Why/how do you date people you're not attracted to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because women especially are told not to be "shallow" and will be alone forever if they are "too picky."

I would have rather been alone, so I was mostly single until I met my husband, but most of my friends who were always in relationships dated guys they weren't attracted to to "give him a chance" and see if they "became attracted due to his personality." Never worked out.

I am not doubting but sincerely curious: who is giving that advice. I would never tell my daughter that so want to know where that message comes from.

A few posts back, someone said that because most women are only attracted to the top 20% of men, women should settle.

My whole life, if I wasn’t interested in a guy because I wasn’t attracted, I’d hear tons of “poor guy!” and “but he’s SUCH a good guy!”

Wondering if this was the same book that suggested letting him do all the talking, asking him questions about himself. Can't tell you how many dates both my sister and I went on where we followed this advice and the guy never shut up about himself, while asking us nothing about ourselves. We used to talk about how we could go on dates on autopilot. Once in a while you would throw out a question like "Oh, so how did you decide to major in that?" and then just zone out. THere are a lot of really awful self-centered guys out there.

But from whom? Your friends? Your parents?

Everyone. Friends, parents, acquaintances, strangers at parties.

I can’t even count the number of times a friend, family member, or acquaintance has tried to set me up with a guy and started with “I know he’s not physically your type, but he’s such a great guy....” Even now my sister is trying to set me up with her boss who is almost 20 years older than me (!!) but he’s “sooooo nice”

I remember reading a book about dating for teenage girls when I was maybe 13/14. One of the key pieces of advice was to always give a guy a second date, even if you weren’t attracted to him.

Ugh. Amazing that women give that advice to other women.

[Anonymous]

I'm married now but I dated a lot of guys I was not attracted to.

First reason: I literally was only initially attracted to 1 out of 500 guys.
Second, I didn't rank physical attraction at the top of my priority list initially.
Third, I had a hard time figuring out if I was into a guy or not - maybe lack of experience or lack of self-awareness? I didn't know what I wanted, who I was attracted to.

As I became much older, I limited my dating to only guys to whom I was strongly attracted.