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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

One cynical answer is that someone is going to have to have to do the dissuading, and most people see that as too cruel an act to want to engage in themselves. Another cynical reason is that keeping people oriented in a hopeful direction is much better for society than whatever the pit of inceldom will produce (though there are some good critiques of society in that sphere).

And non-cynically, young men have a tendency to fall into despair that doesn't reflect the real difficulty of their situation (though for sure things are more difficult than they used to be) but they tend to grow out of this with age, and maybe some encouragement is going to help them to do that.

I mean...the problem is kind of a lack of meaning. Keeping some poor short bastard grasping for a brass ring he cannot reach is also not the best thing, when he comes to believe - rightly or not - that it was all just bullshit.

Become remarkable, or decide where you want the ambulances - if you want a partner at all.

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