I sense another one of those threads incoming.

In the blue corner we have...the Shallow Man! Weighing in at 285 lbs., this man wants a woman to be at least 150 lbs. less than him in order to be considered attractive. His fighting style consists of "weight is a choice" with a mix of "what about women who don't date men shorter than them?" and "what about gold diggers?"

In the red corner we have...the Sensitive Woman! Weighing in at, well, she won't tell us her weight but we assume it's around 10 lbs. overweight to her and 20 lbs. underweight to everyone else, she enters with a fierce "why are men so shallow?" stance. She boasts a vast repertoire of techniques, including the famous "being overweight can be caused by rare metabolism diseases!" style, the "men can't see past my pasty, self-loathing, and down exterior into the wonderful woman I truly am!" technique which is often coupled with the devastating "why can't people just see the real me?" jutsu.

Yes, I'm joking. Sort of. Here's the thing. People want to be attracted to their mate. This should frankly be kind of obvious. Would you want to date/go steady with/marry a guy that you didn't have any interest in? Who wasn't attractive to you at all? I doubt it.

Attraction develops over time, sure. But that initial attraction has to be there in order for the time to exist. What does that mean? Basically that there has to be a reason to get to know someone better. Men, just like women, can't mystically divine someone's true nature just by glancing at them. You have to get to know someone really well before you can know the "real them" and even then you'll never truly know another person. It's just not possible. Empathy is always colored by your own perspective.

So you've lost weight and men are developing that initial attraction more often and/or more quickly. Of course. Initial attraction is based on appearance. This is true for women just as much as it is for men. The primary difference is that for men it's often considered to be based more on the physical appearance and for women it's considered to be based on mannerisms and body language.

What do I mean by that? Women are just as "shallow" as men are. They make snap judgments based on a guy's appearance, grooming, mannerisms, nonverbal communication, humor, etc. Their first impression doesn't discern the "real person" behind the man they see any more than a man's first impression of a woman does (and yes, we notice many of those same things). If a woman's judgment were more "accurate" than a man's you wouldn't have all the "why do nice guys finish last?" threads. Women, especially younger women, are frequently very wrong in their interpretation of a guy's "true self." Show me a woman who has never met this "great guy" who turned out to be a total jerk and I would be shocked. Possible, perhaps. Likely? Nope.

I'm sorry about the tone but all this misinformation about how men and women operate is a bit tiresome. FACT: Women are visually oriented, both for attraction and for sexual attraction. FACT: Men and women instinctively appraise members of the opposite sex automatically. FACT: First impressions rarely see the "true nature" of someone and women are not inherently any better at it than men. FACT: Attraction is a biological response that is colored by our perception. An example would be that candy is sweet. Some people may not like candy, some people may prefer certain types of candy, and other people may decide not to eat candy, but ultimately the "taste" of candy itself is something that is a biological response to the food being consumed.

Please, oh please, before this thread becomes another dietitian vs. psychologist vs. doctor vs. random stereotype cage match can we try and actually look at what attraction is instead of fifty pages of women calling men shallow and men calling women lazy?

After all, the truth is neither. Attraction is not a function of comparing the girl in front of you to the front page of Cosmo nor is it purely based on his sparkling personality or her perfect intuition about his true self. The sooner you accept that attraction is based on a complex compilation of factors ranging from visual, auditory, nonverbal, vocalic, olfactic, cultural, etc. and the sooner you accept that you will never be attractive to everyone the happier you'll be. Even the hottest supermodel or sexiest GQ model is not attractive to everyone and their attractiveness varies based on person to person and even depending on physical presence.

Your goal shouldn't be to make yourself attractive to everyone. Your goal should be to find people who are attractive to you and see if they return the feeling. If they don't, oh well. If they do, well, who cares what everyone else thinks? If he's attracted to you that's that. The only way his attraction is going to go down is if A) he doesn't mesh with your personality (in other words, he isn't attracted to the "real you") or B) if your negative outlook on your appearance makes him start doubting his own attraction to you. I suppose it could also be because of his own insecurity (the "she's too good for me so I'll make her hate me" syndrome) but there really isn't much you can do about that.

Or you can just accept that men are shallow and we're always going to judge you by your appearance and leave it at that. The vast majority of guys aren't going to bother telling you different because, hey, what's the point? It isn't "macho" to admit we actually do look beyond your dress size (like most guys even know dress sizes! ). We'll smile, say we're shallow jerks, and go find a woman who's happy with her appearance and actually respects men. Just as women don't like guys who think poorly of women men don't like girls who look down on men. We represent that remark !

I wrote that in perhaps a more hostile tone than I normally take because I feel like this topic keeps going around in the same circles over and over and I'm going to try and "jolt" it into a new direction. I'm not actually trying to put down the OP or women in general; I'm trying to point out some fundamental misconceptions that I believe are behind the issue in the first place.

I wish you the best of luck, Susan, and I hope that you meet a guy that will help you learn a little bit of what's really going on in that mysterious male brain of ours. The first step is wanting to learn, though, just as I've spent a lot of time and effort (and frustration!) attempting to get a glimpse past the negative view of women I held for much of my younger years (yeah, yeah, I'm only 25, whatever).

It's not easy. It is, however, completely worth it!

Jacquesne