Estimated reading time: 16 minutes
Dear Dr NerdLove,
I’m an average looking man, and I think this means I’ll only ever pair up with average looking women. Because studies have shown that assortive mating is real. Meaning that people tend to partner up with people of similar attractiveness as them. These are peer reviewed studies.
I don’t know if there’s a way to beat the odds or whether it’s even possible to. It seems like there’s just a looks-based caste system that you can’t break out of without a shit ton of luck.
Too Median To Matter
You know, I always love (not really) when I get letters from people that say “Science says…” about dating, but who then never actually go on to cite the actual studies or reports they’re referring. Nor, for that matter, do they include enough information to actually, y’know, track down which studies they mean.
Leaving aside that this leads me to think that the source was a study from Dude, Trust Me University or Dr. ChatGPT, the rare times that people do post a particular study, it becomes clear that they didn’t actually read it beyond someone else’s summary. The conclusions people derive tend to have very little to do with the study’s conclusions and usually involves either overlooking the way the data is misunderstood, small sample sizes, poor-to-non-existent controls, self-report surveys, the authors saying “the results are within the margin of error and so are indicative of more experimentation” and occasional straight up P-hacking.
So I went and did some checking myself and found “A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Of Human Assortative Mating In 22 Complex Traits” by Tanya B Horwitz and Matthew C Keller – published in 2022 in the journal Nature Human Behavior. One of the things they talk about is that assortive mating is a known phenomenon, in humans as well as in non-human animals, but the extent to how much of it is direct and indirect is overstated. For example, many of the phenotypic homogamy (that is: preferring similar traits) are indirectly influenced by things like job choice or social class strata, rather than nature.
They also note that there’s a lot of differentiation in results between the studies in the meta-analysis – that is, the studies don’t show the same results, which you would expect if this were a matter of pure instinct and preference. The authors point out that a lot of assortive mating is affected by things like cultural norms, especially around dating; class mobility and social stratification; population size and population mobility, among other things. All of this is rather intuitive if you think about it; if you live in a place with a relatively small population, a restrictive culture around dating and don’t have the financial resources to move to a place with a larger population, your choices will be limited.
But what’s most interesting – and the most relevant to your letter, TMTM, are the traits that are correlated with assortive mating… and they aren’t looks. In fact, things like waist-to-hip ratio and body mass index are among the lower end of correlation. The traits that are most strongly correlated with assortive mating are… education, religiosity, political values, how much you drink and whether you quit smoking.
The strongest correlation of physical qualities was height – which, I’d point out is between people of similar heights, not women excluding short kings – and even that was on par to generalized anxiety disorder.
It’s worth noting that – as the authors point out – many of these correlations are the result of “indirect selection”; selecting for similar levels of education as a result of how many of people meet their partners through work or because they work in related fields, for example. But it’s also worth noting how many of these correlations are about compatibility in lifestyle or values. If you’re someone who doesn’t drink or rarely drinks alcohol, you’re more likely to prioritize someone who also doesn’t drink much. If you’re someone who’s quit smoking, you’re far less likely to date someone who still smokes.
Political affiliation and religiosity, likewise make sense; they imply shared values and often a shared background. Certain religious affiliations also make it less likely that someone will date outside of that religion – sometimes because of personal comfort or convenience, but also because of restrictions and expectations within that community. And God knows we’ve seen enough hand-wringing opinion pieces (and occasional inchoate screaming on social media) about how liberals are “refusing” to date conservatives and that’s… bad… for some reason.
It also tracks that if you control for more than physical looks – which are also dictated by cultural tastes and mores more than science – you’ll find that the “pretty people” who are paring up tend to have stronger shared traits in lifestyle, social class, career and upbringing rather than just pure facial symmetry. Actors, after all, tend to date other actors in part because that’s who they spend most of their time with, and acting is a career that skews to the more conventionally good looking.
I bring all this up because, quite frankly, you’re falling for bullshit and pointing to science to justify your doomerism. This is really just incel phrenology with extra steps, not signs that you’re somehow cursed with being… average.
But honestly, that should be the record scratch moment right there. You’re declaring that you’re screwed because you’re in the middle of the bell curve? That you are part of the largest slice of the population by definition? Remind me why this is bad again?
Ah, because it means that – if we accept your premise – you are “stuck” dating someone who is also of average looks. Let’s put aside the assumption that this somehow means that the “average” women are not good looking and instead focus on what you don’t seem to realize that you’re saying.
Because I don’t think it has occurred to you that, as you’re complaining that your looks condemn you to date someone who isn’t exceptional looking… you’re expecting someone who is exceptional looking to be willing to overlook your average appearance. Not to put too fine a point on it but… why is that ok for them but not for you? Why are you asking them to give you grace and see beyond your average appearance, when you aren’t willing to do the same? Why – again, if we accept your premise – is it not ok for an exceptionally attractive woman to prefer dating an exceptionally attractive man, when you yourself also want to date an exceptionally attractive woman? You would think that what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.
Well, the answer here is obvious: because of what it says about you. This is the core of what Red Pill and masculinity influencers peddle: the anxiety of being somehow “lesser” among men. If you are the sort of person who can “only” date “average” women and not dimes who make your friends and peers and randos jealous… well, clearly you’re not a Top G Alpha Player. You’re just some Average Frustrated Chump, to dip back into ancient PUA parlance.
(As an aside: I’d point out just how many of those so-called masters of masculinity have been busted for doing everything from hiring models to pretend to be women they’re dating, up to just straight lying and misleading about the actual relationship on social media.)
Now I already hear what some wags are going to say, so allow me to say this clearly: no, I’m not telling you the answer is “lower your standards”. What I am saying is that you’re focused on the idea that not having a model for a girlfriend is a failure on your part and referendum on your value and worth as a man, and that’s part of your problem. There’s nothing wrong with wanting someone you’re physically attracted to, but there’s a difference between “someone you’re physically attracted to” and “someone who makes my friends jealous and elevates my status”. Especially when it means you’re restricting yourself to a small subset of the population. You can’t exactly complain about how few dates you go on when you’ve limited your potential dating pool to a single-digit percentage of available women.
The other part of your problem is that you want an exceptional-looking girlfriend, but don’t seem to be willing to do the things that will actually make that woman want to date you. If you want to date models or model-quality women, what are you doing to make yourself dateable to them? What qualities do you have that make you a good potential partner to them that supposedly “counter” your average looks? What are you doing that brings you in contact with them, makes them – as the song goes – part of that world? Compatibility isn’t just about looks, it’s about shared values, experiences, interests and ambitions.
So what about you would make you a potential match for them? What do you have in common – in terms of lifestyle, experience, or even day-to-day life – that would make you a match for Sabrina Carpenter or Jurnee Smollet? If we use the fictional metric of, say, Lara Croft, why would an accomplished, highly educated explorer and archeologist* want to date you, specifically? How are you going to fit into her world?
*Yes, I know she’s a tomb robber and treasure hunter, not an archeologist, but work with me here.
Relationships, after all, are two-way streets. The value prospect has to be mutual; they need to see the things in you that would make you a good match to them, otherwise, you’re basically hoping that this exceptional person is ok with being a prop in your life, but getting very little in return.
If you honestly think that being “average looking” is a handicap (it’s not), then the answer is to work on yourself and cultivate the qualities that would make you a good partner to someone who’s exceptional. And those would have to be the qualities that women actually want, not the ones that men insist they do – often while ignoring what women are saying and who they’re dating.
But more importantly: I think you need to look at your motivations. I’m willing to bet that there are quite a lot of women you think are cute, hot or generally attractive out there, that you’ve written off because you don’t see them as giving you that status boost, and that’s what’s fucking you over. If you’re looking at a relationship as proof of anything other than “you care for this person and this person cares for you and you want to have them in your life”, you’re not looking for a person, you’re looking for an accessory. And no accessory is going to magically make you a more “valuable” or “higher status” person. That can only come from within.
Good luck
Dear Dr. NerdLove
When I first make a dating app profile, I feel a bit of hope that inevitably fades away after a couple weeks of no matches. I wish I could have a mutual infatuation with someone, but in real life I feel desperate as it seems no one has been interested in me in years.
I’ve read some of your articles, how do I cultivate an abundance mindset? How do I cultivate internal validation?
Sincerely,
The Silly Sorcerer
Occasionally I will get a letter that can be distilled down to “Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I go like this,” and the answer, likewise, can be distilled down to “Well, stop going like that.”
This is one of those times.
The problem here, TSS, is that dating apps are a shitty place to go looking for validation. Even in the Before Times, the Long Long Ago, when they hadn’t been caught in the Line Go Up mentality, that’s not how they worked, nor what they were designed for. Now, they have strayed even farther from God’s light; their purpose isn’t to get you dates, it’s to frustrate you enough so that you’ll pay to be less frustrated.
More to the point – and more specifically to your problem – is that dating apps aren’t a measure of anything other than how good you are at making a dating app profile and getting the algorithm to play nice. It’s not a meaningful measure of your worth, attractiveness or anything else, because nothing about them is set up to measure or adjudicate those things. If anything, you would be hard pressed to make it deliberately worse for that purpose.
To start with you have no way of knowing who your profile is being shown to; every site’s algorithm is a black box by design, and the algorithm is destined to be based on the assumptions and beliefs of the creators. So off the bat: you’re dealing with someone else’s idea of who, theoretically, you should match with.
For another: you’re dealing with a fraction of a fraction of the population. The male-to-female ratio on dating apps is around 70/30 or worse, so you’re dealing with an incredibly limited dating pool that only gets smaller as you filter for factors like locale, religion, star sign or what-have-you. And because of how men tend to use dating apps, this means that women on average get a much, much higher volume of people trying to match with them. It’s not just a matter of needing to stand out from the crowd, it’s also a matter of hoping that you’re reaching someone who hasn’t been burned out by a firehose of low-quality matches, dick pics and guys who are clearly just swiping on everyone and hoping that the person they actually want to talk to matched back.
There’s also the fact that, on dating apps, it’s easy to get tunnel vision and focus on what you think you want, while missing out on serendipity. I know many couples in decades long relationships who would not have matched if they had been on dating apps, instead of having met in person. On paper, they wouldn’t have been a good match, but in person, it turns out they had that x-factor that made them perfect for one another.
And then there’s also the fact that you may just not be the sort of person who comes across well on paper and still images. Not everyone is easily reduced to a few question prompts and jpgs; their je ne sais quoi is something that can only be experienced in person. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there; it simply means that words and pictures are a poor medium for conveying it.
So, basing your self-worth and validation on the results you get on dating apps is a fool’s errand. It makes your sense of worth incredibly fragile, because it has no actual foundation and a simple code update will shatter it like glass.
But at the same time, your worth isn’t dependent on being in a relationship or not. The point of internal validation is that it’s about what you know of yourself, not external factors, which are outside your control and aren’t weighted equally. It also recognizes that our sense of worth and value and what we use as that yardstick will change over time, as we change over time. To use a recent relevant example: is Mike Tyson not a once-in-a-generation boxing talent, simply because he is a mortal who’s vulnerable to the ravages of time? Was Ozzy Osborne less significant when he couldn’t sing or perform the way he did in his prime?
Internal validation isn’t about results; it’s about knowing and understanding yourself and recognizing what’s good in you. It doesn’t matter if people disagree, in part because you aren’t always going to value the metric they’re using. Are you going to think you’re a horrible person if, I dunno, Stephen Miller thinks you are? Or would you roll your eyes at him and consign his opinion to the trash?
A cat seems arrogant because it knows it’s a cat; the opinions of others doesn’t make it not a cat. Tyson isn’t less of a phenomena just because other people think Muhammad Ali was the true GOAT. This doesn’t mean that the opinions of others don’t matter, but they’re a bolster, not the source. The opinions of people whose opinions and judgement you trust matter, in part because they will have earned your trust in their judgement… but even then, you are the ultimate decider.
This is why cultivating internal validation is about knowing yourself, about what you can do, what you’re capable of and – importantly – how you’re able to improve. Finding things you’re proud of, doing things that bring meaning to your life, knowing what you’ve accomplished, the lessons you’ve learned and the ways you’ve grown and improved… those all help you find your internal validation. It’s nice when other people agree, but never forget that people also used to agree that the mullet was a cool hair style and that “Muskrat Love” was a banger song.
Likewise, abundance is found in recognizing the truth: there’re millions of fine women out there. There is a very small number of them on the dating apps, and the apps themselves get in the way of your interacting with them; the fact that the apps don’t serve you is more about the nature of the apps than about you. So if you’re not meeting women on the apps, then the answer would be to rely less on the apps and more about meeting them in person.
It also means understanding that you’re dealing with one person at a time, not a collective. One rejection means only that: one person rejected you. It isn’t even necessarily personal; many times, rejection is about where they are in their lives, rather than anything about you. But even a string of rejections doesn’t mean that all women don’t like you, just that circumstances mean that these women, specifically said “I’m flattered, but I’m not feeling it, thank you.”
It isn’t pleasant, but all it means is that these people aren’t interested, and now you’re free to move on to find someone who is.
It’s entirely possible to have a run of bad luck, even for years, without it being a collective judgement on you as a person. There are so many factors that come into play, from location and demographics, to the economy, to where you are in your life in comparison to other people’s, to even your understanding of yourself, that you can’t possibly account for them all. To reduce it all down to “there’s nobody who is right for me” is short sighted foolishness.
If you take time to go around and observe – not passively glance around when you remember to, but actually go out looking – you’ll see women all over the place. They’re at bookstores, they’re at coffee shops, they’re in the parks and the museums, the movies and the street faires. They’re at work, at home, visiting family, doing their shopping and living their lives. The fact that you may not feel like you can approach them or talk to them in those moments doesn’t mean that there isn’t abundance; it just means you’re acknowledging the social context.
But even if we were to say that you are only appealing to a very small group of people – we aren’t and you aren’t, but this is for the sake of argument – then a mindset of “every rejection means I’m this closer to dying alone and unloved” is the opposite of helpful. All this does is prime you to over-invest in each individual you try to meet, leave you lost in your own head and unable to actually connect with someone. You put yourself in a position where you feel like you are trying to avoid rejection, rather than seeing if they’re even a good match for you, which only serves to make you feel scared and insecure regardless of what what happens. It will kick your confirmation bias into high gear, which will then make sure that you only see the signs of doom – whether they’re there or not – and ignore or discount the positive ones.
So, even if it were rank delusion to have an abundance mentality… it’s a delusion that helps you. After all, if confirmation bias is going to make you see only the things that confirm what you believe and dismiss the things you don’t, then it’s better to believe in the best, rather than the worst.
And this is important, because if you don’t believe that other people could be interested in you, you won’t recognize it when they are. Someone could sit in your lap and start to wiggle, and you would still think that there’s a reason for it besides “maybe she wants to make out about it”. There’s a difference between “I’m loveable and desirable, I just haven’t met the right person” and “nobody could possibly be interested in me”. The former primes you to look for success; the latter ensures you’ll only see failure.
So my advice to you: get off the apps and live an active, interesting life that you’re proud of, out in the physical world. Do things that feed your soul, seek challenges with meaning to you and do things that bring you both satisfaction and meaning. These will help build your internal validation, while doing so out in the material world will help you see the abundance that’s out there and put you in a position to take full advantage of it.
The more you love your life, the more you are setting yourself up to meet the love of your life.
Good luck.
