What do you do when your looks and your personality don't quite match up?


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peppermint21 is offline peppermint21 Post #1  October 28,2009, 5:54pm
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I'm not even talking about the virgin that dresses provocatively issue. I'm 6' tall, Black, natural hair, large frame, and in good shape. I like sci-fi and literature, fine dining and international travel.

Basically, huge guys that look like linebackers find me physically attractive, but aren't quite up for a trip to Peru, an evening of anime or dinner at the new bistro around the corner. Personality wise, I attract accountants, foodies and Star Wars buffs who tend to be smaller in stature and simply not willing to be romantically attached to a tall Black woman.

Too many times I've found myself playing "half girlfriend" with friends...to the point that a girl friend had to call me out on the behavior pattern. I've been in a long term relationship, but I've been doing it since I was very young.

Frankly, I'd rather date a guy that was shorter/smaller than me and shared similar interests than ending up bored with some guy that could benchpress me. However, few men seem to be willing to make the same tradeoff.

Online dating hasn't proven to be much help. If I'm interested in a guy, he's not, and if a guy's interested in me, I'm usually totally turned off by his personality or interests.

I'm really not sure if this is resolveable or not.
 
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PR_Princess is offline PR_Princess Post #2  October 28,2009, 6:20pm
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Now I wish you lived around the corner from me...because you seem like a fun and interesting person to hang out with. I feel for you on this topic...my mind and body don't match either, which is why teachers always used to look surprised that my term papers really came from me (I guess I am too soft/cuddly and simple to churn out poignant/analytical work ) The issue is not really about the product you are selling (which is yourself in this scenario) but good advertising. I suggest you post your profile here and have the crew give you some input and they may also give some pointers on how to reset your settings to attract the men you want.
 
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Benevolence32 is offline Benevolence32 Post #3  October 28,2009, 11:02pm
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I sort of feel the same way at times. As far as RL goes all you can do is stick with your interests and try to put yourself out there where people with similar interests will be. A random person at the grocery store won't be able to guess you're a sci-fi fan unless you're rockin' a Yoda shirt. Online it's just a matter of describing yourself in a poignant way in your profile. As long as they read it they should get a glimpse of your personality and not be trying to assume what your personality is like based on your looks.
 
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DancingFool is offline DancingFool Post #4  October 29,2009, 6:40am
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heh....my accountant looks like a linebacker.... Point being that what you are describing in terms of wanting to talk to people who interest you but they are not interested in you and vice versa is par for dating for everyone. It's a frustrating process, but if you keep up at it long enough, eventually you'll meet someone who does fit. There are plenty of shorter guys out there who will date a taller woman, there are plenty of big guys out there who would love to do the things you enjoy.

The online thing, while slow, is probably a good bet for finding someone as long as you have a good profile that reflects your interests as well as good photos posted. Also, you can always go to the sci fi conventions and meet tons of people who would be interested in the same things and in dating you at the same time.
 
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D_Lion is offline D_Lion Post #5  November 1,2009, 6:27am
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Personally I reject your premise about men “making a choice.” Attraction is a visceral reaction, which is present or not; choice doesn’t enter into that. The way to expand the portion of people who are attracted is to cultivate a higher standard of appearance-care.

Further, it is not a matter of what “I would rather” do, but of attraction, objective criteria, lifestyle and goals all being independently essential attributes to make a romantic relationship work. No degree of compatibility in the absence of desire succeeds (well, it might succeed in getting the “friend with benefit.”)

***

You raise an interesting question, though, about the prevalence or uniformity of certain lifestyle elements corresponding to appearance, particularly as regards less obvious matters such as being of large size and not enjoying travel.

I would back off on assuming, since I think plenty of large men will share your interests.

I agree with the posts above: honest, complete photos and clarity around major themes of lifestyle and goals in the profile.

Personally, I suggest giving thought to how you classify your lifestyle, so it does not sound like you are extremely picky or temperamental around trivial things:

First category of importance is major life choices: aspirational career, modest career, minimal career; to have children, to consider partners with children; high-level requirements around housing choice and financial behavior, including such things as handing career options versus relocations.

Second category of importance is major lifestyle elements: eating habits, sociability, quantity and importance of TV, and so forth. I would but travel in this category, since it is a major decision to travel alone when one has a partner.

Third category is where I would place specific TV programs, movies, whatever. In my experience, a lot of profiles get this backward: listing a long list of boring trivia and not touching on major elements of compatibility. I often skip right over these – especially when there are other, better matches to write.

***

You are new here, but having in the profile “I enjoy travel and fine dining” needs great care in composing the narrative. Many men react to these comments as “she is another gold-digger looking to me to pay her way,” and will close these women (a shame, since these seems to be popular hobbies, and the women on this service predominately claim that is not their intent.
 
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peppermint21 is offline peppermint21 Post #6  November 7,2009, 8:00pm
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D_Lion wrote :
Personally I reject your premise about men “making a choice.” Attraction is a visceral reaction, which is present or not; choice doesn’t enter into that.
First off, thanks so much for a well thought out reply.

Attraction may be involuntary (even that's up for debate), but relationships are active choices. Many times I've seen people, both men and women, choose to be with people they either weren't attracted to or weren't in love with because some other trait met some criterion they considered to be more important for a relationship.

My problem comes from the fact that I'm looking for an actual long-term relationship, so that while there is not a shortage of men that may be physically attracted to me on some level (accountants included), there are some that I believe are reluctant to end up in a committed relationship simply because of my physical traits (I may have explained this too generally at first). While I believe both genders discriminate based on appearance, I believe that physical appearance ranks higher for (many) men when it comes to nullifying other points of compatibility.

I'm going to give a profile review another shot. I've run my profile past some male friends who've done what I think is a good job in weeding out issues (not mentioning that I date men of all races since it makes a man feel like part of a herd, not mentioning my education specifically because it can sound stuffy, not going into deep detail about intellectual pursuits since they can make me sound dull, saying that I "enjoy trying new restaurants" as opposed to "fine dining" so that I seem accessible).

From an online dating perspective though, I think a major factor is that many men simply don't select my race in their list of compatible matches. I'm on a site that lets you see the race of women that men are looking for, and precious few have my race or "any ethnicity" checked. I completely understand that it's a personal choice, but it's frustrating knowing that I would not even show up in searches of men who may be willing to date me, but who do not want to sift through a lot of women of my same racial background.
 
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D_Lion is offline D_Lion Post #7  November 8,2009, 8:30am
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You're welcome.

"Many times I've seen people, both men and women, choose to be with people they either weren't attracted to or weren't in love with because some other trait met some criterion they considered to be more important for a relationship."

Do you consider these to be usually sufficiently permanent to meet your objective? I also see this kind of relationship, and my perspective is they are entered into as "placeholder" relationships - until one partner finds the targeted partner, or completes some in-process life transition (in my experience, finishing school, and / or employment relocations.) I do not see these becoming committed.

"... some that I believe are reluctant to end up in a committed relationship simply because of my physical traits ..."

In my experience, with good cause. I have never found that attraction, desire, appears later if it is not present at the beginning (more likely, actually, is that she reduces her appearance-care once having secured a partner.) Every time I made this effort, I wasted six month on something which never progressed.

"From an online dating perspective though, I think a major factor is that many men simply don't select my race in their list of compatible matches."

Yes, I think most people - men and women - select only their own race. On a searchable site, though, you can e-mail any man you want, regardless of his selection criteria. Sitting and waiting for only the men to contact you is a mistake in the first place, regardless of race.

Prepare yourself for rejection (just like men face when e-mailing the women.)
 
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peppermint21 is offline peppermint21 Post #8  November 12,2009, 9:46pm
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D_Lion wrote :
Yes, I think most people - men and women - select only their own race. On a searchable site, though, you can e-mail any man you want, regardless of his selection criteria. Sitting and waiting for only the men to contact you is a mistake in the first place, regardless of race.

Prepare yourself for rejection (just like men face when e-mailing the women.)
I agree with all your points and consider them to be the root causes of my problem. I've been on sites that allow you to email and have done it many times and have been rejected many times. I've even asked out men in person. As you said, the physical attraction didn't grow out of emotional/intellectual.

I wish it were true that all sites allow you to email just any member. The one I was referring to (that allows you to view selection criteria) is actually my preferred site and won't let you contact a member until after going through multiple steps in the matching process have been passed.

As I see it, there isn't much that I can "do" aside from exposing myself to my interests and hoping that someone similarly mismatched shows up too...which I already do quite actively.
 
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