How to Be and Become Attractive
Dimitri of Rapid Social Impact
http://www.rapidsocialimpact.com
An attractive person does a lot of things: Some consciously, many unconsciously. Attractiveness is influenced by a great deal of things, and that can cause a lot of confusion for some people on "how to be attractive". In fact, some people believe that they could never be attractive: Which might be the craziest thing I've ever heard. And then you hear things like, "Realize you're already attractive and you'll be attractive" - Which can be downright confusing if you don't know what that means.
Here's what I want to do in this article:
-Define what attractiveness is,
-Identify how people initially evaluate another's attractiveness on a snap judgement,
-Explain how beliefs and thought processes affect the snap evaluation,
-And give some practical examples and advice on how to become more attractive.
What is attractive? Merriam-Webster gives two definitions:
1) Having or relating to the power to attract.
2) Arousing interest or pleasure.
That doesn't quite do it. Let's look at one of those definitions of attract:
"To draw by appeal to natural or excited interest, emotion, or aesthetic sense."
Now we're getting somewhere. My general definition of attractive is "something that is desirable on some level". For purposes of this article, I'm going to deal
with the kind of attraction that's most relevant to dating and socializing: When I refer to something or someone as being "attractive" from this point on, I'm referring to things that are attractive in a way that leads to sex and relationships. That is, a lot of things can be attractive on a lot of different levels, but I'm
going to focus on what can cause sexual/romantic attraction.
Now, the first interesting thing I'll note from this: There are things that are *not* sexually/romantically attractive at all to women, that won't help in building a good, healthy relationship (or having enjoyable casual encounters, if that's what you're after)... yet these characteristics ARE attractive to women with a very specific perogative (such as getting married, settling down, raising a family).
By that, I mean, if a woman is ready to settle down, she might look for a man who is very gentle and nurturing, a man that is less willing to take large
risks for potentially large rewards, a man who will stick around and be a father figure for her children. These qualities of stability aren't universally
attractive, but can be very attractive on a level to a woman with an agenda of getting married and settling it down. One of my girlfriends said it best: "If I
was going to get married right now, I'd marry my last ex-boyfriend. He still wants to marry me." Now, by all accounts and measures, her boyfriend isn't a very attractive guy. They've been broken up quite a while, and he's yet to move on. My girlfriend lives on the East Coast, her ex-boyfriend on California, and he recently offered to fly into Boston and get a hotel just to meet up with her: And that's after she'd told him she wouldn't have sex with him ever again!
He's not particularly attractive, objectively, but his loyalty (bordering on obsession with her) and his low-risk lifestyle would make him a pretty good husband, and my gal's nothing if not pragmatic. She could marry many more attractive men than him, but few men that she'd feel so secure in his job and faithfulness.
That little aside there explains something major: There are many qualities that are not universally attractive, but can be attractive in certain situations. Another great example would be a female "gold-digger": Something very attractive to her would be mass amounts of wealth. While wealth is rarely unattractive, a lot of behavior that'd turn off many girls would make a gold digger downright giddy. That DOES NOT mean that throwing money around and spending it on these girls is building a solid relationship, or even the best way to get her in bed. Money is attractive by itself to most people; it does not necessarily make the holder of the wealth more attractive except to people with certain agendas.
The working definition of "attractive" for the rest of the post is "something that is desirable on some level". Unless otherwise noted, anything I write about as being an attractive characteristic will be "a trait that is desirable on an interpersonal level, that'd be useful for establishing solid relationships and/or getting quality sex." An attractive person is just a
person with a lot of those traits.
Dimitri of Rapid Social Impact
http://www.rapidsocialimpact.com
An attractive person does a lot of things: Some consciously, many unconsciously. Attractiveness is influenced by a great deal of things, and that can cause a lot of confusion for some people on "how to be attractive". In fact, some people believe that they could never be attractive: Which might be the craziest thing I've ever heard. And then you hear things like, "Realize you're already attractive and you'll be attractive" - Which can be downright confusing if you don't know what that means.
Here's what I want to do in this article:
-Define what attractiveness is,
-Identify how people initially evaluate another's attractiveness on a snap judgement,
-Explain how beliefs and thought processes affect the snap evaluation,
-And give some practical examples and advice on how to become more attractive.
What is attractive? Merriam-Webster gives two definitions:
1) Having or relating to the power to attract.
2) Arousing interest or pleasure.
That doesn't quite do it. Let's look at one of those definitions of attract:
"To draw by appeal to natural or excited interest, emotion, or aesthetic sense."
Now we're getting somewhere. My general definition of attractive is "something that is desirable on some level". For purposes of this article, I'm going to deal
with the kind of attraction that's most relevant to dating and socializing: When I refer to something or someone as being "attractive" from this point on, I'm referring to things that are attractive in a way that leads to sex and relationships. That is, a lot of things can be attractive on a lot of different levels, but I'm
going to focus on what can cause sexual/romantic attraction.
Now, the first interesting thing I'll note from this: There are things that are *not* sexually/romantically attractive at all to women, that won't help in building a good, healthy relationship (or having enjoyable casual encounters, if that's what you're after)... yet these characteristics ARE attractive to women with a very specific perogative (such as getting married, settling down, raising a family).
By that, I mean, if a woman is ready to settle down, she might look for a man who is very gentle and nurturing, a man that is less willing to take large
risks for potentially large rewards, a man who will stick around and be a father figure for her children. These qualities of stability aren't universally
attractive, but can be very attractive on a level to a woman with an agenda of getting married and settling it down. One of my girlfriends said it best: "If I
was going to get married right now, I'd marry my last ex-boyfriend. He still wants to marry me." Now, by all accounts and measures, her boyfriend isn't a very attractive guy. They've been broken up quite a while, and he's yet to move on. My girlfriend lives on the East Coast, her ex-boyfriend on California, and he recently offered to fly into Boston and get a hotel just to meet up with her: And that's after she'd told him she wouldn't have sex with him ever again!
He's not particularly attractive, objectively, but his loyalty (bordering on obsession with her) and his low-risk lifestyle would make him a pretty good husband, and my gal's nothing if not pragmatic. She could marry many more attractive men than him, but few men that she'd feel so secure in his job and faithfulness.
That little aside there explains something major: There are many qualities that are not universally attractive, but can be attractive in certain situations. Another great example would be a female "gold-digger": Something very attractive to her would be mass amounts of wealth. While wealth is rarely unattractive, a lot of behavior that'd turn off many girls would make a gold digger downright giddy. That DOES NOT mean that throwing money around and spending it on these girls is building a solid relationship, or even the best way to get her in bed. Money is attractive by itself to most people; it does not necessarily make the holder of the wealth more attractive except to people with certain agendas.
The working definition of "attractive" for the rest of the post is "something that is desirable on some level". Unless otherwise noted, anything I write about as being an attractive characteristic will be "a trait that is desirable on an interpersonal level, that'd be useful for establishing solid relationships and/or getting quality sex." An attractive person is just a
person with a lot of those traits.