So in this article on Dating Ugly, I try to unravel the mysteries behind why gorgeous women would date guys who are significantly less good-looking than they are. While I came down on the side of insecurity as the driving force behind such pairings, what if you’re totally, utterly secure in your fabulous good looks? Previously there was only HotOrNot.com, a free way to not only judge your little heart out, but get judged and maybe find love. The BF met his ex on that site, actually. However, such undergrad (and free) pursuits are now behind us, because we now have BeautifulPeople.net (only supported by IE, annoyingly enough for Firefox devotees like me).
This article on NationalPost.com explains that with a 1-in-10 acceptance rate, this site has stirred up controversy wherever it goes. The pragmatist in me has to point out that, according to conventional wisdom at least, everyone ends up with someone within 2 points of themselves on a 1-10 scale anyway (unless you have some mad social proof or monster insecurity pushing the scales unduly in one direction or the other). So a site like this doesn’t change how attractive you are (or aren’t), it merely cuts out the riffraff for the already attractive and lets them find that special someone without weeding through all the normal people (or the ugly ones).
(Greg Plitt from Season 3 of Work Out on Bravo, and the guy I thought of in my Dating Ugly post when I said I’d blow out someone too good-looking for me)
The bitter ravings of those who have been turned down for the site remind me a little bit of the people who try out for American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance? when they know for a fact that they are completely talent-less and would never qualify. I mean, who wants to use sites like Ugly People Dating or Marry An Ugly Millionaire? (Although I have to say that I think both of those sites are cruel jokes.) I always wondered why anyone would want to be formally judged by their “peers” when we are so obviously judged by our peers every day. What do you guys think?
