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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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Why do we expect and encourage the unattractive to have relationships?

It's a basic human need. It's also tied to other basic human goods (e.g. more social links tend to buffer people against swings in fortune, depression and a lack of life satisfaction). The assumption is strongly held that You can't get rid of it, it's why we're here.

Also, to be more cynical, people don't say this (even if they think it) because it implicitly carries the message that you see such societal dregs as less-than. I've never heard a well-adjusted male be told to give up or to perform some ubermensch-like act of will and dispel their desire for companionship. Even the women who say it are usually playacting. It would be alienating to the person. Might as well say the polite thing -"there's someone for everyone" - and let them sink or swim on their own.

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

So what? If you're not a genius working will involve some level of hardship. Does that mean you shouldn't work?

Also: there's no reason why you should exist on the same package as an "exceptional" person? Nobody would buy or be happy in a house if that was the metric.

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.

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?

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:

If you want to be happy for the rest of your life

Never make a pretty woman your wife

So for my personal point of view

Get an ugly girl to marry you

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?

Surely the number of ugly-but-not-violent/requiring-a-nurse males and females is roughly equal?

No - women have more central tendency. Guys have more champs and way more chumps. Unattractiveness ain't just looks. It can be 'being a criminal shitbag', 'being a drug addict', 'being autistic', or any number of things that are more common for dudes.

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