any sane definition.

The Incel cult bullshit reduces human being down to genetic robots that can't think or choose for themselves. It also requires you to ignore the world around you where ugly/fat/whatever people all over are in loving relationships. No one is automatically behaving because genes favor something. Normal actual humans have free will and make their own choices.

Many plants have evolved the production of capsicum because mammals have a sensitivity to the chemical. In the wild mammals will avoid capsicum bearing plants. As a mammal capsicum causes me pain. Despite my genetic programming I love many spicy foods and willingly prepare and eat them regularly. The Incel cult bullshit would have you believe because I have a genetic predisposition towards avoiding discomfort and a susceptibility to the pain causing effects of capsicum I would never eat so much as a bell pepper ever.

Everyone has physical imperfections. Every attractive person you ever see takes a shit eventually. They get acne. They have body odor. They get ingrown toenails and sweat. Some attractive people have awful personalities or are just personally insufferable. Some are dumb as a bag of hammers. Others are psychotic or just assholes to the core. Many good looking people only look so good at certain ages and change significantly over time. Physically good looks are far far from the only measure of the quality of a person or their overall personal attractiveness.

There are vanishing few genius super model warrior poets in the world. There is zero utility in looking down on yourself for not being one of them. It's also ridiculous to assume everyone else in the world is holding out for those super rare specimens. It's also problematic when your primary concern for a romantic partner is physical attractiveness. There's way more important things than physical attractiveness when it comes to romantic relationships.

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