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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.

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The child survived, for what it was worth, with no lasting physical injury. They're gainfully employed and have a clean record. Yes, there are ugly people with good hearts. Yes, some people are in and out of institutions through absolutely no fault whatsoever of their own. Do you want a partner who has some kind of terrible autoimmune disease that means that they will never live independently or hold a job? That, too, is tragic; that is no one's fault. Upthread, someone compared it to driving. You might be a terrible driver because you like to get hammered and do 100mph down residential streets. You might also never be a good driver because you had the bad luck to be born blind or epileptic.

Simply being ugly is one thing. Being in and out of some kind of institution or other is quite another. Where do you want the ambulances?