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Honestly as I wrote the post I had the same intuition. Maybe I'm undervaluing how important social skills are, especially whatever you call the highly situational "reading the room" skill. I am pretty good at reading people and intuiting their motivations.
I have a cousin who is in his mid 20s, 6'0", thin, reasonably handsome face, has a CS degree and a good job. He could probably do modeling. But he's kind of weird, lacks confidence, and dresses like a dork (he goes for a hipster look that was edgy 10 or 15 years ago, which is about as uncool as you can get now). He's really sensitive to criticism and shuts down if he feels people aren't taking him seriously or are making fun of him (even if it's good natured).
You hear all this talk online about how only looks matter, but I think we all know at least one ugly dude who was so charismatic, confident, and/or cool that he never had problems getting laid, making friends, or getting into leadership roles. He always seemed to have a girlfriend and was often chatting up other girls on the side. To me, the existence of these people (and to a lesser degree people like me) is a fatal blow to all this lookism stuff.
And the good news is that unlike your looks, you really can work on your social skills. Before age 16 or so I was a shy little wimp who was all but ignored by girls. I had a "fuck it" moment around 16, and started being a lot more assertive and aggressive towards other people in what I thought was a self-destructive way... only the destruction never came. Instead, people just listened to me more and took me more seriously. The sky didn't fall, I didn't get my ass kicked. And girls started to think I was worth their consideration.
Obviously my epiphany isn't something you can replicate in a lab. Perhaps it's a point that everyone has to reach on his own. But my point is that it's at least possible, and without the need for shoe inserts or mewing or whatever.
People always seem to say this, but I find it to be the exact opposite. There are aspects of looks that can't be changed, such as height or ethnicity, obviously, but IMHO changing looks is much easier than changing social skills. Changing looks is almost entirely a biological/physical engineering problem, of adjusting diet and exercise to change body composition, changing the chemicals one puts on one's skin and hair, changing the clothes one puts on, and such. And these physical engineering problems are mostly pretty well solved and well publicized, and implementing them is a matter of choice and will.
Changing social skills is a much murkier problem with very few well understood solutions, with the space almost entirely dominated by misinformation. It's also a social engineering problem rather than a physical one, which makes it more costly to perform experiments - which are more required due to the aforementioned lack of information about solutions - along with higher costs when experiments go wrong.
Obviously, both can be changed to various extents, and I've personally experienced changing both of them for the better, but, again, when I compare both the difficulty of enacting changes and the magnitude of the changes involved, the difference is stark. Changing my appearance for the better by a significant amount was almost trivial compared to making even a very minor change in my social skills.
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You are very much undervaluing the importance of social skills.
People tend to ignore or gloss over that there's a horrendous amount of skills and capabilities that contributes toward being dateable. And if you're skilled enough in one area(say, social skills) this can make up for alot of deficiencies.
For example, if you're skilled in the social sciences, you can get a girlfriend while looking like a small mountain(and not in a good way). Or living with your girlfriends family while not having a home of your own, and somehow this is perfectly fine(wtf?). Or, or, or...
Yeah, no. Not everyone has this skill set. Either through lack of chance to naturally develop such a thing, or simply not gifted with the intrinsic capability. Half the time when people bring up 'I'm socially retarded yet I got a girlfriend' and when they describe their circumstance as to how that occurred, it comes across as pure, blind luck.
Still, you're correct. Social skill is very much a skill that can be learned and developed. The trick, however, is finding a safe space that they can learn these skills, with strict rule sets(because if you know the rules ahead of time, it gives you confidence of how to act within the confines of those rules). And, the arena has to atleast allow for a little forgiveness for when you inevitable screw up.
Nowadays, that's a very tall order. Moreso if you live in an area that doesn't have alot of social arenas to break into in a natural, organic fashion.
I know, I'm speaking from experience. Not that there aren't options, mind, but when alot of these options start costing money, that brings up a whole other set of issues...
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Yup, this is the thing. Would it be even worse for your friend if he was overweight, etc. Absolutely. But, I think, unfortunately, too many people actually believe an SNL skit is actually real life. Also, the secret is that a lot of people are coded as 'assholes' because they're good-looking, charismatic, and dress well (for their subculture/etc.).
Yes, there are the typical a-hole guys in a club, or horny drunk guys late night at a bar, but they're nowhere as successful as people think they are. OTOH, yes, they are more successful than somebody who basically spends all their time either in male-dominated spaces or by themselves.
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