Am I Attractive Enough?

How many times a day do we wonder: am i attractive enough? The answer is not simple, yet it is. You are and you are not. It depends on to whom you are talking and what you mean by attractive. Why do we play this “attractive” game when we don’t know what we want to achieve by trying so hard to be attractive? When you make yourself attractive do you want to attract everyone or most people, or just one particular person? Many would say something like: “I am doing it for myself. I don’t care what others think. It makes me feel good.” Fair enough, it makes you feel good. But the rest of it is a lie and you know it. Thus, millions of dollars and other currencies are spent on making ourselves more and more attractive in order to attract our soul mates, to boost our ego when others give us compliments, etc. So, by attractive, we usually mean sexually attractive, or something to do with looks anyway. Being attractive to people we have never met is important for the first contact and without the first contact we cannot have the rest. This rationale is a sound one. Unfortunately being attractive in such a way is often false advertising and although it may lead to an interesting sexual encounter, it more often than not results in unsuccessful long-term relationships.

Men like to look and women like to be looked at. Deep inside, instinctively and unconsciously, men look for fertility signs in women. Men cannot have children; only women can, so it is of the utmost importance for a man to find a woman who will bear him many healthy children. Although these fertility signs may vary from culture to culture and change with time, men nevertheless always look for sexual attraction in a woman. Of course, women are always aware of it so they do their best to comply and be “attractive” by being slimmer, having particular hairdos, make-up and clothes; all in tune with the fashion of the day. Some of you may not quite agree with this, but that’s how we are programmed and tens of thousands of years of programming do not go away so quickly. Think of the time when you were a teenager, when you stepped into adulthood, when you actually became fertile, able to have children. What were you mostly preoccupied with? English literature? Maybe. But you were mostly interested in things of a romantic nature.

On the other hand, what women want from men is mostly security and protection. For women, attractive men are the ones who are well off, in good health, strong and able to commit to long term relationships. So, men drive fancy and expensive cars to show their wealth, are successful in business to show their status and ability to provide security and for the same reason, go to a gym so that they can be physically “attractive” to women.

In a nutshell, this is the attraction game we play. Does it make sense in the 21st century, in the western world where there are no saber-tooth tigers to prey on our women and children and the mortality rate is minimal? Of course it doesn’t when you stop and think about it. So what do we do? It depends on what we want. Do we let ourselves act from fear and the outdated instinct for survival, or are we willing to move up the evolutionary ladder and act from the knowledge that all is well? When our instincts were important we lived in caves or in tribal societies and without the appropriate resources to meet our basic needs so, often we were driven to the brink of extinction. Not so today, despite what the media are telling you. The media want you to be afraid because it serves this consumer society very well … but that is a different topic. The fact is that there are no saber-tooth tigers any more, but we still behave as if they are around every corner. The divorce rate in this country is more than 50% which means that one in two married couples eventually break up. What about all those other relationships? How many of them are happy ones? Maybe we should look a little closer at the way we attract our partners and what it is that we are attracted to. Is it falling in love, or having great sex, or being cool or hot that will bring you a long lasting relationship? What happens when you fall out of love, or are not cool any more because you’ve grown heavier? What if he loses his prestigious position or his car gets stolen and cannot be replaced? “For better or worse, for richer or poorer.” Yes, sure. The first thought is often: “I am out of here!”

Ultimately, it’s good to know that you can neither BE attractive, nor unattractive. Attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder. Someone may or may not be attracted to you and that decision lies in the mind of that person. It is not in the intrinsic you. So, first you need to decide what it is that you want to advertise and who your target market is. Then, what it is that you are selling, and who you want to attract. All this may sound a little crude, but that is exactly how it works. Do you want to have sex, or do you want to sell your personality, or your real and authentic self? You know what they say about how you look or behave “in the morning when you wake up”? If he loves you then he’ll always love you. If she still loves you when you lose your Porsche, or become poor, there is a big chance she will stay with you.

So, on the one hand you can never be attractive enough for some and you will always be very attractive for someone else. Am I attracting the right people for the right reasons is probably the question you may want to ask before you go to a party.