Are You Going After The Right Guys? Ask The Man In The Mirror!
Are You Going After The Right Guys? Ask The Man In The Mirror!
One of the clichs of gay life is the tendency for gay men to be attracted to men who are either much more attractive than them, or much younger than them, or frequently both. Attraction results from a complex mixture of psychology, social expectations, childhood experiences, and patterns of behaviour.
There is a strange irony in the dating process that would-be suitors often fail to understand the factors we use to define attractiveness in another person are very often the same factors that guarantee failure when it comes to establishing and sustaining a relationship.
Open any newspaper or magazine and you will see picture after picture of "beautiful" men who fit the perceived criteria for perfect looks. Almost without exception the men will be slim and athletic (or, for variation, solid and muscular), have symmetric, perfect features and an unlined, almost expressionless face.
Celebrities are expected to maintain their attractiveness throughout their lives to signal youth and "breeding" ability (in evolutionary terms it is natural for a male to prefer a female who appears to have many breeding years in front of her the same factors apply to gay men too, just without the breeding potential). It is a fact of life for "celebrities", though, that the most "beautiful" or most "perfect-looking" specimens, the ones we set up as ideals and whose perfection we seek in potential boyfriends, are rarely lucky in love. Most fall into some horrific black emotional hole of dating and being dumped, dating and being dumped.
Now look at men who do seem to find success in their relationships. Often they're less than perfect on the celebrity 'Hot-O-Meter'. In real life, it is a predictable finding that successful couples tend to be matched in terms of physical attractiveness this is called the matching hypothesis. Several studies have looked at the physical attractiveness of successful couples and found that each member of the pair tends to be similar in level of attractiveness.
However gay men regularly obsess on potential partners who are a significant mismatch (the fifty-something with grey hair and beer belly targeting a twenty-year-old catwalk model is a clich, but it is a clich for a reason) and this mismatching generally produces one of three outcomes:
The guy never approaches the object of his desire, fearing rejection. This goes beyond the 'approach anxiety' that is a part of most people's experience. This is the unconscious sending a clear message that is usually ignored.
The guy with a greater level of self-confidence will make the approach, and suffer rejection after rejection.
The guy makes the approach and is successful (however temporarily). Normally we see that there is another dynamic at work in this scenario, the mismatch in attractiveness is counter-balanced by an opposite mismatch in economic power.
While we're not suggesting that it is impossible for mismatched couples to have successful, long-term relationships, the reality is that the odds are stacked against them. As dating coaches we encourage our clients who want to create stable, long-term relationships to have realistic expectations and understand that attractiveness is only one component of a successful relationship (and not even a hugely important one).
To facilitate this at our gay dating workshops, we've developed the Mirror Man Technique. We ask participants to bring along an image that represents their 'ideal' partner. This could be a film star, a catalogue model, even a porn star. (Pets and close family members are not permitted.) The images are graded on a scale (1 to 10) by the group in terms of attractiveness. We then ask participants (in the privacy of their own heads, bedrooms, or a one-to-one coaching session) to tape their particular ideal image to a full length mirror, and grade their own attractiveness on the same scale while making the comparison between reflection and picture.
This exercise acts as a 'reality check' to help re-align expectations and desires, and empower the individual to take action to increase their own scores by working on physical and presentation areas. It can also help to identify guys with low self-esteem issues who could benefit from further coaching in that area.
http://www.articlesbase.com/dating-articles/are-you-going-after-the-right-guys-ask-the-man-in-the-mirror-4467069.html
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