I have seen a lot of people who are convinced that nobody would ever give them a chance in regards to dating based on their perception of how they look. I think that it is far past time to address this and get past this issue.
I was once nearly incapable of dating. This was because I had a horrible complex about my physical attractiveness. I was convinced that I was hideous, that my mere presence around women disgusted them purely based on how I looked. Because of this belief I concluded that it was pointless to even try to date or meet someone.
When most people talk about looks and attractiveness, the argument is generally that they either matter or they do not. We must look at this honestly and the truth is that both answers are correct to a certain extent.
Women and men are wired differently. We both have evolutionary instincts on what to look for physically in the other gender. This is hard coded into our brains on a subconscious level which helps determine reproductive health as well as other factors. I'm not going to go into great detail about this, but it has been scientifically shown that certain physical features have an impact on how people choose their mates.
Now, that being said, I have to stress that although what I said in the previous paragraph is true, the extent to which it is important is often hugely exaggerated. Yes, at the first glance a person will nearly instantly size you up on a scale of attractiveness subconsciously according to evolutionary cues, BUT this is not the sole defining factor of whether or not you can be successful in dating. In fact, I believe that compared to other things, this could be the least important aspect of dating success.
For one thing, society and culture has evolved. We aren't in the caveman days anymore. There are new things that have become important which override our ancient instincts of partner selection. There are billions of men and women in the world and it would be a major disadvantage to assume that each person operates on the same criteria for choosing a mate. There are so many other things to consider such as an individual's interests. We live in a time where what people are interested in outweigh their looks. Sure, the initial 20 second size up of a person will be based on looks whether consciously or unconsciously, but this is not a yes/no answer for dating selection. It may serve as initial interest, but that can be overridden instantly by an action as simple as a smile and saying hello.
We must not allow ourselves to be governed purely by the 20 second instincts that we have. If we do, we fall pray to our fears. We begin to think in black and white. We categorize ourselves into being datable or non-datable. This is one of the biggest mistakes you could ever make.
So how do we get over these fears? I advise anyone reading this to change what you can, accept what you can't. For instance, I once weighed 267 pounds. I didn't like this, so I worked towards losing weight. That is something I was able to change and I feel better about myself, but if you're worried about a physical feature that you have no control of, it is imperative that you quit worrying about it and accept who you are. Sure, there may be a person in the world that would not date you because of that, but we are completely wrong to proceed to blanket that across every other person that exists. That is what we do though and we must get over it. Change what you can, accept what you can't, and remember that each person is different.
Still, this does not address all of our fears. We have the fear of the unknown. We do not know if a person cares or doesn't care about a receding hair line and we worry about whether or not that person cares. Since we worry so much about it, we become paralyzed with fear which prevents us from even making an attempt to find out if that person cares. This is another huge mistake that keeps us lonely. It leads to avoidance behavior and never allowing a person to get to know us at all. In essence, we make the choice for the person. You must let them make the choice and that isn't going to happen if you never speak to them.
We still are fearful of what if. What if I do put myself out there and I find out that she doesn't like receding hair lines? What if she won't date me because of this? Well the answer to this fear is easy, but you must be willing to accept the answer. If she makes the choice that she won't date you or isn't interested in you because of your receding hair line, then she simply is not worth your time. Move on.
Of course it is often a lot more complicated than worrying about a single thing such as a receding hair line. I used to have several things that "disqualified" me from being datable. I worried about my glasses, my weight, the size of my privates, and the list goes on and on. What we must face is the fact that if someone is not interested in you for any of these reasons they are just not worth your time.
What should we really be concerned about then? Honestly, we should not concern ourselves at all with what the other person is looking for in a person. We need to think about what we are looking for in the other person. In this we must remind ourselves to look beyond the 20 second size up that we have of others. You may notice someone you are highly attracted to physically. The person may be the most beautiful person you have ever seen, but what is their personality like? You must look beyond what they look like and make it your goal to determine what kind of a person they are and what they are interested in. You need to make that your priority.
If you make it your priority to find someone with a good personality, what they look like will no longer impact your ability to approach them. I never used to be able to talk to the pretty girl, but now I can talk to whoever I want to talk to because I'm interested in who they are as a person. I now have the capability of initiating conversation with someone I find to be gorgeous. I also have the capability of walking away and forgetting about them as soon as I find out they're not the type of person I'm looking for. In addition to that, we must all be willing to talk to any person, whether we find them physically attractive or not. That initially unattractive person has the ability to become beautiful in your eyes once you discover how wonderful they are as a person. We can no longer trust our 20 second instincts. We must look beyond and that applies to how we view ourselves and the rest of the world.
