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Notes -
It might be a basic human need...but is it better to be alone, or to marry and have children...only to find that your wife tried to kill one of them? Or to be with an abusive alcoholic? All of these things suck: are relationships truly the least bad option here?
Who does not work, does not eat. I suppose you could argue that some people are destined to work extremely dangerous jobs out of pure desperation and run very high risks of being killed and maimed, and that's better than nothing.
Obviously most people don't go into it and get that binary choice between a potential relationship and a baby killer. You might as well ask if it's worth driving if a semi might crumple your vehicle.
And, yes, our psychology is tilted such that we are broadly driven to downplaying those risks (some of which, like matricide, are relatively small here) and driven to be less satisfied with a parlous social network. Precisely because the benefits are manifold.'
I mean. The case of someone that is very unattractive attempting a relationship is like someone who is in the bottom few percent of driving performance considering driving. It may not make sense for them to do so - the risk of accidents is simply too great. With driving...we don't let blind people drive, we don't let people with more than a certain level of visual impairment drive, we don't let people with seizure disorders drive, we make people pass basic tests of roadworthiness before getting their license. "Don't suck donkey balls, or have a condition that means you're going to suck donkey balls, and you can and probably should drive a car."
You're assuming there's a correlation between how good looking someone is and how they are in a relationship. I could just as easily make the argument that attractive people are horrible partners because they never have to work for it and just assume the companionship of other people. Hence, attractive people are all self-centered jerks. Unattractive people, meanwhile, have to have great personalities to compensate for physical defects, so unless all you're interested in is sex you're better off with someone from the bottom of the looks distribution. It's not for nothing that Jimmy Soul sang back in 1963:
In all honesty I doubt there's any real difference
I mean it is more than just looks. Are you better off being a nurse and caretaker for your partner? What if they're unattractive because they're homeless and addicted to meth or some shit like that? If they're living on the street because they've got florid, untreated schizophrenia? It's not just unfortunate people that are still capable of working jobs and living independently. It's the 500 pound person in the mobility scooter. The paralyzed man with cerebral palsy that says he's going to kill himself because of despair at his homelessness, and winds up in the local psych ward five times a year. The really unattractive people? They're either at home or in institutions of one type or another. They're Fussell's bottom-out-of-sight people.
It's not just looks - many people would be very happy with someone who had a facial deformity but could work a job, any job, and live independently. It's about the goddamn ambulances and other institutions. It's about watching someone die, possibly to avoidable things like addiction, and being powerless to prevent that.
Getting beat up by the ugly stick is a very different kettle of fish to needing a nurse and caretaker. For the gentlemen: they are indeed looking down the barrel of a life of nursing and caretaking if they want partners. And that is the best many will do. For the ladies, it's even worse.
Surely the number of ugly-but-not-violent/requiring-a-nurse males and females is roughly equal? Can't the ugly dudes just find a nice homely girl and settle down?
This is almost certainly not true actually. Females have a roughly standard distribution in most traits, where most are about average. Males have a bimodalish, flattened distribution, where most males are either above or below average. Because of this, there are more men at either extreme. The peaks of humanity, and the dregs of it, are something like 10:1 male:female.
I don't suppose you have a reference? This does not seem to match my experience, in terms of physical beauty at least.
Anyways wouldn't this distribution result in a surplus of '5' women having to settle for '1' men? (due to the '10' Chads scooping up all the 6+ ladies, leaving no studs for the median woman. not great for the ladies, but the ugly dudes should make out like bandits)
Honestly it's one of those things I read somewhere, but I don't have the source on me or the time to find it. I will note that it was for general quality on numerous metrics which extends beyond physical attraction.
As to your point, it would only be true in a case where:
Everyone must have a long-term partner
No two people can have the same partner.
Both of which are distinctly untrue. Just means more women will share the non-1s or end up alone. People, especially women, have standards, and won't just end up with trash because everyone else was taken. There's always the option of getting knocked up from a man a couple notches up and being a single mother.
A man who is actually a 1 in attractiveness is actually horrible, given that even a total uggo would still score above a 1 with nearly any redeemable qualities. Single motherhood is almost certainly preferable to even being in the same room as such a man, let alone interacting with him.
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