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If I were trying to lie to support a position, surely I wouldn't have independently pointed out my own comment about appearance parity earlier in this thread, would I? I closed my eyes and did a thought experiment running through circles of single and dating people I know now or have known in the past, trying to figure out if, as you say, it would feel weird or remarkable for the best-looking ones not to hook up with the other best looking ones, absent other factors. Then I did the same for married couples I know, trying to de-age them and figure out if they would similarly have have been notably close looks-matches in their presumed social circles during dating.
And what I found was exactly what I said: once people are pairing up within a common class and cultural scene, my experiences just don't validate a SMV-style careful, granular dating hierarchy from the hottest to the least hot.
I was surprised, too, because, as I said, I also have a vague sense of homophily or type similarity in couplings, which should contradict this. However, I was also finding that a huge amount of the similarity seemed to be imposed at the level of the social scene itself, so there simply isn't as wide a diversity in appearance among people who already share the common class background, common geographic locale, common set of career or academic interests, etc., that would cause them to meet in the first place. For instance, most people of a certain social class in entertainment, media, finance or law who live in Hollywood, CA, are highly likely to share similar exercise routines and body/grooming expectations, plastic surgery backgrounds, shop for clothing at similar stores, etc., and thus look pretty similar to each other. Most extroverted young-professional types in the partying scene of a Northeastern metro, ditto. Most back-office coders in NYC or engineering majors at a Midwestern state university, ditto. You don't really see DC lobbyist/nonprofit folks who look like they could be shopping at a Dollar General in rural Missouri. So when I think about married professionals I know, there is a vague similarity in range of looks (although nothing like so granular as "all 8s with 8s" or even "hot person with mid person would be shocking"), but also I can't find any instances of other similar local professionals who diverge from that range of looks by being dramatically hotter or less hot than their peers.
Thus, as I said, I'd question whether some of any more dramatic looks-matching you're imagining may be flowing from the tendency for people to socialize with others of the same class, community and professional backgrounds. Once that's in place, it's just a somewhat tighter band, within which people seem to couple fairly freely. I'm unsure how we'd adjudicate that: anecdata? Group photos? The social science in this area is going to be shitty online surveys, which would not be helpful. Do you have many examples of real-life shocked discourse about real-life mid/hot couplings, by people who actually know the couples in question (not just teen boys on 4chan and bots on Twitter)?
You don't have to engage with it, but I'd just point out that OP was on why some people might find SMV frameworks uninteresting or false to the realities of human family formation. So this statement of yours is a bit like saying it's impossible to productively discuss atheism with anyone who hasn't first accepted Jesus Christ.
I disagree with your analogy. A better analogy would be to say it's impossible to discuss atheism with someone who insists that they personally met Jesus Christ and witnessed miracles being performed.
Well, it appears that the SMV side is the one making a strong positive claim for the social universality of a complex, negative-entropy and psychologically implausible coordination phenomenon, so I'd think the burden of extraordinary evidence for an extraordinary claim should fall on their side.
Again, if you have lots of examples of IRL people expressing shock when an IRL acquaintances marries someone otherwise fully compatible who's a bit more or less attractive than them, that would be a start. But so far your evidence is seemingly "I am personally upset when a hot man marries a mid woman, regardless of what else they have in common."
I have no idea what you mean by "negative-entropy," but certainly no coordination is necessary such a thing as objective attractiveness to exist.
This is a wild misstatement of my position. For any lurkers who are reading this, here's what I actually said:
Since I think you are misrepresenting your personal experiences, I'm not surprised that you would misrepresent me like that. In any event, I do not engage with people who strawman me. This exchange is concluded. Feel free to have the last word -- I will not read or respond.
Accusing people of misrepresenting their own personal experiences while complaining that you think you are being misrepresented, followed by a huffy dismissal, is too antagonistic, and it seems you are only engaging to "win" an argument and score points.
More charity and courtesy, please.
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