Are men really more “visual” when it comes to attraction?

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Yes and no.

I once went on a rather extreme diet, dropping some 45 lbs in 2 months. From like 225 to around 170. I expected this to make an impact on how women treated me. I felt and looked way way better, in my mind.

I was amazed to find that it didn’t make a damn lick of difference. I already get lots of female attention. I think most guys do, they’re just oblivious. But there are two particular traits about me that women have specifically complemented me on, my eyes and my broad shoulders. Many women have even complimented my belly, I have great “dad bod.”

Many many many guys in the US are absolutely fooling themselves when they think their problems with women can be helped by making changes in their appearance. Much of the time, their problems can be boiled down to mindset. No woman wants to spend time with a needlessly negative guy. And most lonely guys are pervasively, unconscionably negative.

I have gotten 10x the results from changing my attitude that I have from changing my looks.

But I remain stubbornly, almost stupidly superficial when it comes to what I’m attracted to. To me, I can tell instantly what a person’s like from how they look. Only very occasionally am I wrong about this, and I actually love being wrong, because those interactions are far more interesting than my normal ones with women I’m more immediately attracted to. Sadly, they’re usually not that interesting. What I usually learn is that my intuition based on reading the book by it’s cover was actually 100% right. Ugly, but holds mostly true in my experience.

Some guys are just terrible at reading people. But these guys simply can’t be helped in any way whatsoever in this direction.

The wish to be wrong about a woman has gotten me into more weird flirting snafus than I care to admit. Guys are constantly being exhorted to find mental traits in women sexually attractive rather than visual things. I really want to be able to do this. But so far I’ve been unable to.