Why do women say looks don't matter, but then they don't give us average guys a chance?" This complaint/question was the topic of a conversation I was involved in a while ago with some younger men...
It seems to me we have some double standards operating here. I've heard very few men say that for them 'looks don't matter' when they're talking about what it is they want in their 'ideal' partner.
But they do seem to have different criteria for women they're considering as their potential mates to those with whom they're having a casual relationship.
I remember a conversation with my first husband when we began to get serious; we were talking about former boyfriends/girlfriends and the whole sex thing.
We were discussing attraction - what was necessary to develop any kind of relationship and whether there was a difference in what men were looking for if sex was the only thing on their minds. One of his previous 'connections' was mentioned during this conversation. I remember asking him if he had been attracted to this person. As a young woman, I was quite shocked and upset to hear his reply that the general consensus amongst his peers was:
"One doesn't look at the mantelpiece when one is stoking the fire"
I find it a little confusing to hear surprise and an "it's not fair, what about the average guy?" lament expressed when men find that women can also have preferences.
Men have been judging women in the looks department for the entire history of the human race and have been refusing to date women who don't look like "Barbie", or Bo Derek or Naomi or whoever is the latest airbrushed fantasy doll.
Remember all the women down through the ages who were considered 'homely', who were the wallflowers at the local dances - trying to believe their elders telling them that it wasn't their looks that counted but what's on the inside and that a genuine person would see that in them and be attracted to them.
So many women living in fear of being that dreaded class - spinsters - because men didn't find them attractive.
I notice on many men's dating site profiles that they are quite picky and detailed in what they find attractive/acceptable/unacceptable about a woman's looks.
Some men are quite specific in their criteria; I've seen men write that they like their women to be all 'girly' - makeup, mini skirts, and high heels. One person was really specific - the heels, he stated, needed to be more than two inches high, and the woman should wear them on casual occasions also. Men have no idea what it takes to maintain that look or what kind of restrictions it puts on your life and activities, or how bad it is for your back and feet to be wobbling along on stilts that pinch your toes all day.
It seems to me these men don't want to be real - have a real relationship with a real, living, walking, talking, feeling human being. They want to live in an illusion. Good luck to them and pity the women they connect with, having to maintain that facade for him for the rest of their lives; the minute they forget to put on their lippy one day and the wrinkles come, he'll be off looking for a younger,'taut and terrific' version (see movies such as The First Wives Club)
Times have changed. Most (western) women don't need partners to survive in life, so maybe they aren't accepting whatever's on offer just out of desperation, and now many men are finding out what it feels like to be judged in a superficial manner.
Love it - Karma - what goes around comes around. Now that the boot's on the other foot, is this complaint sour grapes because some young men don't have the brawn to make the football team (and score with the cheerleaders) or the brains to get into Harvard where all the thinking chicks will line up and fight for them and hang on every word they utter?
And the serious side of that is that this is an opportunity for men and women to move beyond the surface of both themselves and of each other, for growth and understanding and acceptance (not just tolerance) of diversity.
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