Was she fishing for a high attractiveness rating?

[DannyMason]

I don't know if people in the "In Search Of..." subforum are too familiar with me, but basically I'm a 25 year old virgin with next to no experience with romance or physical affection. I've never thought of myself as an attractive guy since I've never been able to attract anyone, but I never really knew for sure because I was very obese, which kept alive the lingering hope that if only I lost the weight I might be decent looking afterall.

 

Well, a bit less than a year ago I finally did manage to finish losing the weight (over 100 lbs down) but as they say, 'you can lose weight but you can't lose ugly' so I've been kinda scared out of trying to investigate how attractive I really am. I'd like to change the whole "romanceless virgin" thing and I think an idea of my "league" might spare me some embarrassment and rejection so here lately I managed to work up the courage to join a photo rating cum online dating site.

 

My first vote came from an attractive woman who rated me a 7, but from there on a chain of straight men and anonymous visitors voted me down to a 4. Not too long ago, though, a reasonably attractive woman voted me a ten. I was pretty shocked, thinking that it must have been a mistake or something, so I messaged her thanking her for the high rating, expecting her to tell me that she only accidentally clicked it and I shouldn't let it go to my head. Instead, she actually replied and kinda gushed about how good looking I was.

 

I didn't think much of it. If there are people who fetishize the limbless and deformed so hypothetically it's possible that I was lucky enough to be viewed by a woman who found me attractive to an unusual degree. I moved on and basically forgot about it until today when I checked my ratings and found another woman rated me a 10. I was kinda shocked as two out of three women who have rated me at all have rated me a 10.

 

However, I also noticed that she sent me a rating request. I visited her profile and there were comments left by other men, all very blatantly better looking than myself and all rating her a 10. One of the men thanked her for the rating request, and I realized she probably had sent a bunch of rating requests before mine to these guys who would reply and rate her a 10. Now, she was an attractive girl, but not nearly a 10. She was more in the 7-8 range, and I tend to rate more generously than most.

 

Now I'm suspicious that this was probably what she was hoping for; that she would go around rating guys 10s in hopes of them replying with 10s of their own. And if she was doing this, maybe other girls are doing the same, like the first girl who rated me a ten. That would explain the flattering response to my thank you message- she could have been buttering me up hoping I up-rate her photos. Am I being too cynical here or were these women insincere in complimenting me with high ratings?

[MrRightNow]

First of all, congratulations on losing all that weight. I don't think that woman would have given you a 10 if you weren't at least somewhat attractive. Another woman gave you a 7, right? That's above average bro. You've come a long way from being a fat dude. Very VERY few people are 10's, so don't worry so much about your appearance.

[Phoe]

Losing all that weight is SERIOUSLY AWESOME so congrats on that!

 

A good thing to remember is that attractiveness is VERY subjective, and people having different ideas on what's attractive doesn't have any correlation to any sort of mental state of being like a "fetish" or something.

 

 

Everyone has a different "cup of tea", so to speak. I'm not everyone's cup of tea, you won't be everyone's cup of tea. Learning to accept that there will always be naysayers will really help you.

 

 

Being confident in yourself is quite the extended journey, and should always be a work in progress. You've made WONDERFUL progress in yourself already and that alone speaks volumes.

 

 

Just keep swimming

[man_in_the_box]

Good job on losing the weight - that's a tough cookie go break.

 

Also those rating websites... I'd really not advice to hang the confidence you have in your physical appearance in their hands. You're asking to get your hands burned sooner or later.

[DannyMason]

First of all, congratulations on losing all that weight. I don't think that woman would have given you a 10 if you weren't at least somewhat attractive. Another woman gave you a 7, right? That's above average bro. You've come a long way from being a fat dude. Very VERY few people are 10's, so don't worry so much about your appearance.

 

I'm not especially worried about how attractive I am, but I do want to know at least how other people generally perceive my appearance. Honestly I really could see someone going around rating people as 10s indiscriminately hoping to flatter them into reciprocating with high ratings of their own. Sort of an "I'll flatter you if you'll flatter me"? No idea if that's what actually happened, though, which is why I started this thread in the beginning.

 

Thanks for congratulating me about my weight.

[DannyMason]

Losing all that weight is SERIOUSLY AWESOME so congrats on that!

 

A good thing to remember is that attractiveness is VERY subjective, and people having different ideas on what's attractive doesn't have any correlation to any sort of mental state of being like a "fetish" or something.

 

 

Everyone has a different "cup of tea", so to speak. I'm not everyone's cup of tea, you won't be everyone's cup of tea. Learning to accept that there will always be naysayers will really help you.

 

 

Being confident in yourself is quite the extended journey, and should always be a work in progress. You've made WONDERFUL progress in yourself already and that alone speaks volumes.

 

 

Just keep swimming

 

Thanks, Phoe! If I was as hot as you are I'd have no trouble. Yeah, I don't expect to be attractive to everyone, or even to anyone, but I was definitely curious as to uh, how broad my appeal was. The apparently insincere ratings have driven me bonkers because I was legitimately wanting to know what people thought.

[DannyMason]

Good job on losing the weight - that's a tough cookie go break.

 

Also those rating websites... I'd really not advice to hang the confidence you have in your physical appearance in their hands. You're asking to get your hands burned sooner or later.

 

Thanks. Like I said, I'm not going to lose all my self worth if they think I'm a 1, but I am frustrated that some women seemed to be trying to bribe me with insincerely high ratings hoping I'd rate them highly, too. And apparently large numbers of straight men have skewed my rating down by voting me real low. I just wish I had gotten honest numbers so my rating would mean something.

[sdraw108]

Why don't you try posting a picture on a forum and ask for people's comments, rather than numerical ratings (where it's impossible to know why they've given the rating)? POF for example has a forum section for profile reviews.