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There isn't nearly enough context in that gallery to prove your point.
To be honest, what strikes me most is how unattractive the guys in that gallery are. Gosh, doesn't Finn look like a git? A lot of those guys look like total pillocks. I am glad I don't look like any of those guys, and I regularly get complimented on my appearance by women in real life.
What I see here is an extreme generalisation with firstly little evidence that it's true on dating apps, and secondly little reason to believe that even if it's true on dating apps, it generalises to anything in real life.
It doesn't really matter what you personally think of Finn or Niko's looks-- the proof's in the pudding, hundreds to thousands of women found them attractive and made the determination for us. It doubly doesn't really matter whether or not some women compliment you here and there, because if you were actually attractive, no offense intended, you would be able to just show us your profile on one of these dating apps and show us your thousands of matches. I'll make a wild guess-- you don't because you're the kind of guy who gets maybe one or two likes in a day if he's lucky, and if he's really on a roll, maybe three or four. You don't like seeing the Mariana Trench sized disparity in attractiveness between you or Finn, so instead of actually engaging you just choose to dole out some meaningless childish insults. Why? It's so nakedly displaying your own internalized envy and jealousy.
I beg your pardon? This is just unmerited aggression. I expanded just below, giving some reasons to be skeptical of your conclusion (it is inconsistent with anecdotal experience, and it is inconsistent with what I understand to be a well-replicated observation, that women care less about appearance than men), and then also speculating about some alternative explanations for the limited observation that you made. I consider this a good-faith engagement.
And your response is... to call me an ugly loser?
Looking further down the thread, this seems to be your general response to anybody who expresses skepticism of your claim, no matter how politely or well-reasoned. "You don't understand because you're an ugly beta, not a chad like the guys in this gallery."
Probably some of the other posters are correct and you're simply trolling. Well, I hope you had your fun.
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I wouldn't call them unattractive, I think they are quite handsome, but they don't strike me as some unattainable ideals.
Frankly, the biggest problem is the hair. If you have limp thin hair, you need to find a good barber that can find the right hair style and teach you to maintain the look plus visit him every two weeks to maintain the right length.
You're free to believe that, but I'd be more than willing to bet that even if you or any other man on this forum managed to check off every point on your list, they still wouldn't break 15 likes on any dating app within a day. People on this forum fundamentally do not get or understand male attractiveness. This is the dating equivalent of a beer bellied man on the couch watching football on a Monday night thinking he'd be able to make that touchdown those darned mediocre running backs couldn't manage. You literally don't know enough to judge the size of the gap between him and you.
I’m attracted to men so I do think I understand male attractiveness, and I agree with the posters above. Finn looks like a git, Niko is cute but not in a 1 in 100 way (I absolutely see a lot of men equally or more attractive if I go on Tinder/Hinge…), and a lot of the other men are handsome sure but kinda unappealing. Give me men that look like they have personality, not just generic pretty boys.
I don’t see why the number of likes is that important anyway unless you’re just looking for an ego boost.
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It's not that they're unattractive, it's just that you don't know how to properly judge attractiveness in men and have a seriously distorted view of the distribution. Finn and Niko are at minimum 1 in 100 males. If you don't believe me, make a female profile on Tinder, you'll only see a man that good every hundred or two hundred swipes. In fact, you can even go on the Instagram pages of college frats and you'll find that most men are simply not on that level.
There is a difference between what men think is attractive and what women think is attractive. Women are picking up on personality cues from those photos, and whether they're correct or not, that makes or breaks the deal.
To men "Well he's tall, he's slim, he has fair hair, his face is good" is enough. To women "his hair is styled badly, his clothes are poorly put together, he looks awkward in this photo" send the signals as to whether he's confident and would be fun to spend time with, or if you'd have to listen to an hour-long lecture about maths or trains. (If you're a woman who wants to hear a lecture about maths or trains, go for it!)
Take Nikolas - he's the guy who has it all put together, he knows the image to present and that's why yeah he's successful on that app. Like I said, I would consider him fun but not long-term material, but there's no denying he'll slay. Compare him and Niko to see the difference between "good presentation".
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I'm far from convinced of this - if I think about what women of my acquaintance tell me about male attractiveness, and how it syncs up with my own judgements, it certainly doesn't seem as if I'm blind to what they like.
I actually find your argument here a bit odd because it's a well-replicated finding, surely, that women care less about physical attractiveness than men do. Attitude and bearing are worth a lot more than symmetrical facial features. Women do care about appearance, but as far as I'm aware, less intensely than men do.
In this case specifically I wonder more about the algorithm. I don't know how Tinder works specifically, but I've used other dating apps before and most of them have some kind of recommendation function, where the app will suggest particular people to you. In most apps I've seen you can pay money to the app to get yourself bumped higher up the queue. So for all I know, X random man with some ridiculous number of hits is just some guy who got really lucky on the algorithm - who had the Tinder equivalent of going viral on Twitter. But you shouldn't make sweeping generalisations from a weird outlier. It's like seeing someone win the lottery and assuming that it's due to his in-born talent for personal finance. For all you know it's a combination of random chance and buying a lot of tickets.
As I said, I don't know how Tinder works specifically. I understand that Tinder is a casual hook-up app, and I have no interest in that, so I've never used it. (Though that probably also distorts the results and makes them unrepresentative of most people's romantic preferences and experiences.) I'm speculating wildly here, but I suspect no more wildly than you are.
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1/100? Maybe on tinder. They look like 7-8s not >9.9s.
You're doing more to convince me of the poor quality of the median man on tinder than of some great social injustice.
I'm 80% convinced you're just a troll.
I don't see what's so outrageous about the post you replied to that you'd assume trolling. Maybe saying Finn and Niko are top percentile is hyperbole, but not crazily so.
Brand new account makes poorly supported histrionic post (and follow-ups) about a subject that inevitably will bait a certain segment of themotte to make embarrassing long-posts, immediately gets linked on rdrama.
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As a woman, it's hard to figure out who his "incest, cannibalism and John 3:16" blub is attracting. Finn looks pretty average, kind of douchy.
My advice in general would be for guys to take photos from below, girls take photos from above, maybe seek a professional photographer if it's that important.
Just generally some easy appearance hacks for guys- take photos from below, have a good haircut, wear clothes that fit, unless you're notably tall wear cowboy boots(comes off as masculine and adds 2"), know thyself with respect to facial hair(Nietzsche moustaches and civil war general chops are out, obviously, but some people benefit from a beard and some don't), stay in shape but don't worry about muscles. Dress a rung or maybe two up on the formality ladder from what the situation technically calls for. Obviously, groom yourself well.
This is terrible advice. If you want to succeed on Tinder or Hinge and you're not facially gifted, you MUST be jacked if you want any attention at all. You are not going to get anywhere on online dating apps as a 5/10 twink, flat out, you do not have the luxury of neglecting your physique. Keep in mind the kind of physique you need for serious appeal isn't just one or two years in the gym, but preferably the physique of someone on steroids or close. Second is probably noting that facial hair is probably the easiest way to ruin your face if you have any sort of jaw. Women can tell when you look like a 12 year old underneath the beard, and it makes you look older in a bad way.
Unless you're gay yourself, you have no idea the little differences that make the difference to straight women. "Get muscles and be model-quality in the face" will do nothing if your photo has you looking like a goofball or dressed in sloppy band T-shirt and backwards baseball cap.
Now you're just trolling. The "condom full of walnuts" look appeals to no-one but professional judges of bodybuilding. See this relevant Stonetoss.
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Yeah, I can't imagine who sees that line and thinks "exactly my type!" though there may be matches from girls just looking for some fun but nothing serious. Nikola, for instance: that would be fun if intense but short experience, but definitely not long-term boyfriend material, much less husband. Much too aware of how good he looks and poses like a romance cover model. He'd be kissing your hand and handing over a bouquet of thirteen red roses while at the same time setting up a date with six other women for the rest of the week 😁
Niko seems like a nice young man but he badly needs advice on "not a polo neck with a blazer with jeans, dear, and clear the paper bags off the table before taking the photo, and don't smile so hard, you look nervous not relaxed".
This kind of attempted mockery has always struck me a bit as being more or less being sour grapes. It's a bit odd that you'd write a couple paragraphs about how he needs to do this or that when he's easily already a top 1% profile on Tinder and has functionally infinite access to attractive women. Does seeing a man this sexually successful just make you insecure? Is it something deeper? There's pretty obviously no need to change your approach to dating if your approach has already given you north of 25,000 options to pick from.
No more deep than I think he's not especially All That and could do himself some favours. If men think of certain women as fuckable for short-term fun but not wife material, women think the same about some men.
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I don't think it's sour grapes; my understanding is that HereAndGone identifies as asexual. Asexual people, having known multiple as friends... don't often understand just how little they understand about how sexual attraction works. You can see that in how none of her criticism is actually about attractiveness -- she's judging their personal style and how they come across in a social-presentation manner, not whether they're hot or not.
But also people can be very critical, especially when evaluating people as romantic partners, and especially when doing so as an exercise instead of actually dealing with a real person. Men can be similarly critical of women, if you put them in the right context, or if they won't tell you about the labor dispute at Starbucks. This is a big reason why dating apps enable and drive some of our worst instincts -- people are caricatures and not people.
That being said, the turtleneck is a bit silly and the photos do look overly polished, but standing out by dressing slightly oddly and taking overly polished photos is basically what you have to do. If you're going to be a caricature of yourself, you might as well lean into it.
What I'm saying is yeah, Nikola is very attractive, but the way he styles and presents himself does not say "looking for long-term relationship, hopefully marriage and four kids", it's "I'm an international man of mystery who will rock your world tonight but I can't be tied down to one lady at a time, I have a girl in every port".
You know you'll have a fun time with Nikola, but you also know it's not going to last. Amicable breakup, he won't treat you badly, but he's not going to get married for another ten to fifteen years. Will Nikola have lots of matches and lots of hookups on dating apps? Absolutely. Will he be The One? Absolutely not.
For Niko, he does come across as genuinely nice, so much better chance of long-term or serious relationship there. The poloneck is not bad by itself, but it needs to be carefully considered as part of an entire ensemble. He's clearly slim, not very muscular, so he needs to dress in a way that does not make him look like a beanpole. For example, advice such as this.
I'm not a fan of the number three style, since I don't think jeans and jacket go well together, but for Niko something like number six would be better - more layers so makes him look less skinny - or number two, which is more casual and suits his age range better.
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Meh, this is exactly the dating advice I'd expect from a cookie-cutter representative of Women, Inc.; the identification as "asexual" is... also exactly what I'd expect, too. So's the specific criticism, which appears to generalize to "this dude pattern-matches too closely to a woman to be husband material"- again, as much of a 'straight woman' thing as you can get.
Not that there aren't similar representatives of Men, Inc. around here, of course; you can tell someone is like that if they say things like "women who have sex have something wrong with their souls" or similar.
See, we already have a blueprint of what asexuality in women looks like; that's what that "secrets of female attractiveness" thing that gets passed around here is. Female asexuals just cold-open conversations with this type of thing and, if you're a man, will probably paint your nails for you if you ask nicely.
Honey, if you're trying to attract straight women, then maybe knowing what straight women think would help?
"Gosh, I look like a 70s Greek porn star, why amn't I hip deep in pussy in 2025?" Who can fathom the mysterious whims of the female?
I'm afraid I'm not really that familiar with how pornography actors look in general, much like those from different places and times.
He legitimately looks like a woman (lesbian?) in that shot. I can understand "he's so self-aware of his looks that you're just going to get Romance Subroutine #1 that he runs for everyone else", but wouldn't that criticism itself suggest a difference between people who can sell very well on first glance ['it's just like hanging out with my girl friends except with the romance program'] but have nothing to follow it up with, and people who know how to play that game but are successfully pretending they aren't?
Of course, I didn't read that far into it initially.
I just looked at his face, saw "woman" written on it, and it just kind of followed from there.
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The point of by grandparent commment was that it shouldn't be hard for people to match that guy's rizz. At least half the men at my college were as attractive as Finn. I didn't mean it in a sour grapes way. I have a husband who I think is much more attractive (though he has the benefit of being older.)
Edit to add on reflection: I just realized that the youngest guy I ever found attractive based on photos/videos (and not in-person interactions) is David Boreanaz in Buffy season 1 and he was 28. When I was young I found classmates attractive at times, but that was generally only after they had shown some kind of interest in me. (By doing me a favor, making art for me, something personal, not just a swipe or like.) A man who makes it to his 30s with under 25% body fat is likely going to have an ok time if he knows how to dress and style his hair.
I'd say that there's approximately a zero percent chance that half the men at your college were better looking than Finn or Niko, unless you went to a college full of runway models from Milan. Like most people here you just don't comprehend male attractiveness and have a seriously skewed view of both what makes men attractive and just how attractive the average male is. Saying that older men are more physically attractive is another hilariously delusional take. The reason why women go for older men isn't looks-- it's money, status, stability. And frankly the average age gap in relationships is usually quite small anyways. If you're not attractive to women at 20, you're going to be even less physically attractive to them at 35.
Straight woman attracted to men doesn't realise how attractive men are. Mate, I suggest you try the other side of the aisle, you may do better with gay guys with an attitude like this.
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Look, I'm a woman. I married someone a decade older than me, so I am an outlier. For what it's worth, he didn't make more money than me at the time. I saw him as undervalued and received an excellent return on the investment. He was the first person I found very sexy, which was a feeling that only occurred after three dates. Mostly, we could talk to each other for hours and it was really nice to hang out with him, and then I felt real sexual attraction for the first time at the age of 26. (But also it was tied up in the thrill of the hope of a future together. Sexual attraction is different now, having attained that future.)
I feel 0 sexual attraction to Niko or Finn, just like I felt 0 sexual attraction to anyone who didn't first show interest in me. I would say that at least half my college classmates were not overweight and didn't have obvious deformities so that is why Niko and Finn go into the top half of the assessment. Every boy in High School and College seemed like a child to me - who would want to marry a child? Niko and Finn seem like children, too.
I think we're really hitting on something here if you can hear me out. Women are not men. Look at what my first comment was about - the words he chose to describe himself. I noticed that it's weird he put incest on his blurb. I don't know who that is attracting. I looked at words first to see if I would find this guy attractive.
The other woman here zeroed in on clothing choices and location of the photos. Not any immutable facial characteristic.
If a man is not obviously deformed or overweight, then to me it's not the photos causing the problem. Maybe there is some kind of woman out there who feels sexual attraction to a photograph, and these are the kinds of women who respond on Tindr? But I cannot tell you what motivates these women, because I have never been in a social circle with such a woman. From what I have heard, sexual abuse can lead to sexually promiscuous behavior in women. Maybe that's what's going on?
I'm not sure why you being a woman means you are innately blessed with the knowledge of what most or all women find attractive. Being a man did not endow me with the power to know what kinds of women most men were attracted to, nor did it give me any mystical or unique knowledge about attractiveness. Much of this just reads like completely delusional cope and the ramblings of someone who is seriously maladjusted and/or an outlier compared to the average woman-- which is frankly confirmed by the fact that you're posting on niche alt right websites when you're married and in your 30s.
This matters about as much to me as the fact that there are women that experience sexual attraction to dogs. You will not make yourself more romantically successful with women by putting on dog ears, getting on all fours and barking because there are a couple women out there that like dogs.
You either literally don't interact with women at all or your entire friend group is asexual. More than 61% of relationships start online. It's not nearly as rare or niche or abnormal as you make it seem, and implying a supermajority of women were turned to online dating through sexual abuse is either a hilariously bad faith argument or just genuine detachment from reality.
With men, on the other hand, that'd probably work.
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I can definitely agree with the final clause of that sentence 😁 Thanks for this entertainment on a humid Thursday afternoon round these parts!
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This is not the same as "more than 61% of relationships start on a dating app," as I believe you have mentioned elsewhere. Also in this comment thread it is mentioned that "Studies consistently show that approximately 75-85% of Tinder users identify as male, while women make up only 25-15%." Women signing up for dating apps are the odd ones here. And signing up for dating apps is not the same as using dating apps as consistently as men.
About 1/3 of American adults have ever tried out a dating app. 1/10 partnered adults – meaning those who are married, living with a partner or in a committed romantic relationship – met their current significant other through a dating site or app.
So about 4/5ths of relationships that started online started somewhere other than a dating service. How does that work? I would speculate that it takes place in environments where there is more 1:1 interaction - Discord servers, online gaming, twitter - I know more than one couple that met on Tumblr. Places with mixed media - both text and photo posts. Places where women can post photos but men don't have to in order to create their niche.
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That was what jumped out at me, too. Frankly it makes me think that I really ought to try Tinder again with some better photos, if this is all it takes.
Seriously, better photos will make an awful lot of difference. I've read some of the rationalist dating docs on the ACX dating threads and the photos made my heart sink, because by their self-description they were clearly nice, genuine people but the photos they picked made them look like the equivalent of wilted lettuce.
Both are lettuce, but which do you think looks better? This or this?
It is possible to revive wilted lettuce, just make the effort!
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Feel free to try. It's just I highly doubt you'll manage to even break 15 likes in a day, and you'll be perhaps humbled by the experience.
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