Inceldom

[GrandizerII]

A)  I agree that no matter what evidence is encountered in one's life it would always be strictly false to believe that there is zero possibility of anyone at all ever finding them attractive.  Most BPers I've spoken to accept this.

That's not the impression I'm getting reading some of these BPers. The ones I've read seem to strongly believe that if you're ugly (in an "objective" sense, whatever that means), you're doomed to perpetual singleness.

But what I said wasn't that.  I asked if based on good evidence would it be rational to think that it was going to be very difficult to find a romantic partner.  Not impossible.

What "good evidence"? Being bullied for your looks by a select group of people isn't good evidence that you will have a very difficult time being loved by any one. Just as being bullied for being autistic doesn't mean that victim of bullying will have a very difficult time being loved by any one. Again, it's a non-sequitur. Replace "impossible" with "difficult", and it's still the same fallacy.

I think it fairly clear that it would indeed be rational to conclude that based on that evidence.  Do you not agree?

Of course not. Because that's not exactly evidence.

And, of course, this is before we've tackled the issue of whether simply being able to find some romantic partner at some time is enough to remove the trauma or the loneliness.  We can address this in the future.

Interesting you mention this, because I was recently reading about a girl who was attracted to one of these BPers and wanted to pursue a relationship with him but was pushed away because the BPer just couldn't accept that she'd truly love him despite his looks.

But sure, I agree that trauma or loneliness (in the pathological sense) isn't something that just magically goes away as soon as you get into a relationship. In fact, with regards to loneliness, I implied this a few times in my past posts. And in fact, this isn't a point that favors the BP POV anyway.

B) We agree.  It would in fact be irrational by definition.  But it wouldn't be something blameworthy or a sign of weakness or a personality defect if such irrational thinking normally arose from such trauma.  It would simply be a normal consequence of trauma arising from being ugly.  There seems a direct throughline for some people from being ugly to having body dysmorphia which involves at no point any personal weakness.

You keep saying "ugly" as if it's set in stone that this is a thing that's somehow objective, absolute, and universal. People can have different ideas of what is beautiful and ugly, and what may be ugly to you at one point in time may become beautiful to you at a later point in time. And repeated observations are clear that attractiveness isn't just a function of physical beauty but a combination of characteristics (physical and non-physical) and this combination isn't one fixed combination. We know this by our own personal experiences and by observing couples all around us and on the screen and Internet.

And, by the way, I've seen lots of beautiful people who have body dysmorphia, who are really, really convinced that they're ugly and that they're being lied to when someone tells them otherwise. There's a lot of aspects here to tackle here, which I wish I had time for.

C) We agree.  So even without mistreatment or any character flaws someone can easily end up mentally ill simply from loneliness.

Yes, there are unsurprisingly things I will agree upon with you. I don't think what you call "BluePillers" would disagree here generally.

D) I present those two options because it seems to me that you think that the root issue is psychological rather than physical/practical and I wanted that clarified. If you had the power to choose either it seems that you would use your magic to give them a different attitude than give them a different body.  And you seem to justify that choice on some moral 'lesson' value system.

And on the belief that it's a delusion to think looks are the end-all, be-all when it comes to relationships.

To me that seems both inefficient and unethical, in that you're picking to treat a symptom rather than the disease based on some moral framework you have.

This is true according to your POV, not mine. I strongly believe it's the mindset that's the disease here, not bad looks.

Would gender dysphoria, or scarring, or disability be treated the same way?  Isn't it nearly always preferable to treat the physical malady that has led to the psychological problem, if possible, rather than try to change the way the sufferer thinks about their malady?

You're assuming there is a physical malady in the first place, and that if there is one, that this is the reason for the psychological problem (rather than one's experiences or perceptions of their experiences).

From my own experience, and in talking to many others who have had relationship and sex therapy, it seems to me that psychological approaches to solve this issue aren't very effective.  And I certainly can't imagine they are as effective as a physical change would be if it was possible.

They aren't always effective, which is unfortunate. This doesn't mean that magically turning someone into a very good looking person is going to solve things. The trauma is still going to be there, true?

[FrustratedFool]

A1) Many BPers are hopeless. Most of that is hyperbole. But most accept the idea of outliers in serious conversation. I've spoken to a couple hundred over the years.

A2) The evidence I gave was, "mistreated because of their appearance, been rejected romantically by others because of their appearance, and been directly and indirectly told scores of times that they are ugly and romantically undesirable." That is more than being bullied by a select group. Consider the example of someone who was told directly they were physically unattractive by family members, dozens of school and college peers, multiple strangers in real life and online over a period of a decade, been bullied and mistreated directly because of their looks from childhood into young adulthood, been rejected by every woman they had attempted to flirt or ask out, had no matches on any dating app over a year, and so on. These people exist.

Do you not consider this evidence from which one can rationally conclude that one will find it difficult to date because of their looks? I find it hard to believe anyone would disagree.

A3) In my experience of talking to BPers most would accept that if you haven't had experience of sexual validation by a certain age (say around 21) then you will likely have developed all kinds of mental health issues that won't just go away with a relationship. We agree that loneliness and mental health issues arising from years of loneliness and bullying aren't going to be cured even if they did get a relationship.

B) By ugly I meant 'found physically unattractive by the majority of one's society'. This can be measured by whether one has had the type of life experience I note in A2. Sure, this can change for some: losing weight, aging, plastic surgery, dental work, hair transplants etc - there's huge industries set up for this purpose (which I think undergirds the importance of physical attractiveness). With that in mind, we agree on B.

C) We agree. I've encountered plenty of people who disagree, but some people disagree on everything. It doesn't matter.

D1) I agree that looks aren't the be-all-end-all. But I do believe they are a necessary but not sufficient condition for dating, and are more important than the majority of people outside of BP circles think.

D2) We disagree as to whether the looks or the mindset are the root cause, and most important factor, to solve for those struggling with dating who are ugly (using the definition I gave above). Can we compromise and say (as I genuinely believe) that both looks and mindset should be treated in order to best improve one's dating chances? You may over-emphasise the mind, me the body, but surely we could reach a consensus in saying both would be beneficial to address if you want to increase your dating success?

D3) Yes, the psychological approach is ineffective by experience. And yes, the trauma will still be there if the looks are improved. And yes, chronic emotional loneliness (likely stemming from the trauma) is likely incurable. But if the problem is 'how to improve dating chances' then changing looks for an ugly person improves their chances far more than therapy. Again, we can reach an agreement here that in the case of someone who is lonely and traumatised by a life of mistreatment because of looks that a both/and approach is best? That we would both (and I would, and many times have) recommend to such people both looks improvement and therapy?