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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 23, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Why do we expect and encourage the unattractive to have relationships? Yes. Disabled and ugly people deserve a shot at happiness. But there's a hell of a lot of suffering and tragedy that goes on there, and it may well be imprudent to bring children into that. If you're a dude who is 5'4" the least-bad outcome you can reasonably expect is marrying a woman twice your weight and watching her wind up in a nursing home age 44 because she sprained her ankle and couldn't take care of herself after that. And it only gets worse from there: I've known short guys who were with women that were child abusers. Serious shit - as in 'attempted murder' serious. It's no better for unattractive women: there's rapists and abusers and shitbags aplenty. Single motherhood isn't nice either.

I honestly don't get it: if you're unattractive as hell, whether that's partially in your control or not, dating and relationships will suck for you unless you are genuinely exceptional. The only short guy I knew that did OK with dating was a neurosurgery resident with enough charisma for a career in politics. The autistic woman I'm friends with - an emergency-medicine resident in California - wound up enduring a couple relationships with predatory, abusive shitbags before finding a decent guy. Shit fucking sucks, and there's a good chance that the best you're going to get is going to be straight up tragic.

  • -15

This underestimates the value of patient persistence in finding a suitable mate.

I think real despair and frustration can be mitigated by simply giving less attractive folks realistic expectations.

"Realistic expectations" means "Become exceptional, or decide where you want the ambulances". It means figuring out how to be OK with either experiencing terrible shit, or watching terrible shit happen - maybe preventable - and being unable to do anything about it. It is a hell of a thing to expect a woman to be OK with winding up with abusive rapists a few times as she learns how to date. It isn't quite as bad (but still bad) to expect guys to be OK watching their partners slowly kill themselves - and that's one of the better outcomes. Imagine coming home to find out that your wife's tried to strangle your nine-year-old son. Do you think that this causes any less despair?