Yeesh. This guy has come to the conclusion that you can’t learn how to behave normally and that’s it’s a given trait. I think I see where their lack of success comes from.

Malaprops to the author, this is such a mess.

But I think he’s right that it’s tough to overcome actual bad looks. Like if you are both naturally ugly and also unwilling to even try to be stylish or fit or whatever (some offsetting physically attractive quality) then it can be a slog. But then why the “cute” standard for a girlfriend? If you aren’t willing to put in the work why do you feel you can demand it of your partner? That is such an ugly attitude.

What’s odd is that Anon is so close to achieving enlightenment. I got to a point in my life where I felt like I had no idea how to attract a romantic partner. I’d dated a few times, but each time it had kind of fell into my lap, and I never got the hang of talking to women I found attractive in a way that made it clear I was interested.

So I just gave up. I accepted that I had no idea how to get a date, and I just went about my life, pursuing things that I found interesting.

And, lo and behold, I wound up meeting the woman I would marry, albeit through the mechanism of someone straight up telling me that she was interested in me.

If you’re focused on “getting” a girlfriend, you’re thinking of a partner as a valuable object to be acquired, and you’re not enjoying your own life, and improving yourself within that life. If you don’t think of romance as a pursuit, but rather as something good that can happen within the context of living your life well, then you are much better off.

Also, you’ve really got to get it into your head and heart that women are people and not prey animals, which I’m going to be honest, it seems might be a detail that is escaping Anon.

I don’t think Anon is considering the set of all possible cute girlfriends or lending them enough agency. I think it’s somewhat reasonable if you’re app dating to assume that people are doing some amount of maximizing cute + interesting or something similar but I think that’s because the apps encourage people to gamify dating.

Anecdotally I’ve seen a ton of…erm…normatively mismatched couples form and find success in other contexts like dive bars, pick up soccer, chatrooms, kink communities, boardgame cafes, more traditional dating sites etc. Again anecdotally these relationships seem to skew (normatively) in the guy’s favor more often than the gal’s as far as looks and personality go despite the fact that complaints like this come more often from men.