Who's the better llooking one in your relationship ?

wakka12 wrote: »

The woman is nearly always the better looking one

I really don't know about that. Not as an average anyway. The perception that the woman in the relationship is the better looking is a very strong meme. You hear it a lot, especially from men, who on a regular basis will say their partner is solo much better looking than me, oh how did I get her/why is she with me type stuff. An odd mixture of esteem boasting and lack of said esteem.

However IMH and IME in the vast majority of relationships the men and women are about on a par and more than a few studies have found similar. To be crass about the "ratings", "5's" tend to be with "5's" and "8's" tend to be with "8's". On the purely physical you can have 5's with 8's, but those outliers would generally tend to be where the men have more financial and/or social clout(in before "patriarchy" ).

In my own serious relationships, I'd say pretty much on a par and any disparity was down to me at the time being the more socially outgoing or socially and/or financially secure. In flingettes bets tended to be off. Much more about the moment and in those encounters it was 50% where I was the more attractive and 50% where they were.

wakka12 wrote: »

Yeah Id say so! I know its a bit of a stereotype, but as a bisexual man I can say that in 95% of cases men only care about looks, definitely at the beginning at least. Women might have just as high standards with regards looks, but women nearly always can fall for a persons personality after getting to know them despite what they look like.

With respect W I see that as yet another oft repeated meme/fallacy. Sure, if you mix up "personality" with social/financial/intelligence standing, but what the genders "care" about is about the same. Put it another way, far more women than men will come out with the "love at first sight" stuff. Romantic novels and films are stuffed to the gills with that stuff, as is the "I felt weak at the knees" stuff. Magical thinking, as a cover for what's really going on, id est "I dunno why but I want to bang his brains out". Nada to do with "personality", it can't be at first sight, it's all about the Wide On(™) dressed up in romantic terms. Men at least tend to be more obvious about it.

Molteniceberg wrote: »

I'd say relationships where the man is more attractive usually work better, especially their sex life.

In extremely general terms I would agree MB. Depends on the couple and especially the age group they belong too though. If they're both in their early twenties and again in very general terms women on average hold more cards in the relationship/sexual attraction dance. If the guy is clearly more attractive then to keep the competition at bay then the less attractive partner has more to lose by not keeping that aspect alive.