Do looks matter?

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While having the same interests and personality are more important, I am attracted to curvy, voluptuous women.

Oh, I TOTALLY agree!

A woman looking attractive to me is a necessary condition for me wanting to have a relationship with them. Many women have grown on me, but I hazard to say that most of the girls that stick in my memory are those who caught my eye in some way from the very first time I see them. A lot of girls do this, particularly those around my age. That said, this is not a sufficient condition: whether I like them as a person seals the deal, if I feel like I couldn't get too close without causing some kind of friction I tend to get put off. Some off-putting traits for me that don't have to do with looks include: not having any interests in common with me, showing signs of serious depression or otherwise mental instability, being very insecure, being narcissistic, being strongly religious, and being very conservative politically.

Looks = interest.
Personality = decision.

This.

that they're hot doesn't matter as much to me.
but i'm a sucker for a cute face and nice personality.

however i still prefer someone closer to my body type. i'm not really superficial all that much but excess weight is unattractive

Anybody else remember the movie Defending Your Life? There was a line about how you need to find someone with just good-looking enough to attract you. If there's a huge excess, it'll just complicate things. So they should be attractive, but not to the point that it's distracting. I dunno if that's true or not, lol.

This may be more of a girl thing, but what I think of a person changes how they look to me. Once I realize that someone is a jerk, they start looking more and more like a jerk. I think it's mostly just an association thing, I associate their features with nastiness, so they look ugly to me. Or if I associate their features with positive traits, they look good to me. The appeal of their looks is greatly affected by their personality. (I think a lot of personal preferences on looks are based off of prior experience? Characteristics you're attracted to are those that remind you of people of whom you think positively.)

Of COURSE looks matter. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot.

You can't fall in love with someone you're not attracted to. That's a fact. What you personally find attractive depends from person to person. I know some (what I consider to be) incredibly ugly people who go out with other incredibly ugly people, but they find EACH OTHER attractive. Other people might think this means looks don't matter, but of course it does, because if those two didn't crush on each other they'd have nothing.

It's just that looks are subjective. Looks ALWAYS matter. You just need to find the person who likes how you personally look.

I can do all those things

At least if I'm in a familiar situation... when I'm in the unfamiliar I tend to become very quiet...



As for me, I see looks as slightly important... I wouldn't want to date someone that is fatter than me, but then again, that's a fairly big ticket to fill as I'm not exactly skinny myself.

On the other hand, something I need in a woman is the nerdiness... a nerdy woman will be able to understand a lot of the stuff I say, and can be quite stimulating in general...

For instance, one time I got turned on because a girl said "epic fail"... sure that's not exactly the smartest type of remark in the world, but even in things like a woman in the nerd stereotype of writing equations on the board, I see attractiveness...

Looks matter, but there's more to it than that. Once I ended up dating a guy that I wasn't attracted to at first, but I found him more attractive as I got to know him and talked to him more. And I've found some guys veerry physically attractive but after talking to them and seeing how they behave, have lost all interest (and attraction).

That's sweet. "Epic fail" pings your radar. I understand. It means she's a kindred spirit, a fellow nerd.

But you don't know him, so how can you know his exact personality?

I am not sure how correct this "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" , scientific studies don't really support this belief, beauty is more a matter of almost consensus in some society. 90% of people agree that this person X is beautiful , and 90% would agree that this person Y is ugly , so it seems that the beholder is the majority of people.

However, it seems that people lower their standards as they are growing old because they start to care more and more about other criteria and because of the lack of available people of their age....

I think beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. I have almost always fallen for a guy that I would not 'normally' be attracted to because of the person they were. And once I start to like their personality, I like their physical looks as well. I've fallen for more than one guy that would be classified as 'unattractive.' I'll post pictures if you don't believe me

I don't really pay that much attention to phyiscal looks at all, actually. I can have a conversation with a stranger and walk away and be completely unable to describe him at all because I just didn't notice. Very very rarely do I see a random stranger that I think is 'hot'. I actually have to know something about someone to be interested in them at all. I would never accept an invitation to 'go out' with a stranger, no matter how 'hot' he was.

That being said, it is certainly nice to have a little bit of physical attraction (non related to emotions) to your partner because when times are tough and fights come along and the emotional part is damaged, being attracted to eachother gives you an incentive to make up.

I'm always a little wary of this rationale, because there is an assumption that you and the other person won't change. People of course change over time, as they continue to grow and learn whether they're in a relationship or not. What happens if the woman you seek no longer complements a certain aspect of yours, is that her fault? Your fault? Doom for the relationship? Similarly, if you "grow a pair" and become extroverted while in a relationship with an extroverted woman, she won't necessarily be introverted enough to balance you. If that leads to tension in the relationship, is that her fault? Yours? Both? Neither? Whichever way it ends up, I think that looking for this kind of complementation for one's own weaknesses will lead to significant co-dependency issues in the relationship, and it won't be healthy for both people concerned. There will be control issues where one person tries to make sure the other person balances the former perfectly. That's incredibly difficult.

Personally I think it's healthiest for individuals to seek balance within themselves, instead of being balanced by another person, e.g. "grow a pair" that you can whip out and use as you need it, doesn't have to be all the time. I would want to be in a relationship with somebody because I want to, not because I need to do so.

Sorry, John. I have to disagree with you. I've done it twice with boys I initially considered unattractive until I fell for them.