Idk, although I kind of get the gist of what you are saying, I've met plenty of unattractive people who are pleasant to be with.
And for whatever reasons, I'm more attracted to talking to these (unattractive) people than some Brad Pitt look-a-likes. They tend to make me feel more at ease. Different strokes for different people I guess.
>And for whatever reasons, I'm more attracted to talking to these (unattractive) people than some Brad Pitt look-a-likes. They tend to make me feel more at ease.
I'm actually really interested in why you feel this way, if you could go into more detail.
- If it's a very attractive girl I am talking to/hitting on, I am generally more self conscious about my appearance, making it harder to relax during the conversation. I feel that any misstep in my talking will immediately make them disinterested in me.
- There's the stereotype that attractive people are boring/dumb/narcissistic since they can use their attractiveness as a crutch. I am definitely guilty of passing this judgement on people.
Fun fact: there's tons of office romances, and people fuck like rabbits while working in the same company all the time. Even in puritanical US (or especially there).
Heck, millions of people met at work and finally got married.
I can expand a bit on @jaequery's comments, as well as elaborate on "attractiveness", in general.
I worked in hospitality (bars/restaurants) for a decade before moving into tech. Working behind "the stick" you get to witness a lot of human interaction. @jaequery may feel more comfortable around people who are not Brad Pitt look-a-like because he/she doesn't have judge them (that much) and, hence, does not have to worry about their conversant judging them back.
Attractiveness, in general, is really useful in the beginning of meeting a stranger. Most folks will judge another within 3-5 second and create a mental model of that person. As the model forms, there are basic assumptions that take place, such as: "they are a threat", "wow, she is attractive", "he seems cool", etc. Most will use simple adjectives as concreteness to anchor the stranger to something familiar.
Usually, after the initial assumptions are made, you move on. However, if you decide to talk to the other person, then, other mental models start popping up.
During the initial introduction, both parties are constantly judging each other, starting with the most basic (are their eyes clear, is their hair cut, are their shoes polished or clean, watch, jewelry, etc.). Once both parties are comfortable, the model changes. Most people will start using adverbs to describe the person (he has an exciting life, she's traveled everywhere, the couple is very friendly).
As all of this occurs, we are also judging ourselves; this is what sets folks apart from being comfortable with speaking to others (or in public) while others loose their shit.
It seems, from my experience, that while this whole social game is playing out, some folks just don't give a crap about the other person's "top-level" traits and attempt to engage the other person's actual personality. This particular quality is found in people who are "cool" or friendly with everyone. The engagement becomes very personal and disarming. I believe this is why @jaequery feels comfortable around certain people: he/she is trying to get to this point and engage the "inner-onion" of the person, instead of the top skin level stuff.
What's even more interesting is that the single separation of why women are way more comfortable meeting people then men is because of their mental model of people. Women are socially approached from a young age: being asked to the school dance, movies, then dates...while still in JHS or HS. By the time they graduate college, they've seen hundreds or thousands of guys and have built strong mental models of people. On the other hand, most guys are terrified of approaching another person because of rejection and hence do not have enough "hours" in developing mental models.
I believe this is also a major part of "Mother's Intuition". That intuition is built upon a large cache of real world models that they apply and can see through the BS.
Every single time a girl is talking with a guy and thus making model, a guy is talking with a girl too.
In any case, most girls are not approached from a young age by hundreds or thousands of guys thou. Only few very super popular girls are like that. Tomboy girls also have a lot of experience of talking with guys, but only in their group of friends, hardly hundreds. Both groups are not even close to being majority of girls.
The again, those girls would not get the advertised benefit of being talked to hundreds or thousands of guys and have built strong mental models of people. At best, they could have create mental model of a minority of guys - all of them extroverted and easy to talk to strangers. But practically speaking, majority of girls are not talking to hundreds of guys. You get to talk to some guys in your class, in extracurricular activities and maybe neighborhood.
Adding to it, introverted and shy girls exist too and those often end up not talking to hundreds of guys even when those attempt to approach them. These girls will likely hide themselves in a room when such thing may happen.
This is an incredibly interesting explanation. I don't usually think about how social interaction works on a technical/detailed level like this. As much as I hate to admit I am likely slightly autistic and miss some of these more fine grained social details, although I do well by following a learned pattern of being outgoing and friendly. Would love to hear more!
I might be coming at this from a different angle but I think it comes down to competition. Well, I don't have any scientific proofs per se (bleh) but I think we are generally hard-coded from our DNA to try/want to be the most attractive. It's only when you are well aware it's not a threat, you'd be able to lower your guard down.
Now, if we are talking about opposite sex, then that's a whole another type of conversation.
I am going to assume that you don't consider yourself to be exceptionally attractive. Correct me if I'm wrong.
So, with that assumption, if you were able to wake up tomorrow morning and be on par with a "Brad Pitt" lookalike, how do you think that your reaction to interacting with them would change? What about with the other group of people that you currently prefer to engage with? After thinking about that, would you still prefer that things remain as they are?
>Now, if we are talking about opposite sex, then that's a whole another type of conversation.
This matters too, of course, unless you don't plan to interact with them at all in a professional environment :)
