A Linear 10

 A fair amount of effort and resources has gone into measuring a woman's beauty using the traditional "1-10" scale.

"She's a 9."
"She's a 6, but can upgrade to a 7 if she gussies herself up."
"I won't date below a 7.5."
"She's about an 8.2."

But the problem with this scale is two fold.

One, it's exponential/hyperbolic.  Meaning, that it's not a straight line measurement proportional to the population, and is instead much like a statistical bell distribution curve.  You can see this in what men consider a "10."

What men consider a 10 is not the "Top 10% of women."  It's usually the top 1%, or even one half of the top 1% as "the perfect 10" has taken on a different and non-numerical meaning in the eyes and lexicon of the American language.  A "10" is "perfect."  "Flawless."  Almost "unimaginable."  But when you see one you know it, because she is so rare she can only be described as "the perfect 10."  Chances are you have only seen maybe 20 "10's" in your life time, but you've likely seen hundreds of thousands of women close enough to assess their beauty.

Two, the human eye and mind does not pay attention to anything it doesn't want to.  And that includes ugly people.

I often recommend to my readers and listeners to walk into a Wal-Mart, a gas station or a grocery store and force themselves to look at EVERYBODY.  Not just what the eye is attracted to, but EVERYBODY.  And what usually happens is incredibly depressing.  You realize that the largest group of people in the US is ugly people.  40% of both men and women are obese, and that says nothing for the utterly average and common looking folk who only manage to make up the background to what your eyes are otherwise focusing on - the pretty people.

What this means is that when it comes to judging beauty, you're not even considering about half of the population to begin with.  And when your mind goes back to what it remembers in order to gauge what is a 6 or a 3 or a 9, it's highly skewed towards the pretty people, meaning relative to the total population you're likely understanding their true score.

To account and adjust for this, I put together a 1-10 linear scale of women (though I'd be curious if somebody put together one for men).

1's - This is usually for people who have some kind of physical ailment that is not any fault of their own.  That or they are so morbidly obese/tatted up/purposely-marred they obviously have given up, or perhaps never had any interest in finding somebody to date of the opposite sex.  This is not to pick on this group or belittle them, but to merely point out that when you add up people who have a genuine physical ailment or simply don't wish to date, you will come up with roughly 10% of the population.

2's - Absent a physical impairment or no interest in courting, you have people who may have "normal" genetics, but either through obesity, bad hygiene, or simply not caring, they are not physically attractive people.  Andrea Dworkin comes to mind as somebody who does not have a physical impairment, but also had no interest or incentive to pursue physical beauty.

3 to 4's - I combine these two as there is no clear, linear difference between a 3 and a 4 on a spectrum, but these are girls that somewhere have a tacit interest in finding a man, but not enough to seriously put forth effort into becoming physically attractive.  They'll do their nails, hair, make-up, but only insofar as no real work is needed such as dieting or hitting the gym.  Usually their fear of the toil and work it takes to become physically attractive is stronger than their desire to attract a man and it becomes apparent which force wins in the end.

5 - This is what the AVERAGE woman looks like.  This is by statistical reality the largest plurality of the population.  She is neither inspiring, nor "shocking" in that it will turn your head either because she's so pretty or so ugly.  She is truly background and you will not notice her unless (once again) you are forcing yourself to take note of everybody at the grocery store.  These women will likely have an interest in men and perhaps when they were younger would go to some lengths to invest in their physical beauty.  But usually with work, school, kids, family, etc., there isn't enough time to eat healthy or exercise and they just revert to the "average looking mom" nobody really pays attention to.

6 to 7's - These women will not turn your heads, and most will be somewhat overweight, but they are now at least starting to look feminine.  There are no "shockers" and typically this is what you would have thought would pass as a 4 or a 5, but again, this is linear world.  Not geometric world.  These women ARE ABOVE AVERAGE simply in the fact they're not obese, are identifiably feminine, and put some modicum of effort into their beauty and looks.

8's to 9's - These are feminine women who are putting significant effort into their physique, both in terms of diet, exercise and fashion.  They will typically have longer hair, will don feminine attire and they will do their make up, often times increasing themselves from a 7.5 to an 8.5  (which is entirely possible)

But most of us would have considered these women merely "cute 6's" in the old 1-10 scale, when linearly, they are approaching the top echelons of female beauty.  Women who are 8-9's today are simply in shape, look like women, and present themselves so, but there is a horrific epidemic of "Permanent Resting Bitch Face" today that prevents many from being in the top 10%.  You would likely ask these girls out, but you would not be jumping out of your seat to do so.

10's - Normally reserved for that top 1% of the top 1%, the truth is a girl you would have considered "pretty" or "beautiful" in the past is by statistics a "perfect 10" today.  No tattoos.  No weird hair color.  Not fat.  In shape.  Wearing a dress.  Looking feminine.  And for god's sake, she's smiling.  That short-and-otherwise-expected list, my fine red-blooded America male friend, is what constitutes a 10 today.  Yes, within the 10%, there is that elusive "perfect 10," but not all of these women are model quality - just simply pretty girls.

The reason I wanted to go through this exercise was to highlight something that I think unconsciously affects men.  And that is your physical expectations of women is too high.  Normally, I'm not on the side of feminists or pro-women's groups and would not parrot this common critique women have of men.  But mine comes from that of mere statistical, mathematical reality, not pie-in-the-sky hope of what we'd like things to be. If you look at the total population - not just what your eyes focus on - there are simply not enough pretty girls to go around.  Most men would not date anything below a linear 8 (which I can't necessarily disagree with because you have to be physically attractive to your mate), but I am merely point out that today, in the current year, most women are not going to meet your beauty requirements as they would say in the 1950's, positing an interesting question to all men -

If you insist on getting married are there enough pretty girls to go around?  And if there isn't, are you willing to forgo marriage since, well, I don't see that you have much of a choice.

As always, Enjoy the Decline.
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