In the current Open Thread, a reader left the following comment, which I consider downright bizarre:
I really think guys put WAAAAAAAAAAYYY too much stock into what a woman looks like. (…) There’s this HUGE myth out there that hotter women are funner to be with, give better sex, are better educated, are best suited to do well in whatever job they’re applying for, etc., and nothing could be further from the truth. That’s not to say looks aren’t important – you’re attracted to what you’re attracted to. However, it’s rare to find a girl who is physically attractive and has a great personality, among other things. Most of the time women will rate high in the looks department but rate low in the personality department, or vise versa.
Let’s pick it apart.
The general problem with that kind of argument, which you will encounter in many variations, and not just related to women, is the underlying assumption that the world is just in some way. I have heard people make the claim that — I’m paraphrasing — yes, they may have had shitty grades or lack some important skills, but they are “great team workers”, or have a “winning personality”. I have had bullshitters tell me that they can’t do X, which is an integral part of the job they are applying for, but they could learn “anything” to get the job done. Yet, nothing in their biography lends any credence to that claim.
In reality, though, if you are good at something, you are likely to be good at other things as well, even unrelated ones. For instance, I have frequently encountered people who excelled at mathematics who were also very competent musicians, or guys who are really great at their job, and also know more about some arcane subject than people who have a degree in it, say engineers who have a deep interest in WWI military strategy. Heck, I know at least a dozen people who got a “real” second Bachelor’s or Master’s degree while working full-time, just for fun, just like I met academics who publish papers outside their speciality, in completely unrelated fields, to keep their minds engaged. Of course those people are rare, but those examples clearly illustrate the point that excellence is an overarching personality trait. (Oh, and if you now want to shout “bullshit”, keep in mind that I’m writing from a Continental European perspective. We normally don’t pay for higher education so you can study as much as you want. It’s not “free”, though, because we get fucked in the ass by the taxman.)
Looks are, perhaps surprisingly for some, largely an expression of your work ethic. Sure, if you weren’t graced with a dominant chin or prominent cheek bones, your only recurse is cosmetic surgery, but if you have a shitty hair cut, dress like a hobo and are fat, you really don’t have a good excuse. Being slender and toned requires that you eat healthily and lift weights at least every once in a while, or stick to a bodyweight workout routine. Healthy food is cheaper than crappy food, and a moderate workout routine takes less time than daily Call of Duty or Destiny sessions with your buddies on your Xbox.
If you want to bulk up, without using ‘roids, you’ll need to show even more discipline. However, chances are that if you are disciplined with regards to X, you will also be disciplined with regards to Y. On a related note, this is why some companies like to hire former athletes. It’s not so much that they are “great team players”, but because they have already shown that they can stick to a plan and follow through. They don’t merely claim to be ambitious but have proof that they are. A much weaker instance of the same principle are companies who hire people “with a college degree” or a “quantitative degree”. It’s not so important what your degree is in, but they want to see that you were able to show up four years in a row, or show up and occasionally juggle some numbers and variables. You can already hear the bullshitters in the corner protesting that a degree is just a piece of paper or that you can learn everything on your own. There is some Tim Ferriss-wannabe (Scott Young) who built a career claiming he finished an MIT BSc in one year, even though he just went through a very small subset of the materials, which he pulled from an online source. The stupidity of people is just unbelievable.
Now, let’s get back women who look better. You can absolutely make the claim that a woman who looks better than the average overweight “sloot” has the following going for her:
. discipline
. a positive self-image
. a realistic appreciation of dating dynamics
The first bullet point one is obvious, the second one follows from the fact that she makes an effort to look good as she, surprise, does not want to look bad. She knows that she couldn’t stand looking at herself in the mirror if her arms were flabby or her tummy not flat, so she religiously goes to pilates or yoga, or her spinning class or whatever. Third, she knows that if she doesn’t look good, she won’t be able to land a decent guy. Now compare this to Feminist Fiona who could easily lose 40 pounds, secretly wants Brad the Jock to fuck her, but instead of working hard, rather goes on an SJW crusade on Tumblr and Twitter, deluding herself that she will be able to shame top-shelf guys into fucking uglos. Ain’t gonna happen, sister.
I would easily go as far as to claim that hotter women are more highly educated. Part of the reason is also the idea of getting an “Mrs.” degree. If you haven’t experienced it yourself, I can only tell you that you would be surprised how much better looking than the average young women at selective universities are. No, you won’t easily find whores full of tattoos, so if that is your definition of “hot”, you’d be out of luck. This is similar to the fact that you will find hotter women in cities that provide better job opportunities, as ambitious women go where successful men are more likely to be.
Of course, good-looking women have a leg up in the job market as well. Why shouldn’t they? Taller guys get hired more easily too. No, looks won’t easily compensate for shitty grades or lacking skills, but ceteris paribus you will do a lot better if you are better looking than your competition.
The absolute worst part in the comment above, though, is the claim that there is an negative correlation between physical attraction and having a great personality. That’s complete fucking bullshit. Go out and talk to your random Five, Six, or even Seven. Chances are that they hate the world because they think they should have been born hot. It’s even worse with women who could easily be an Eight, if they only made an effort. Unattractive women tend to have by far the worst attitudes and personalities. If you think otherwise, you should pull your dick out of the vaginas of the uglos you fuck and experience good-looking, balanced, fun women with pleasant personalities. The uglos resent average guys approaching them because they know they can’t get anything better, but refuse to accept it. On the other hand, an attractive woman knows that she is attractive to many men, so she only has to wait and turn down a few suitors until a guy she deems worthy to spread her legs for shows up.
I’m commenting for no other reason than to say thank you. I was looking at life through the lens of a fantasy concocted by the pickup “community” and feel-good television ideals for a majority of my life (I’m now 20). Having ripped off that band-aid of fucking lies I think I’m ready to make some positive changes in my life.
What you say about college degree/athletes and personnality trait is so true. Many achievement don’t come with luck/inborn talent but by showing up and by beeing consistent. If you practice your sport or art regularely you will become good at it. Same thing with university where most degree can be obtained by showing up and doing the work. The highest rate of divorce and the highest rate of obesity in america is among those who have some college but not finished a degree (at least for most demographics).
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db50.htm
https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/divorce-by-raceethnicity-and-education-2010/
I used statistics from the us found on google because I don’t have that kind of stats from elsewhere.
There is really a psychology of people who can’t stay commited and focused wheter it’s about gym routine, university or relationship. We all know people that never progress in anything because they drop out after a couple of month.
About women and personnality i find that some ugly women become very bitter and some compensate by beeing extremly nice and having something else going into their life. Not much in between. I also agree that very hot women tend to be very nice even when they have no romantic or sexual interest in you.
Haven’t read the whole article yet. But just wanted to say 2 things. Both about this statement: ‘There’s this HUGE myth’
Myth? No, I think you mean bias. People are biased towards attractive people. In some cases bias has a basis in fact. Stop using exaggerating words.
Huge? Did anybody else notice an upswing in the usage of the word huge, or ‘hhuuuugggee’ or whatever way Trump said it? Unrelated to this topic, but I have noticed that people while accusing Trump of being a horrible speaker, constantly use his oneliners etc. (Another reason he probably won, he stuck in your mind).
Aaron is completely correct. And I’ve seen it myself plenty of times. Most attractive women are generally pleasant, while most fat women primarily complain about things.
And there is scientific proof that thinner women are more mentally healthy.
The majority of fat women are literally crazy
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18158005
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16818872
They also have lower IQs
http://www.honestthinking.org/en/pub/James_Watson.Inconvenient_truth.Moralistic_fallacy.Race_realism.Rushton.Jensen.htm
And fat women are generally bigger sluts than thin women
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19485565.2011.615172#.UaMErX5wqf4
And on average are worse mothers as well
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2144243/Obesity-pregnancy-Carrying-pounds-baby-life-weight-problems.html
It’s not that they are worse than thin people because they’re fat. They’re fat specifically because they tend to be lower IQ, and have poor discipline.
” You can absolutely make the claim that a woman who looks better than the average overweight “sloot” has the following going for her:
. discipline
. a positive self-image
. a realistic appreciation of dating dynamics”
I’m having a hard time to confirm that. What I mostly have experienced are better looking women who are stuck up because of their looks. Maybe they do have a positive self image or a realistic appreciation of dating dynamics, but lack discipline. For example in the gym where I’m working out are two really good looking women. They are both blond, have a beautiful face and skinny. Yes they go to the gym to appear, but discipline in a work out? No. Having a nice face and being blond is enough here to be above average looks. And at work (where I’m working) they use their looks to get ahead. Compared to other countries they would be average.
What I know and see a lot are women who don’t have the best looks (face) who work out a lot, keep a strict diet and dress good. A good example for that (she’s known on the media) is Sophia Thiel. Some “social media guys” made fun of her face and voice.
“Unattractive women tend to have by far the worst attitudes and personalities.”
That’s also something I can’t confirm. I know several women who are really fat, I could never imagine having sex with and would be rated not even a 5.
These women know they are ugly, but accepted it and appreciate every attention their getting from men. They seem chill, funny to hang out with and not worried about their looks. What surprised me the most: they don’t have instagram, snapchat,…and don’t unlock their phone every 5 min. There is no need to get attention on apps.
Btw. Due to their fatness: they can cook and bake pretty good. But sexual attractive? Never ever
I think you’re referring to “skinny fat” women. I’m talking about women who are actually in shape, not just thin.
Sophia Thiel probably takes some supplements, judging by her abnormally low levels of body fat. Her biceps are ridiculous. Also, she’s doubling down hard on marketing and tends towards a more sensationalist delivery in her videos, from what I can tell. Thus, some caution would be advised.
I’d bang her. Don’t know why the face is a problem for you.
Knowing that language use is a great IQ indicator she probably is fairly limited, so that’s where the ridiculing came from I’d say. At least it’s a turn off for me.
Supplements or not, she did go an move her ass, so from that point of view she’s light years ahead compared to any lazy feminist.
8 out of 10 cucks wouldn’t bang Sophia Thiel in a parallel universe because the random fattie next door has a much better personality, I suppose.
word.
BTW:
“Nicht dass ihr jetzt denkt, ich würde das nur wegen den Jungs machen”
(“Don’t you think I just did this to get guys”)
Well honey, isn’t that a textbook brainfuck? You didn’t have a “fester Freund” (“serious boyfriend”) while you were fat, and now you worked out and puff… you got a cock, err… a boyfriend.
Kinda like: “I had nothing to eat, then I took a job, now my fridge is full, but I didn’t work for the money”
MY
ASS
Is it me or do the women have far more manlier faces and jaws nowadays than men, Especially in Western Europe and America? Most German women I have encountered were very much like Sophia Thiel – with square (or squarish) defined jaws, sharp features, small deeply set eyes and overall pretty masculine faces, while men barely had a jaw or chin to speak of. Had the sexes switched or something?
Tugel
Her manly face is probably from the supplements she takes.
I think he’s talking about 9s/10s versus 7s. At least that’s how I interpreted it.
I’ll make an attempt at refuting, but only with anecdotal evidence, a point that Aaron made in this article.
In my experience, it’s not true that healthy food is cheaper that crap food. Again, this might be because of my background and the country I live in. But readily available food’s usually loaded with carbs (rice, corn tortillas, bread) and lacking in veggies other than squash and tomatoes. The prospects improve if you can homemake you own meals, but not by much.
I get that Aaron may be writing from a continental Europe perspective. What does everyone else thinks?
Where do you live? I was referring to buying ingredients for your own cooking. It is downright ludicrous how cheap fruit and vegetables are compared to ready-made meals, soft drinks, snacks, and ice cream. Depending on where you live, fresh fish may be more expensive, but meat should be readily available, and for a very good price.
Central America.
And yeah, cooking your own meals (a luxury I don’t have with my current job) improves the healthy factor. But the prices are kind of iffy. U$ 1.00 for a small broccoli sounds like a price for a developed country, not for mine.
I have a hard time believing that junk food is cheaper than real food in Central America.
Manuel,
Can you get frozen veggies there? try that.
Depends on how you compare the cost. If you’re comparing as “cost per 100 calories derived”, health food is always more expensive.
Getting 2000 calories from a strictly “health food” diet is far more expensive than getting it from a more mixed diet (let’s say 50% junk, 50% healthy). I would know, I’ve been crunching this data for 15 years now. That’s on a “calorie for calorie basis” – junk food is always cheaper.
Simple examples include:
– A wholewheat bread costs more than processed white bread
– A pack of chips costs less than chicken breast (per 100 calories derived)
I could go on and list 13213 examples. A junk food diet is always cheaper than a “healthy diet”, at least if you go on “cost per 100 calories”.
What about potatoes or rice? I could buy two kilos of rice for the price of one bag of potato chips, for instance.
Its called canned food dude. You could get a tin of lentils for 70c, other beans and legumes would be similar.
Aaron, I don’t mean junk food. But our typical everyday dish here is a bucnh of carb-rich food (corn, rice, plantains, etc.) with a slice of meat and a bit of squash. Not a lot different nutritionally speaking than a service at McDonalds, is it?
@Neutralrandomthoughts: frozen veggies? Our countries produce enough natural veggies, with the occasional shortage due to droughts. It’s just that their price makes your meal at least a tad more expensive, like the example I gave about broccoli.
How about reducing carbs, and loading up on veggies as well as meat?
Correction: when I said “squash”, I meant cabbage. I had the two words mixed up in my head.
Aaron, that’s exactly what I thought, but again, only works if I can prepare my own meals. And the closest market or supermarket isn’t dozens of miles away. IIRC, Yarara works in the construction industry as I do, so he might be more familiar with my situation.
Alek, I’ll reflect on what you say and come back to it later. For now, I’ll just say that if I still had that desk job from a while ago, I would consider a serious cut on my caloric intake. As it is right now, I need my calories 🙂
“Depends on how you compare the cost. If you’re comparing as “cost per 100 calories derived”, health food is always more expensive.”
Complete nonsense.
Just one example: I regularly eat a bowl of plain oatmeal with milk and some fruits. I buy my oatmeal in 500 grams packages, which cost around 70 cents. 100 grams of oatmeal is about 350 kcal, which means I can get almost 2000 kcal/€. Needless to say, oatmeal has a very high nutrient density. Milk and fruits are also pretty cheap.
*edit: I wanted to write almost 2500kcal/€
I’ll check the pricing on oatmeal and rice to make sure I’m not talking out of my ass. But best I can remember, it’s at least 500% more expensive where I live than what you said for the oatmeal.
Even if it were true, those are exception items. You’re not going to live on an unbalanced diet of only beans, rice, vegetables and oatmeal are you? That’s quite the spartan diet.
You all know full well that meat is expensive. You all know that if you’re going to have even a bit of enjoyment in a diet, you will have to introduce foods other than just “vegetables, rice, and oameal”. Each of those things that are EVEN A BIT enjoyable, all cost more for the healthier version.
– introduce more protein (increases cost of diet)
– substitute processed foods for their unprocessed version (white bread for wholewheat)
– substitute dairy products for lower-fat version (increases cost)
– substitute sugary treats for lower-sugar version (all cost more than the sugar version)
Now, you can all the play the fool and pretend to be the spartan that lives ona completely unbalanced spartan diet of rice, potatoes and oatmeal
Come back to me after you’ve done that every day for 10 years straight. And if you haven’t and do enjoy other tasty shit. Then what’s your point? All somewhat tasty shit costs more in the healthier version.
Alek,
I only need to compare what I spend at the supermarket compared to the people in front of me. I have often seen people paying significantly more than me for a bunch of processed food, chocolate bars, and soft drinks. Meat is comparatively cheap, in my opinion. The other day I had a woman in front of me who bought a ready-made scrappy Cesar salad, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and a soda. She spent around 12 Euros for food for a day. For that amount of money you can buy a big bag of vegetables that lasts you a week, easily, or vegetables, fruit, dairy products and meat (probably not from the delicatessen counter) for around two days.
“Now, you can all the play the fool and pretend to be the spartan that lives ona completely unbalanced spartan diet of rice, potatoes and oatmeal
Come back to me after you’ve done that every day for 10 years straight. And if you haven’t and do enjoy other tasty shit. Then what’s your point? All somewhat tasty shit costs more in the healthier version.”
I used to eat healthy on a budget back in my student days.
Oatmeal was just the first example that came to my mind of a cheap yet healthy food choice. I can list other examples if you want: eggs (one egg = 10g of protein and 100kcal, costsliterally nothing), frozen vegetables (1kg costs between 1-2 euros), milk (one liter is almost 500 kcal and costs about one euro, 33 g protein), tuna (one can is around 1 euro), nuts (very cheap if you look at €/kcal), etc.
Meat in general isn’t cheap, healthy or not. While lean chicken breast isn’t cheap even in the supermarket, the less healthier meat alternative is not cheaper or at least not much cheaper (frozen chicken nuggets, for example). And obviously, buying lean chicken breast in the supermarket still trumps buying three cheeseburgers at McDonalds in terms of costs.
I would argue that there is no real correlation between physical attractiveness and personality, based on my own experiences and what I have read. I have known a few fitness models who were borderline personalities , and I have known some fairly nice fat women, not that I would have sex with them. I have also found the reverse. Often, with attractive people you have to watch for the Halo effect. In the corporate world, you would be amazed how many people you run into who look good and present well, and end up moving up the hierarchy pretty rapidly. Once you actually work with them, you can find a lot are actually empty suits.
I havent found a significant correlation either, as yet. But my population sample of women isnt as large as Aarons, perhaps as I approach the triple digits mark in a few years (circa 5 years at the current girls turnover rate) I can have a clearer picture. Plus I am slowly moving upward in girl quality.
Regarding these matters I’d like to point out that we are a multinational community here, and while there is a great deal of commonality among us humans, some of our observations and speculations are still bound to be culture specific. Perhaps this is one of them.
I did experience the phenomenon of average or below average girls being thankful for the male attention and putting more effort and kinkyness in the sex. And I did experience and witness hot girls being very elitist bitches as well. But havent done a systematic study yet… 🙂
Attractive people being nicer is biggest cognitive bias in the fucking world xD
Reading comments on this site reminds me reading fellow libertarian blog. Any interesting facet of life is an excuse for him to fit it into “libertarianism would make it better” philosophy. Problem is, extremist pholosophies are VERY popular, due to black and white thinking. There are magnitude more of leftists or conservatives than let’s say centrists. People want to read utopias. One of utopias of the pasts were that: look doesn’t matter. Then second one is: what you say doesn’t matter as long as you caveman it. Sorry guys, even the probability of any extreme approach working to its best are null.
To be fair, in Aaron’s defense. I think he’s trying to act as a “counter-balancing agent”. The pendulum is swung so much in the other direction, that he’s trying to swing it back.
If there were 50% of people on each side, then you would be right. Aaron would just be another “white” or “black”. The problem is that in these areas (dating advice), the pendulum is way over on the other side… in terms of these myths being busted here
Aaron is busting some pretty popular and permeating myths, so he is (I admit) overstating the case. He’s not “entirely balanced” in his statements.
Consider this though. You can go back in history, and see. He only does this until he influences enough people, then he stops and moves onto other topics.
For example, back in the days where everybody was promoting shotgunning random approaches… Aaron wrote posts where it seemed he was saying “Never ever talk to a girl in a club, public, ever”. That’s not what he was saying, but because of his “over-stating style” that’s how it came across to many. He was just trying to swing back the pendulum toward balance.
Now that even all the PUAs are promoting more social circle, networking, “intelligent approaching”, Aaron is no longer ranting against cold approaching. Because he only does that when a pendulum is unbalanced, and he seems to do that when he’s acting as a “swing back” agent.
Great Article Aaron, although really all that was required was that last paragraph. The biggest falsehood I had about women was exactly that idea that hotter women were more bitchy, or cruel, or whatever (insert negative personality characteristic here). Sure I’ve met fat girls that were legitimately funny and fun to be around, but the hottest girls do, as a group, absolutely have the best personalities. I’m not necessarily talking about the girls who have decent bodies and cake on the makeup (although now that I think about it, all those girls have been sweethearts as well), but the girls in good shape with beautiful facial features. And not only are they the most fun to be around, but they’re also the nicest to hit on even if they aren’t attracted to you. All of my, admittedly pretty rare, negative experiences with girls have been from the girl I was barely attracted to, or wasn’t even hitting on, just talking to.
All you have to do is see who the PUAs call “tens” and who they’re pulling and it will all make sense. You’ll suddenly go “oh, so that’s why they came up with this myth of the bitchy hotties”.
They’re basically just picking up the overdressed, overattentionseeking seven in a tight skirt, and calling her “the super hottie”. No wonder their experience is that “the hottest women are the bitchiest”.
My experience seems to be different to everyone else. I’ve never seen a correlation between looks and personality. I’ve met some shitty hot women, nice hot women, shitty not-so hot women and nicer ones.
The conclusion I came to is that personality is somewhat innate and their life experience can possibly mold it to a certain extent, but the end result varies from person to person regardless of looks.
That being said, some casual observation due to recent experience makes me wonder if evidence slants slightly towards the “hotties are bitches” hypothesis. I worked in an affluent area of Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs recently (I was there for about 18 months) that has a high proportion of model-esque women who, besides naturally being decent looking, also put a lot of effort into their appearance.
I’d notice a high proportion of them seemed a little icy in their demeanor and how they interacted with you. Not overly open or warm. But when heading into other parts of the city that are a little more working-to-middle class where the women, on average, are a few notches down looks-wise, seemed to be more friendly and down to earth.
Regardless of this, there was still variation among each group, and possibly any bias I may have could have affected my interpretation (the Eastern Suburbs is seen as pretty snobby, and I come from a working class background).
Ok, since this article is directed towards me, I figured I would illustrate my point. I was browsing YouTube and I caught this random review of one of my favorite games for the NES, Megaman 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvGDlMZXAHc
The review, while not completely horrible (and I give her credit for actually knowing how to play the game well) is just downright boring and has no substance or flavor to it, and most of her game reviews are like that. However, she’s a popular reviewer on YouTube because, surprise surprise, she’s a hot chick – or at least hot as far as gamer girls go. If this was a guy doing a review the exact same way, no one would watch him.
And like I pointed out, a good personality is subjective and one man’s opinion. To me, being interesting and entertaining and not downright boring is a key trait to a good personality. I feel that a lot of the more attractive women don’t develop such a personality however because they don’t feel like they have to; they get ahead in life on their looks.
The key to this whole issue is what does it mean to be “nice”?
“Nice” is a word that contains a significant degree of ambiguity in English. “He is a nice guy”. What do you think of that compliment?
Beautiful women tend to be nicer, does it mean they have good characters? Not really. Nicety here can be just a facade that can easily be dispel.
The general theme of this blog post still holds though. When you look at a kid who suffers from autism, don’t you ask yourself: “He might have difficulty in communicating, but he might be great in Math. After all, his grandmother told me so, it must be so.” The truth could be that, as how fate has cursed him, he might not be great at either thing.”
Search google: Coke cheaper than water in mexico. There are rural areas which have very bad access to fresh water but very easy access to coke!